However, he hit nothing because I was still standing in the middle.
I immediately rushed forward and forcefully bent the old man's gun-holding arm inward. It was effortless; his aged body was no match for me. He pulled the trigger reflexively, and the muzzle erupted with dazzling sparks again. The recoil knocked me to the ground. I hurriedly straightened up, only to see a bloody hole in the old man's chest, gushing blood.
Owen Cotman was dead. His head drooped limply to his chest, blood streaming from it, staining his pristine white shirt crimson. Like a machine that had run for years, suddenly shutting down, he was now nothing more than a pile of scrap metal. I knelt beside my wheelchair, clutching the leather armrests and gasping for air. My hands were stained with blood, my heart pounding belatedly, and my limbs felt limp as mud. It wasn't just that a living person had died before me, but also that he had left me with the answers before his death. All the mysteries had been solved: why my father had to migrate, why we had to take only hidden paths, why Dolly Eugene had stayed in the village all day... Even the origins of my hometown had been rationally answered. But these answers were shrouded in a deeper mystery than ever before. That ridiculous pursuit, which I thought was targeting an insignificant stranger, had actually plunged me into the depths of the source. The cabin I had invaded was my father's secret base for contacting his accomplices! Perhaps Dolly really was a spy, just not Tubbs's, but ours. No, not ours, at least I've been ruled out. Or, as Owen said, was she just a used outsider, a pathetic bridge between the rebels? Did she understand what she was doing? I think she did. The old man's removal of the prosthetic eye must have had a special meaning, one only those involved in his plan could understand. I reached into his trouser pocket. Only a thin layer of fabric separated the back of my hand from the corpse, and blood flowed down the other side of his pants. The prosthetic eye felt strangely cold. On one side was a lifeless dark green eyeball, and on the other, tiny words were carved with a sharp tool. This must be the message he wanted Dolly to convey. If anything happened to him, Dolly would give the prosthetic eye to his accomplice—my father.
No matter what, we can't stay here any longer. This is a dangerous place, and the gunshots will be heard far away. I stood up with difficulty and was about to leave the cabin when a ridiculous idea suddenly popped into my mind. Why did Will create the illusion that the forest was dangerous? If he knew I would go into the forest after listening to the tape... then he knew the contents of the tape very well. And Colin's death...
A powerful punch knocked me to the ground. Immediately afterwards, a heavy body pressed down on me, punches raining down on me like crazy. I knew who it was without even looking. I was right. He had suppressed his raging rage to deal with me, enduring until today. You truly are a terrifying person, in every sense of the word.
Will beat me like crazy, showing no mercy, clearly intending to kill me. Several punches to my cheek felt like being hit by a hammer, leaving a taste of blood in my mouth and a dull pain in my cheek. My vision began to blur, all I could see was Will's hysterical expression, and my ears were filled with his frantic roar. "Fuck you, Will, I will never die at your hands!" I punched him hard on the temple, simultaneously bracing my arms and knees against his body and pushing upward. The few seconds he was struck were my only chance to turn over. I had to roll over quickly and put my full weight on him. Only then would I have a chance of winning. However, he recovered faster than I expected, and even with all my strength, I could only push him a few centimeters away. "Andrew!" he roared. "You are the descendant of the exiles!"
"You too!" You have no right to say that to me, Will!
"Fowler killed my father." He suddenly grabbed my neck, his hands like iron clamps beginning to tighten. "Because he heard about the plan! What would happen if Fowler knew you were beaten to death by this old man? I was planning to just sit back and watch."
"But it doesn't matter. His plan is ruined anyway. But you still have to die, to accompany my father." My face must have turned purple, the oxygen was steadily draining away. I could no longer see Will's expression. Something felt like crashing to the ground beside my ears, then escalating into a piercing buzzing sound. It was like sinking into the bottomless, dark waters. The chaotic, unrealistic sound approached from afar, then seemed to fly away into the distance.
The only clear thing was the smell that settled in my nasopharynx. It was unlike any other scent in the air, unrelated even to the current time and place. If anything, it was my oxygen-deprived brain that confused sight and smell, dissolving every memory of my life into this odor. Everyone who suffocates likely smells this before dying. It blended the bloody scent of birth, the tang of grass in the yard after a midsummer rain, the dusky campfire, the numbness of a long journey; the crunch of dead branches in the darkness, the hand smeared with sawdust as it gripped a damp woodpile. Everything I'd seen and heard from birth to death was stagnant in this stagnant, foul air, like a howling, oppressive wind. My limbs rapidly lost warmth, the heat rushing to my head. I desperately lashed out at the two thick arms gripping my neck, but the force grew weaker. The edges of my vision were stained with black, spreading slowly like oil stains on a white cloth. Compared to my life, which was like a candle in the wind, the speed was terrifyingly fast. It can no longer be stopped within the range visible to the naked eye.
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