In a prison in New York.

"Bang!"

A dull punch hit William Hand in the cheek, knocking him out of balance on the spot, and he leaned back and fell to the ground.

A burly black prisoner as strong as a mountain took the lead in the operation, and led a large number of brothers to press William Hand to the ground, pounding and kicking him, and making fun of him. William hugged his head, his body shrank into a ball, his face covered with hot liquid, and his pain was almost numb.

While they were hitting, they cursed "freaks", "monsters" and even some unpleasant words. They kept hitting until the prison guard fired a gun and finally stopped.

When William returned to his room, he was already bruised and swollen - but he has been like this since he came to this prison. No matter how the leading guys beat him up, he refused to join, but he did not resist. He was like a wood that could not feel the pain, and after being beaten up by them, he went back to his room as if nothing had happened and continued to do what he should do.

His inmate, a short white man, handed him a towel as usual after he sat down.

"Brother, you're amazing." said his inmate.

William sat on the edge of the bed with a dull face and said lightly: "Am I? What's so great about me?"

"I just heard them say today that you came in because you were against Green Lantern?"

"I've fought with him a few times."

"That's great enough!" The inmate looked at him as if he was looking up at the gods, as if he was about to see the light. "Don't look at those people who beat you so majestic, but if they listened to the name of "Green Lantern", they would have been frightened and fled."

"Is that right?" William shook his head, not seemingly thinking that this was too great.

"Of course! I don't think it's possible for someone as special as you to be trapped here for the rest of your life." He continued to compliment, "If you go out in the future, don't forget to have a friend like me."

"Friend." William repeated the word silently, staring at the front with lifeless eyes for a while, and suddenly said, "I still have only one friend in my life. Do you want to hear his story?"

"OK."

So William slowly told the dusty past, a past that normal people would never mention to others. Even the inmate who was interested at first gradually felt cold in his hands and feet, and his spine became cold.

"That's a story when I was thirteen. I'm sitting in prison now because I'm the enemy of Green Lantern, but they still don't know about it - I killed the first person in my life when I was thirteen, and that was a boy. His name is Travis Chuman, and I hated him very much when I first saw him.

On the first day of our seventh grade, I held my book tightly to take my first class. I deliberately drooped my hair to cover my eyes. I still remember that when our teacher came in, he shouted at me, "Let me find a seat and sit down!", as if he had shouted to every student in the school, but in fact, I was the first to enter the classroom, and Travis Chumann was the second.

The difference between Travis and me is that he is the principal's son. So when I entered the door, I got a shout, but the teacher smiled at him. According to Travis, this school is his, so every student entering the door hopes to get his attention, everyone except me.

One day, I found a dead mouse on the mouse clip behind the classroom. The dead one stared at me with his eyes facing upwards, and the cold body was covered with dust until a girl's scream interrupted me. Travis and the other children stared at me, and he gave me a nickname, "Black Hand". So later the other children followed him and started calling out. What I couldn't stand the most was that they deprived me of every tranquility, which I couldn't stand.

I hate Travis, to the bottom of my heart.

Next is the part where my only friend appeared. His name is Paul, Paul Cyborman. He fought with him because of a bunch of nicknames that Travis gave him, but in the end, Travis was not punished, and Paul was fined for a week to stay in school. The classmates all said that his blue eyes were not beaten by Travis, but by his father.

Paul hated him very much, so we became very good friends.

We are inseparable every day, and we talk about the topic together is nothing more than designing complex techniques to murder Travis and making sure that no one will ever find his body.

On Halloween, Paul wore a black raincoat and painted a white face. My father was from the funeral home. He took off a bloody coat from a boy who died in a car accident. I put the clothes out. Paul said that the clothes were stupid.

We met Travis that day, we followed him far away, and somehow we all wanted to kill him. But when I took out a knife from my bag and Paul saw the metal blade glittering under the moonlight, he was scared again.

‘We can’t really kill him.’ he said to me stammeringly.

'Why?'

'Because people will know that we did it, and everyone knows how much we hate him, and I don't want to go to prison because of this!'

He was right, we had motivation to do this. And it was then that I realized that I didn’t need motivation, I just wanted to find a reason for the Sandman.

I stabbed Paul in the throat six times and four times in the stomach. He giggled and wanted to say something, and I guess he was trying to ask ‘Why?’.

This is how people always feel that there must be a reason for everything.

And that Halloween, I understood that cause and effect cannot be ignored.

Later, the police came to Travis to ask, and I threw the knife into his room. Travis cried and was taken away. When my parents told me about the death of my best friend, I also tried to squeeze out some tears.

If my only friend Paul told me something, there is only one thing--there is no cause, and there is no clue."

Until he finished speaking, Travis kept looking straight ahead, not caring whether the audience around him were still listening. But when his story finally ended and turned around, he was surprised to find that his inmate had already leaned against the wall with his head tilted and lost his breath.

William was stunned. He suddenly felt that his inmate died silently, as quiet as if it was a work of art.

After staring at him for a while, William suddenly realized something. He stood up, walked out of the door of his cell, and stood in the aisle and looked out. He saw that everyone on each floor, like his inmates, quietly seemed to fall asleep. The prison port was wide open, and all the prison guards on duty were lying to the ground, without any movement.

Throughout his life, William has always felt that he was born for something big and carrying an extraordinary mission. Now, he knows that the time has come.

(Thanks to book friends for half a love letter, cwl782487338, 100 starting coins rewarded by Po Zhong!)
Chapter completed!