Michael's blue eyes watched in silent awe as the rain stopped and the rays of sun shined through the darkened clouds, it was a beautiful sight, almost divine in the boy's eyes. That lonely ray of sunlight shining through the dark sky and onto the city made him think of Heaven. His grandmother Constance talked to him about Heaven, about how it was a place so beautiful that their human minds couldn't even imagine it. He could read already, of course, he had read the Bible he found in his grandmother's room, he knew it said killing was a huge sin, and he knew it meant he would never see that heavenly place. He had killed already, you see, and not even he knew why he did it, if someone asked him, he would say it was a sudden impulse he felt, one he tried to control but couldn't, and only he knew how much he regretted it, how he would take it all back if he could. His grandma told him there was both good and evil inside everyone, but he doubted her words.
Michael didn't feel as if evil was a part of him, he felt as if evil followed him like a shadow, influencing his thoughts and giving him sinister impulses whenever it got too close. It was when the evil got too close that he killed, it overwhelmed him with the disturbing impulse to commit a heinous crime, and every time after the crime was committed, the evil shadow would retreat and he would be able to think clearly once again, that's when the remorse and the guilty would overwhelmed him. His grandmother would then ask him why he did it, and he had no answer for her. There was an occasion in which he panicked when Constance found the first rodents he killed, and ended up saying it was a gift for her because he loved her. He realized how ridiculous that sounded, but it had been the first thing that came to his mind, and he often wonders if that answer was influenced by the evil that followed him as well.

He knew his grandma hated it, he knew she only smiled and accepted because deep down she was afraid of him, he knew, and it pained him. He tried to show her he really loved her by being always affectionate and cheerful, by making cute drawings and giving them to her, and it worked to some extent, but her fear returned every time she saw a dead animal in the house. He saw her bury them in the backyard every single time and plant a rose on top of each tiny grave. She loved roses, but got sick of them as the years passed. He too got sick of the smell of roses, as they reminded him everyday of the things he did.

Then came the nanny. Oh, he would never forget the nanny. She disliked him, you see, and made no effort to hide it. It upset him a great deal to be treated like this, sadness and fear became the only things he felt whenever he was left alone with the nanny. She hit him, pushed him, refused to feed him, and then she suddenly turned into the sweetest nanny ever when his grandmother came home, claiming she had fed him and helped him with his homework. He didn't say anything, he didn't want his grandma to worry more than she already did... But he often wondered why his grandmother didn't notice that something was wrong. She bathed him everyday, did she not see the purple marks on his body? The shadow seemed to like when Michael suffered, it made it get closer, and the boy was too tired and depressed to resist it. That's when the nanny died, choking in a pool of her own blood. It was a few minutes after her death that his grandmother walked into his room, shocked at what she saw. But Michael didn't care this time, the shadow had with a firm grip on his shoulder and he was smiling, feeling a cruel satisfaction that his tormentor was gone for good. He didn't even mind the blood that stained his clothes, he wasn't worrying about anything at all.

Then suddenly the shadow let go of him and retreated, and Michael finally realized what he had done. The scene in front of him was grotesque and, now, without the evil influencing his thoughts, the gruesome murder shook him to the core. He didn't like the nanny, that is true, and she was abusive, but he never once thought about killing her, not until that morning, not until he felt a hand touch his shoulder. All satisfaction with having killed the nanny was now gone and replaced by guilt and remorse, the two most predominant feelings in his young heart since he first learned how to walk and talk. That was also when he realized his grandmother wasn't hiding the body to protect him but to keep herself out of jail. Does she not love me anymore?, he thought. Without saying a word, he ran outside, hiding behind a tree in the backyard and directing his eyes full of tears to the bright blue sky above. If he had any doubt he was destined for hell, he didn't anymore. His tears fell, and as he noticed his grandmother watching him from the kitchen window with fear in her eyes, he broke down in desperate sobs. Sometimes he wished he had never been born, so that he would never have hurt anyone.

Constance was still in shock from what she had seen, her love for her grandson diminishing with every passing day, but nothing could have shocked her more than see him sobbing under the tree. He never cried, at least not in front of her. With the way the sunlight hit him, it almost looked like he had shiny wings. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought it was an angel sitting under her tree, the saddest angel she had ever seen.