The memory begins on the heels of cold determination, hardened like steel and iron beneath a steady thrum, ache and loss together as one; a constant in your life since you were too young to fully comprehend it.
You've spent years waiting for this day. Years broken down into months, into days, into hours, all spent without that which had been stolen from you. It was enough to bring you back to the city you'd left in the dust, the place you swore you would never return to once you were old enough to break free of the restrains which kept you tethered-- however briefly. You planned this, and yet it is impulse, motivated by your pain, your desire for revenge; you don't care if this is true justice or not. The man a broken system is releasing today cannot be allowed to live free. He does not deserve a second chance. You're angry, so angry, and even if it blinds you, you wouldn't realize it.
He took that which mattered most from you, and today, today you'll make him pay.
The gun is heavy in your coat pocket as you sit in the courtroom, waiting, listening, consumed by hatred as the man whose face you cannot forget speaks and asks for forgiveness. It's bitter on your tongue, the hatred. Forgiveness. How dare he ask for such a thing? You run your fingers over the cool metal, tracing over the instrument of death, of vengeance, and while you cannot speak, you don't have to. The bullet will be your voice, the gunshot your testimony to the destruction this man has wrought.
You wait outside, then, watching as the crowd gathers, rushing forth to descend upon the man and his lawyer, shouts layered over shouts. They ask about the mob boss the murderer will testify against, they ask about the ones whose blood stains his hands and you wonder if he remembers you. Does he remember the little boy he left behind? Does he? As you watch the life drain from his eyes, as you look down at him, will he know then, who you are? You hope he does. You want him to die knowing that the scared little boy in the alley grew up and found him. You want him to know that you remember. That you never forgot.
He comes closer, the man, followed by the crowd. Your chance is fast approaching. Perhaps you should have wondered why the trial was so public, but you don't, and your hand closes around the gun as you take a step forward. One, then two. So close. One pull of the trigger and you can avenge them. And then-- then a gunshot rings out, but the gun is still in your pocket. You stare as the man falls, as a woman is dragged away by police, and the air is filled with shouts and screams of the crowd which gathered so quickly. Someone tries to revive him, but the man does not stir, and you stare, and stare, and stare. Someone tugs on your arm, and a familiar voice is in your ear, telling you that you don't need to see this, but you don't move. You can't. You have to watch.
It's so loud, you think, as the memory begins to fade. So loud, and yet when they died, it was so quiet.