A/N: I don't own any of the "In a better world" characters and I am not making any money from writing this.
Please forgive any minor spelling or grammar mistakes, English is not my native language.
This is just my take on Anton's minds and feelings shortly after he allowed Big Man to be beaten to death by a group of local people. They didn't really discussed it a lot in the movie, so I decided to write this. It is written in first person, from Anton's POV. It is rated T because of some language and sad content. This is just a oneshot, there won't be chapter two, but there will be a sequel.
How could I do such a thing?
I am a killer. I killed a man. Maybe he deserved it, but I still killed him. I didn't kill him myself, but I allowed others to do it. Not only he died because of me, but I also made dozens of other people the killers. People who wanted nothing more than to live, to be treated like humans.
Maybe his death saved dozens, if not hundreds of lives, but I feel, I know that, no matter what, what I did was, is still wrong. And that a moral and brave man would confess.
I took an oath saying that I am going to treat all my patients equally and do no harm. I still remember how excited and happy I was when I took it. And that day I broke it. In one moment, just like that. Like it didn't matter at all. Like fifteen years of my honourable work didn't matter at all. I allowed some jerk to provoke me and cause me to ruin something that I loved the most.
Sure, I know that nobody will report me. They probably think that I am a hero because of what I did, but I know that I am actually a coward. Because I am not going to confess my crime myself, I am not going to turn myself in. I can't abandon Elias, Morten or Marianne ... no matter what she thinks about me right now. And I really want to continue helping people... they need me. And I definitely don't want to send people who actually killed Big Man in prison. They suffered enough.
But despite that, I know that a honourable and brave thing to do would be to confess my shameful, stupid mistake and turn myself in.
But I am not going to do that. Ever. I'm too weak.
I was telling my son that violence doesn't solve anything, that, if you are smart and brave and patient, you can find a way to solve a problem of violence without becoming violent yourself. And I did exactly the opposite thing.
I tried to be a good husband and father and remain faithful to my wife, but I failed in that. I tried not to be like my parents and many other parents today, I tried not to be a hypocrite and I tried not to teach my children things in which I don't believe or teach them to do things that I don't do myself, but I failed in that, too.
What... what have I become? Unfaithful husband, hypocrite and a killer.
So, I am going to continue living my life, with guilt eating me inside every day, in the same time being afraid, also every day, that something will break inside of me again and I will screw things up once more, ruining the little good things in my life and my family's life that are left, ruining them beyond repair.
I can only hope that my children will become better persons when they grow up.
Persons that will be faithful, non-violent and forgiving.
Persons that will be better than me.
