S3, E10 | The Sins of the Father

> Friday, 3rd December 2038 <

“My father was addicted to gambling when I was younger” Andrew confesses, occupying his couch in the middle of an empty living room and staring at the wooden floorboards. “It didn’t matter what it was, if there was a way to throw money on a quick bet, he’d take it without a second to think” the man remarks, his face flushed with the dim light from a nearby lamp, “there were some days where he’d tell me to skip school and come with him to the racetracks ‘cause I was ‘good luck’ when I was a boy.”

Resting his right forearm over his thigh whilst his left hand scratches at the back of his neck, the man sits in a quiet room with no one to share the space with, his focus only being on the object that stands across from him. “Of course, though... what’s a problem gambler without some kinda debt to owe, right?” Andrew persists, speaking in a low enough tone for it to appear personal and intimate.

“I’ve said for years now that my parents were never proud of me. I’ve told people that I was always a disappointment to them, but that’s not really the whole truth” the man admits, staring forward with a gentle shake of his head, “they despised me.” Licking his bottom lip, the man’s eyes wander off toward the windows on the opposite side of the room, staring at the dark and cold night sky that lingers over the head of the quiet neighbourhood with a passing glance.

“Mom had her own vices, but her demons were mostly devoted to figuring out how quickly she could empty a bottle of vodka in one sitting” the devoted father continues to recall, visibly lacking any favour toward the woman. “I bring this up to show why they thought so little of me. Dad was losing money fast and mom couldn’t find enough loose change in the couch cushions to hit the package store in good faith” Andrew continues, another shake of his head offered, “I was a waste of good money.”

With a little, red light blinking just above its lens, the camera that his eldest daughter had unintentionally passed down to his youngest now finds itself recording the man responsible for bringing both of them into the world, voluntarily set up in the centre of the commons area.

“I stayed a waste of that money until I left the house and got a job. It was a decent gig for minimum wage- nothing too special” Andrew proceeds, his free hand scratching at the hairs that make up his beard. “It was enough to move out and get my own place for a few months- maybe a year or so- after I turned eighteen. It was a nice little starter apartment for a few hundred bucks a month” the words continue to be spoken, caught on tape to be preserved as intended.

“I’d been working for almost two years by that point, but whatever money I couldn’t hide from my parents would end up on some casino table or in some Pakistani guy’s Gandhi-mart a few blocks off from the trailer we lived in” the man continues to evoke the memories of, sometimes allowing his eyes to drift off into the distance in an effort of recollecting specific details.

“Moving out was the only way to guarantee they wouldn’t keep lifting cash off me. I scheduled an apartment tour and took the first one that was available the day I became a legal adult” he proceeds, nodding along with the returning flood of details that reach his mind. “I believe it was two months after I moved out that I started dating Morgan” Andrew begins, reaching the line of thought that finds him in front of the camera now.

“You know how it is when you’re in your late teens, right? I hate to be as vulgar as to say this, but- pussy is pussy. That’s the mantra of just about every man I’ve ever met” he laughs, amused at the crude and immature outlook he’d once carried, “anyway, we started dating for a while. Eventually, she moved in and not long after that-” Andrew carries on, pausing for a moment as he prepares to speak what he’s gone years now without saying, “-after that, we found out she was pregnant with Sophie.”

Bowing his head again, Andrew’s face falls as he steadies his breath, feeling a pit grow in his stomach with a feeling similar to how an apple rotting from within appears from the outside. “Anyway, it wasn’t long before we couldn’t afford the apartment anymore. With all the food and the diapers and the formula we needed ‘cause I was scared to death that Morgan kept smoking while she was carrying- it added up” he rolls on, face taking back toward the camera’s lens.

“She didn’t have any family she kept in touch with, and I figured that- with a bank account to keep my money in and agreeing to help them pay some bills...” Andrew again comes to a pause, frowning at the displeasure over even thinking back upon the situation at hand, “...it’d be better to move back in with my parents than to force my new family out onto the street.”

Clearing his throat, the distressed father is again forced to hang his head, wearing the same hoodie that he’d been sporting all night long. “Not long after Sophie was born, Morgan was admitted into in-patient treatment for a whole bunch of psychological problems. I figured it wasn’t safe to leave so many things at the mercy of her to make while she was in that state of mind” Andrew confesses, “one of those things was a life insurance policy I’d named her the beneficiary of.”

Directing visual bitterness toward himself for the choices that he’d made long ago, the secret-carrying father lets his mind settle with the upsetting circumstances that plague his mind. “The only reason for the change was to make sure Morgan didn’t have to be bothered with any of that nonsense while she was in treatment. I didn’t foresee us splitting up like we did” Andrew explains, defending his reasoning at the time, “the only people I could transfer those things to were my parents.”

Leaning back in the soft supports of his sofa, the father stares off into the distance again as he continues to speak. “Around this time, I’d started becoming friendly with a woman named Daria Comiski. She’d just started at the restaurant I’d been working at and we got along pretty quickly” Andrew explains, nodding to himself at the memories, “I don’t want to take too long, so I’ll just cut out the troubles I had with Morgan in the years that followed. Daria and I were very close.”

Stationary and uncontrolled, the camera simply remains put in the centre of the room bearing witness to the man’s confessions, serving its duties diligently as the only watching eye. “At this time, the stress got to be a lot. The fact that my parents kept asking for money to feed into their vices certainly didn’t help” Andrew explains, “had I been home to answer a phone call one day, the agent I’d been in contact with would’ve never told them to let me know I was approved for a new apartment.”

Going cold, the father’s expression loses its look of intrigue as his mind races toward less pleasant and much darker recollections still yet to be uttered from his lips. “Fast forward to a few days later when my dad asked me to help him with this hunt he was insistent on doing” Andrew explains, a deeper squint carried in his eyelids, “for context, the trailer lived near a big plot of woodland. Sometimes- because it’s rural Missouri- people will head out of town to hunt out of season.”

Shaking his head with a frown, the father confesses that such an out-of-nowhere dedication to taking toward the forest never quite sat well with him- even at the time. “My father wasn’t a hunter. He said he was offered a lot of money to take a chance and hunt for some deer for a local shop, and the idea that he’d pick up a rifle and try to hunt for a few bucks was the only part that made sense” he concedes, disheartened for even seeing sense in that.

“What I didn’t understand was why I needed to go” Andrew doubles down, eyes again taking toward the reflective lens that the recording camera holds toward him before venturing back toward the home’s larger interior, “for days leading up to it, my father would really oddly tell me how much he was looking forward to teaching me how to hunt- as if he knew how to hunt or as if I was a seven year old he was finally showing how to be a man.”

For a moment, the father gathers a massive breath into his lungs, filling the organs with as much oxygen as they can hold before letting them go at the glance of a clock mounted on the wall his eyes take to. “Shit... it’s getting late” Andrew mutters aloud, clearing his throat whilst looking down to the floor once more, shaking his head as if he were trying to physically clear his mind of the thoughts that fill it before looking back toward the lens, “we’ll continue this tomorrow.”

= Generation Alpha is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and his entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards =

> Saturday, 4th December 2038 <

“Going somewhere?” Andrew wonders aloud with genuine curiosity as he steps through the divider that stands between the kitchen and living room. “Yes, there are a bunch of lights on the van’s dashboard-thing that don’t usually light up” Elaine replies, dressed in a light brown coat with her hair tied up in a bun, descending the stairs with her purse in hand, “the dealership I bought it from referred be to this mechanic about eight miles north and the only time he had available was this morning.”

“Are you gonna need a ride back?” the woman’s husband questions aloud, bending toward the ground just beside the staircase’s bannister to pick up a package of water bottles he’s intent on stuffing into the refrigerator. “I’ll let you know. They said things like these usually don’t look serious enough for a mechanic to drop everything they’re doing and work on it there” Elaine responds, shrugging her shoulders as she reaches ground level, “I’m pretty sure they’ll let me drive it back.”

“Well just call me if you need a pick up” Andrew responds, stepping forward and pressing his lips onto those of his dearly beloved, “I love you.”

“I love you too” Elaine says with a pleasant smile, turning back around with ease and making for the front door whose closure on her way through allows for the guise she wears to fall. More nervous than anything else, the devoted wife and mother stares at her van with great uncertainty, her face wretched by the anxiety that comes over her in the face of what her true reasons for the day trip are.

“Hey, Liv!? Are you awake!?” Andrew calls out from the bottom of the stairs, waiting for a few seconds before his ears catch a tired groan. ‘I am now” the teenager shouts back with as much energy as she can muster, the retort bringing a smile over her father’s face as he returns to the kitchen. “The scene was described by detectives as inhumanly grizzly and horrifyingly morbid” a news anchor remarks through the television in the room’s corner, catching the package-carrying man’s eyes.

“Police say Wolf was arrested late last night in connection to the murders of his ex wife and daughter, and that charges have been formally brought forward” the blonde woman confidently remarks to the scene of a home that appears familiar to the father’s eye, its front lawn surrounded by cars with flashing red and blue lights.

Taking no emotion in the news story as the anchor begins to shift her focus to other stories, Andrew carries the heavy package the rest of the way toward the fridge, yanking open the door before beginning to stuff the plastic water bottles inside one at a time. Just overhead, a set of footsteps march along the wooden floorboards above and eventually make their way out from the room they’d inhabited, gradually making their way down the front staircase and onto the main floor.

“It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday morning” Liv casually remarks as she draws closer to the kitchen, rubbing her eyes as they refuse to fully open once struck with the sunlight that bathes the room she now enters, “why’d you have to wake me up so early?” Lifting his right eyebrow, Andrew passes the young girl a look with humour taken from her question, paying no mind to the short shorts and sleeve-cut band t-shirt that had been passed down by her older sister.

“Because, like you said...” Andrew responds, smirking at the girl as he jokes at her expense, “...it’s ten o’clock in the morning.” Rolling her eyes and shaking her head, Liv walks up to her knelt father before crouching toward the ground, giving him a peck on the cheek before reaching past him and toward the paper carton of orange juice that sits on a shelf a few feet away.

“Love you too, honey” he concedes, nodding toward his daughter as she walks off with the carton and allows him to continue his efforts of restocking the fridge with cold water. “Where’s mom?” Liv wonders aloud, noticing the lack of her brother’s presence in one of the chairs that’s been stored off in the corner of the room and the emptiness of the stovetop that the woman would most frequently cook at.

“She put your brother down for a nap a few minutes ago and just left to take the van into the shop” Andrew replies, briefly putting a halt to his current chore as his eyes take back toward the teenager, “use a cup, honey.” Having placed her lips to the slot of her beverage’s container, Liv finishes her brief sip straight from the carton before lowering it back to the room’s island.

Doing as instructed, the recently awakened teenager approaches the dishwasher whilst her father continues to empty the package of its bottles, another curiosity dawning upon her mind as she begins pouring the juice. “What’s for breakfast?” Liv wonders aloud, soon folding the container’s paper tab back inward and leaning over the fridge’s open door to return it for the shelf it’d been stationed atop.

“Well, when your brother wakes up and you put on pants that don’t make me worry that your vagina will be falling out every time you sit down- I figured we’d all go out for breakfast” Andrew responds, standing up from the ground as he crumbles up the now-empty plastic bag and tosses it into the garbage.

“Why? Did you forget how to cook?” Liv inquires, not understanding why the food-stocked fridge would be allowed to go without visitation in favour of dining in elsewhere. “No, I just figured it’d be nice to do something with my family on a Saturday morning” Andrew replies, leaning his back against the kitchen’s counter as he crosses his arms, “I’m still trying to get used to thinking of you as just another teenager. It’s not easy to just change the way you see someone after such a long time.”

Lifting the glass cup she’d poured her drink into toward her lips, Liv nods to the man mid-sip before turning away, gesturing her acceptance of the gesture as she walks off with the drink in tow. Taking the answer for what it’s worth, Andrew smiles to himself and watches her walk away, rounding the bannister and heading back for her room whilst her father stares on with pride, pleased to see the woman that she’s become rather than dwelling on the way he’d spent the night prior.

|

“No, the guy says he can fix it today but that I’ll have to wait a few hours before I can get it back on the road” Elaine replies, covering one side of her head with one free hand whilst speaking into the flat, pink case-wearing cellphone that she holds in the other, “he doesn’t know if there are things he’ll need to do in order to fix it that I’ll have to sign off on, so I’m supposed to be here until the thing’s ready.”

Allowing the man to respond, Elaine quietly shakes her head in refusal at what he speaks before voicing it aloud, wanting to allow him the opportunity to talk before doing so. “No, no! Go without me! Mom’s not going to feel left out just because you go out to get pancakes and waffles” she replies, wearing a pleased smile as she speaks, “let the kids spend some quality time with their father for crying out loud! Just have a good time together!”

Conceding defeat to his wife’s point, Andrew caves to her request and begins the process of ending the call, sharing their departing quips to each other before both parties put their phones away, attending to the matters that they have on hand. On her end of the line, Elaine pulls her phone away from her face and smiles at the screen, allowed a few seconds to see her wallpaper of a family photo before it turns off, allowing the woman to see her own reflection in the dark screen.

With a look of guilt, the woman tucks her phone away and into her purse before grasping its handles tightly, sitting with her own thoughts for a few seconds before reaching forward, pressing her thumb into the chrome button on the front of a box. Within moments, Elaine is met with the sound of a loud buzzing that preempts the unlocking of a large, heavy door she soon enters through, leaving behind the crisp, middle-America winter air in favour of a warm, narrow corridor.

“Right this way, ma’am” a woman in a dark uniform gestures, stepping off to the side of a doorway to allow the now empty-handed woman entry into a large, communal space littered with circular tables. “You’ve got a visitor, kid” a heavy-set black woman calls out, her voice bouncing off the far-apart walls that make up the room she and the subject of her claim occupy, its interior lit with harsh, fluorescent light tubes that buzz loud enough to notice without fail.

Picking her head up from its place within the crossed arms that she rests atop one of the tables in the centre of the room, a young woman in a dull, colourless jumpsuit turns back to face her guest, eyes widening slightly as she tries to conceal a smile. Feeling the moisture leave her mouth, Elaine stares toward the girl that’s spent the last near-hour awaiting her arrival, unable to put into words what kind of emotions she’s feeling.

“You showed up” Sophie quips, her hair coloured a light brown and face lightened slightly with a smile.

|

Closing the door to his daughter’s room, Andrew quietly embarks upon a descent of the home’s central staircase en route to the living room, his upper body covered in a plain, black t-shirt and lower body wearing the faded, blue jeans he’d been wearing all day long. With ease and as if part of his routine, the father breaks the camera out from the place in which he’d hidden it away and sets it up on the home’s back patio, wanting to keep his voice as far away from ears to reach.

“I’d come up with a cold on the morning of that hunt my dad was talking about. As far as I knew, the only people that were supposed to go out were me and him” Andrew explains, bracing against the noticeable winds that thrust frosty air in whatever direction mother nature dictates. “I’d never intended to go, but now I had a sore throat and an appointment with the person that’d be my landlord a few minutes past three that day” he proceeds, shaking his head with a smile, “mom wasn’t having that.”

Though the winter conditions make for a brutal atmosphere to willingly reside in without many layers to bundle up in, Andrew spits in the face of the frigid air over what he considers to be the greater good, unphased by the weather. “Something was just so off about her that morning. I told her that I felt sick and awful, but it’s like she had skin in the game over this hunt like my father did” the man continues, the fog of his breath flying in the direction of the wind.

“Eventually, I just caved in and agreed to go on the hunt. I figured we could get it done in time for me to leave for the meeting” he proceeds to explain, visualising the surroundings that had made up that cloudy day as if he were still in the moment himself. “Fast forward about twenty minutes. My father and I are deep in the woods and I just get this sinking feeling like something’s off” he says with a squint, “I don’t know much about hunting, but being there with only pistols was odd.”

Envisioning the birds that flew over the treeline in the lightened skies above, Andrew’s tongue breaches his mouth and curls at his bottom lip, creating a gentle suction that pulls the flesh of it inward. “I couldn’t wrap my mind around why we’d gone out into the woods to hunt for this mystery man I’d never met and a payment that I’m assuming this is still for until it dawned upon me...” the man confesses, staring into the camera with a gentle sway of his head from one side to the other.

“...who the hell goes hunting for deer with a pistol?”

“Those things travel around here all day and night” Andrew recalls his father speaking aloud, the older man having failed to realise that his son has caught onto the lingering parts of the tale he’d spun that don’t line up the way they were meant to. Looking around the woods with wandering eyes, the original Carrion family patriarch pays no mind to the potential animals that roam the forest, his feet simply continuing to move forward in search of a quiet, secluded path to follow.

Approaching his father with a quicker pace than the one he’d journeyed this far with, Andrew discards his pistol along the ground at the same moment that he thrusts his foot into the back of the man’s knee, forcing him to the ground before what’s unfolding can even be noticed. Succumbing to the unbecoming plot that he thinks up on the spot, the younger of the two men grabs his father’s inner elbow and uses his free hand to redirect the handgun’s barrel.

*pop*

In one motion, Andrew forces his father’s finger to squeeze upon the trigger with every ounce of his might before watching a hole open on the opposite side of the man’s head, torn through by a bullet that spews the older gentleman’s brains along the ground. Collapsing lifelessly into the dirt, the gambling addict’s body crashes into the ground and falls completely still whilst his dominant hand’s loosened grip keeps the firearm held within it, the barrel still smoking from the gunshot.

“I don’t know if anything- other than Sophie’s birth- had sparked that much joy out of me in my entire life” Andrew confesses, keeping his pupils directed toward the machine that documents his every word on video. “I made sure to make it look like a suicide so no one would assume anything of me” the father continues, shaking his head as he speaks further upon that day.

“When I’d walked back to the house, my mother was in the kitchen doing something- I’m still not sure what” he proceeds, vividly able to make out the events that comprised the fateful day. “She didn’t know it was me coming in, so when she heard the door open- she’d thought it was my dad” Andrew remarks, nodding to the camera before turning the bob of his head into a shake of dismissal and disgust, “it was the second thing I’d heard- the first was hearing Sophie cry in my bedroom.”

“Did you make it look like an accident?” the mother questions aloud from the kitchen, too focused on the bag that she stuffs with whatever valuables she can strip from the trailer’s interior. Receiving no reply, the woman continues to prepare the bag for what can only be considered an unannounced departure, paying no mind to the footsteps that she still assumes are the ones belonging to the man she’d anticipated the return of.

“To this day, I don’t think I’m capable of squeezing my hands together with as much force as I’d wrapped my hands around that woman’s throat” Andrew confesses, unable to hold back the smirk that the memory he thinks of fondly sparks from him. “I snapped her neck like it was a pencil” the man communicates, still pleased at his actions even with the benefit of hindsight, “I framed my father for it, let the police find his body in the woods, I took Sophie and left.”

With one leg crossed over the other, the father turns his eyes toward the analog watch on his wrist before taking surprise in the late hour of the evening that meets him. “The police never suspected a thing. I moved in with Daria instead of the flat I’d been approved for, she got pregnant with Liv, and I’m sure you guys know the rest” Andrew concludes, visibly pained to have made it to the point in the story that he now reaches.

“Liv, Elaine, Galen... I’m filming this now because- in the event that something happens to me- this tape will find its way to you” the man declares, adjusting his posture so he can sit upright and present himself to the audience he anticipates accordingly. “That stress I mentioned last night wasn’t actually stress” Andrew admits apologetically, disappointed in his lack of something better to offer, “I don’t know what to call it, so I’ve just been calling it ‘stress’ since I first noticed it.”

Bowing his head in shame, the man begins cycling through his thoughts in hopes of finding something more fitting to describe it as, speaking aloud whilst he does so. “My head starts feeling light and my hands feel a static-like ping- y’know, like the one you get when your hand falls asleep?” he proceeds, momentarily returning his gaze to the lens as he nods. 

“It’s just like this violent fit that my mind goes to. But- in that moment- it also gives me that feeling you get when you’re kind of drunk and more willing to do the stupid stuff you’d never do if you were sober” Andrew describes, still fascinated by his inability to fully verbalise it. “I’d never killed anyone before what happened with my parents” the man assures, shaking his head at a loss, “and- even though I’ve had moments where I felt that urge again- I’d never followed up on it since.”

Sorrowful, the man leans back in his seat once more as he stares back toward the camera, slightly frustrated at the need he feels to continue speaking. “The strangest thing about it though is that I can control it. Even though I’d had those urges, I’d always had that wherewithal in moments where my first thought was to just act on it and consider the consequences later” Andrew confesses, voicing his refusal of it, “even when it was at its worst, I knew I could never do what I did again.”

Shaking his head again, the man presses his palms together and hurriedly begins to rub the surface of his skin against itself, trying to manufacture warmth in the frigid climate. “I could live with myself knowing that my parents deserved what happened to them, but what I could never live with would be leaving Sophie to grow up without her father” Andrew declares, voicing the vow he’d made for himself, “I made it my mission to be the father to my children that my parents never were.”

Suddenly stricken with a bout of overwhelming sorrow, the man’s eyes fall away from the lens once more, taking to the distance of his snow-covered backyard as he simmers with the events of the last few days. With his mouth slightly agape, Andrew stares forward in silence as the eviscerating sensation of dread consumes him, swallowing him whole like a snake to its suffocated prey.

“I never knew Sophie had something wrong with her. I still don’t know that it’s the same thing that I have, but ever since she was arrested, I’d always just assumed that- if there was anything wrong with her- it was something she got from her mother” Andrew promises, shaking his head as a salty tear begins to form on his eyelid, following his line of sight as it takes back toward the camera.

“The idea that you have it, Liv... that horrifies me” he admits, trying to bring himself to think of his daughter with the added context of the same strife he’d suffered through in his youth. “It doesn’t drain me of hope, don’t get me wrong. I know that there’s a way to overcome it” Andrew proceeds, pleading with the girl- in the event that this tape is needed to reach her- to share the same optimism.

“Even after what happened with Sophie, I refused to give into those urges... that plague inside of me” he compellingly remarks, shaking his head in refusal at the notion that it’s something that will inevitably grow too powerful to control, “I’d gone so long without feeding into them that it was almost like I was the one in control of it. The longer that stayed the same, the more it became impossible to justify acting on them. After all, I’d gone so long without succumbing to it.”

Ashamed, Andrew’s nostrils flare as his lip curls, disgusted with the fact that he’s forced to face. “But then I saw this one kid trying to snatch a lady’s daughter out from her car in broad daylight” the man murmurs, his tone lowering as he conceals his anger as best as he can, “I marched across that parking lot and threw that scumbag around you would’ve thought he was a doll. I don’t know if I realised it then, but I almost took a pair of shears to his throat before some cashiers stopped me.”

Clearing his throat, Andrew wipes his runny nose on the back of his hand as his knees begin to bounce over an increasing anxiety, one that prompts the man to try and regain control of his breathing whilst he speaks. “I didn’t know about the guy in a parking lot over that had caught the thing on video when I went hunting for the bastard” the father confesses, shaking his head toward the lens as he shrugs at the recollection, “I couldn’t risk him taking me to court and taking everything from us.”

With a nod, the man keeps his stare held upon the camera’s lens as his tale finally reaches the moment of the present day, one that sparks a frown to embolden itself upon his face. “I stabbed the guy about two towns over. I buried his body under the dirt that I just had a pair of labourers lay the foundation for the shop’s terrace on” Andrew explains with a nod, “then, the other night- I met Ian in the park a few blocks away from the school so Liv wouldn’t have to.”

Standing by his decisions, the man refuses to present himself as a villain for the atrocities he’d allowed himself to commit, fully devoting himself to the belief that they were all warranted. “I’m sorry that Sophie doesn’t have anyone to visit her in prison anymore, I really am- but I could not take the risk of that prick stalking my family until we gave in and played with his stupid little game” he continues, seemingly no closer to finishing his admission of guilt than he’d started.

“He had a notepad with some names, and numbers, and addresses and such on it. So, I went to the place that I knew had gotten him back involved in all of this” Andrew proceeds, leaving none of his actions up for interpretation, “I shot Coleen Wolf’s mother, texted her ex husband to meet her at the home, and then called the cops and planted the gun in his car before they showed up.”

Seeing no reason to present hesitation now, Andrew carries on with the timeline of events now that the truth has come to the spotlight, aware of what the intention of this recording is and refusing to leave its purpose unfulfilled. “Before that, I went to the factory that Coleen had gone to and I shot her too” he concludes, finally reaching the point in which he’d set out to build on, “even though I can justify the other two for myself, those last three I justify for you, Liv.”

Again sitting upright with his face taking toward the machine he’d set up not too far away from his person, Andrew stares intently into the lens that films his every move. “If you have the same thing that I have- the same thing your sister probably has... I can’t let it get the best of you” the father cries, beginning to well up with emotion as he speaks, “framing the girl’s father was just a way to cover my tracks. The only reason I had to kill Coleen was so that it wouldn’t be you.”

Quickly shaking his head at the argument otherwise, Andrew acknowledges its existence without providing it with substance. “Yeah, I know it’s not a feasible plan to kill anyone I might be worried my daughter will let out her plague on so she doesn’t get caught in the same thing that Sophie did, but I don’t care” the man sighs, wearing a smile as he shakes his head, “it gives me a little bit of time to help Liv get her mind right for now. And if that’s how I spend the rest of my life- so be it.”

Pressing his eyelids shut, the man presents the most genuine smile he’s offered the camera thus far as his face holds itself toward the air, kissed by the wintery frost as the streaking tears warm his cheeks. “I’d rather be the one with blood on my hands then let you, Liv, be the one with it on yours” Andrew proceeds, intently looking back into the device that stands across from him, “under no circumstances will I allow the sins of the father to be the sins of his daughter.”

Stepping out of his seat, Andrew approaches the camera and cautiously disconnects it from the tripod and begins descending the patio’s rear steps toward the snowy lawn whilst speaking. “If I die or get arrested or anything happens to me, I’ve got a plan on how to get this thing across to you. The only reason I film this is to give you closure” the man explains, looking into the lens whilst he does so, “I’m not a bad man... I’m just a loving father.”

Shaking his head, Andrew accepts the terms that he agrees to despite their lack of existence as printed font, viewing this oath he takes to those he loves as a contract he’s fully aware of the implications to. “I never had a father who’d be willing to kill for me... only one willing to kill me” the man proclaims, declaring his allegiance to the souls he directs this tape to, “the first day of my life when I actually had a real family was the day that I held my little Sophie in my arms.”

“I admit that I hold some hatred for her becoming everything that I hate most about myself, but the real reason that I’ve cut her out of my life is because I love her too much to admit that I failed her” Andrew concedes defeat, grimacing at the physical pain that his ultimate confession leaves him with, “maybe there was some mistake that I made along the way, but I can never allow myself to fail the people I love ever again.”

Coming to a stop in the centre of the backyard, the man looks deep into the camera’s lens as he prepares to finish his proclamation, feeling as though he’s already said more than what needs to be spoken. “I’m sorry if this isn’t the man you thought that I was. I’m sorry if this hurts you in ways that I can’t even imagine” Andrew apologises, standing by the decision he’s made, “I hope I never have to do any of this again. But I bear the responsibility that comes with this choice.”

Determined, the man’s eyelids inch closer toward each other as his finger rests upon one of the camera’s many buttons, ready to cut the video off as he makes his peace.

“No matter what it takes, no matter the cost, and no matter what I have to do...

... I will never fail my family again.”

== Generation Alpha ==