Vincenzo was born in a small village in Italy. People out there didn’t have anything more than what their ancestors gave to them, but for him, that was enough. In those years, illiteracy was the norm, even more so in small towns.

As a child, he never knew his father, so his mother took his role.

Life was harsh in that small town. Everyone ate from what they had cultivated, learned from their elders, and desired for their dearest to be well as they struggled together.

At least, they had each other.

He was happy with that. He felt alive with dirt in his hands, tiredness on his body, and his mother’s smile every time he met her at night, returning from work. She worked not too far, a few kilometres away.

As he grew up, Vincenzo always had dinner done when she arrived home from the things he cultivated among other people.

His mother never talked about his father; she just told him he was “gone”. Her eyes were lost for a few moments whenever she thought about it. He knew the “Great War” happened a few years before his birth, so why ask? It was painful, so he never demanded anything. Her smile was everything he truly had.

As years passed, his mother got progressively quieter and tired. She tried to hide it, but Vin knew. Her smile was forced. Every time. As much as she kept trying to hide it, he knew. He asked for help from the people of the town, but no one knew what to do; they barely knew how to count. He tried everything any apothecary told him, but nothing worked, and he saw his mother slowly descending into an illness that rotted him from the inside, knowing there wasn’t anything he could do.

On a certain day, she didn’t make it home.

Vin asked his neighbours, but they were silent. No one knew, but their eyes, their faces, everything told that they were hiding the truth. No one dared to talk. They saw her the months she was getting worse, but they stood there, as powerless as him.

Then he ran in the dark. That same night, he didn’t stop running for hours, even if his feet bled, his legs trembled, or his breath wasn’t enough; not in a single moment did he dare to stop.

Finally, he arrived at her workplace.

The chemical plant wasn’t big. Dyes were made there. His mother always told him it was safe and how much fun she had with her companions.

Yet there was no one to be seen.

He collapsed at the front door for a few minutes, until a policeman woke him up. Vin asked for his mother, if he knew something.

The man sighed to himself and made him follow.

There she was, unresponsive. Quiet as a silent night atop a hill, resting between the policemen. He mourned all night. He blamed the poor knowledge of the townsman, he blamed the country, until pain was so strong that he even blamed his own mother for not stopping earlier. His only light disappeared, without him being able to say goodbye.

He found something to hate on. The system, the people who were too excited about warring and didn’t care about the ones below. They talked about justice, about fighting back, but only ended up getting wealthier themselves. Hypocrites.

The simple thought of what he had and what they could reach with their money and power poisoned him slowly throughout the next years, as he knew there was nothing he could do. Not that late.

And so on, years passed as he grew silent and alone, as if, since his mother’s passing, the world only grew darker.

One day, a man stepped at his door. It was the policemen he met that night, but there was no uniform to be seen.

“Seems like time didn’t fix any of your problems kid.” – The man said.

Vin looked at him reluctantly. Wondering why he was there.

“Come with me, you want to fight for something and change things, don’t you?” – He smiled.

That’s when, for the first time in years, he felt there was something he could do. The Agency greeted him with a purpose. “To make the world a better place”. He spent years fighting for that purpose, doing everything there was to do. He helped, he accomplished, he fulfilled every order. But something grew inside.

“You are not making everyone’s life safer. You know it. You are opening a way for your superiors to gain control”.

“Every person you think you’re helping will someday be oppressed again by another one”.

“The world won’t ever be safer. Only easier to step on”.

Then, in that mission, he saw his chance. Infiltrated in the last Mafia in his country, he saw what he could accomplish. The Mafia’s power could be used for good. It had the potential.

He had the knowledge of the Agency, and the Mafia had the power to retaliate. And so, he started bribing, making a name, getting closer to the higher ones. He hated them; they were everything wrong with the world, but he could change that. He just needed absolute control, to take over the Mafia, get rid of the boss, and fight back against anyone daring to take over.

For him, it was a change for good. But, doesn’t everyone in that position think the same?

Finally, he ended up becoming what he despised the most.

A hypocrite.