sorry always seems to be the hardest word.

honestly, i don't know if i have any faith in humanity anymore. maybe if i had been born to not psychopathic parents, i would understand and appreciate compassion and humanity, but frankly, they are worthless to me. my friends here at home are generally unreliable, and i would gladly sell them for 30 pieces of silver, my parents are psychotic and lock me out of the house for their own stupid reasons, and i don't have anyone i love. the one person i could love is too far away. the person i once had feelings for is taken. and who knows if these feelings even existed. i can't tell if i truly can feel anything anymore...

even with the days getting warmer, things really don't seem any different to me. my life hasn't gotten any better. people aren't any nicer. the prophecy that i'll eventually be stabbed for something i said has sadly still not come true. but you know, from the one feeling i still have left in my body, anger, springs forth the little bits of creativity. writing when you're happy and a good mood? i'm not a fucking hippie. i only write to get out the anger and sadness out of my body, so that i can return to being the hollow shell of a human being that nobody could give less of a shit about.

/rant

__________________________________________________________________

"Get up."

A fist drove into Alex's face, pulling back with laces of blood like red veins bulging from the skin. Someone held him down, putting their weight on his chest. Alex gasped for air, but all he was able to feel was a sharp pain. A familiar pain, tracing down the median vein of his left arm.

"You never will amount to anything. Consider this our way of helping you out."
"Why couldn't you ever be something worthwhile? Why are you such a loser?"

Tears flowed from his eyes as a blade continued down. Alex hoped it was the last time. He hoped that this time, the blade would penetrate the vein, and that the blood would pour out like wine at a festival.

"Let me die..."



Alex awoke in a cold sweat, holding a switchblade in his hand as his eye darted across the room. There was nothing there. It was another nightmare. He looked at his left arm, tracing his veins lightly against the blade. The nightmares were supposed to end with the pills, he thought to himself. He grabbed the pillbox containing his morning dose of anti-psychotics and antidepressants and downed them with a glass of water.

Most days, Alex would sit about and read one of the books that he hadn't gotten around to. Most of them were books he had planned to read, but never read because he had other things to finish first. The walls of his room were almost covered with novels, histories, and tales that he would read, but usually would end up having to stick a bookmark into because another assignment would come up. After repeating this cycle for a while, Alex began to accept that he would focus on one book at a time. His current read was a heavy load to read, Paradise Lost. The ideas of the book felt close to home with him: someone once praised being banished to a place of inexplicable torment, a protagonist who is in fact evil yet is still someone who can be related to, and the feelings of revenge that he could not give up.

A muffled ringing went off, and his phone lit up with a new message.

"We've got work to do. Pier 13 in one hour. Bring your tools. It's gonna get messy."

A smile crossed Alex's face as he licked his lips at the word "messy". He grabbed his bag, and started to make his way towards the pier. Usually, messy just meant a clean up job. A few thugs sent by the rivals of whoever he worked for coming down to say "You shouldn't have done that", and ending up turning some street kid who went down the wrong path into bloodstains on the sidewalk.

As he walked down, Alex looked out over the water. In the distance, he could see boats sailing in the calm summer water. He wondered if things had been different, he could have been like that. Free and floating where ever the winds would take him. But the fates were cruel, and lead him down a path where only bodies would lie in his wake.

"Yo. They're inside smashing up the supplies. You know what to do."

Letting out a mild sigh, Alex pulled Alecto from his bag. Inside the warehouse, there were about ten targets, armed with bats. "They disturbed me for this?' he thought to himself. "Why couldn't they just go guns ablazing in their usual Cowboys and Indians style?"

To Alex, killing was never something that was real. It never felt like what he saw on the television and in video games. These boys who had no place there looked like nothing more than effigies, waiting to be torn apart. With each and every blade stroke, he felt more like he was attacking immobilized training dummies than fighting with real men.

Five minutes had passed, and ten fresh corpses rested against the concrete. The Contractor stood outside, waiting for him.

"Excellent work."
"Quit it. You know I don't like doing jobs that involve getting rid of easy targets. You could have cleared these guys out with all the guns you have."
"Probably. But it's always so exciting watching you kill. It's like an art form. So simple yet filled with grace. Your movements so precise. I do so enjoy it."

Alex was nearing his breaking point. Tolerance was not something that he practiced often.

"You called me out here to kill these pathetic beasts for your own shits and giggles?"
"That's part of it. The other part is we have another job for you. It's a bit different than your usual gigs."
"How different?"
"There is a certain businessman in town, a former client of ours. He has been rather unwilling to pay for our past services, and has taken out some of our men who tried to send him a message. Since those threats are not working, we need a different approach, so we want to send you. You're the only one who can take the only thing he loves away from him."
"And that would be?"
"His daughter, Clara. Here, chloroform, rope, and a duffel bag. She is about five foot two, so she should be able to fit comfortably in here."
"And I should care about her comfort why? You asked me to kidnap a girl to make this guy miserable."
"We have to ensure that the goods are safe. Otherwise he won't pay up. Why would he pay for a dead girl?"
"Necrophilia?"
"Enough with the jokes. Here is her itinerary while she's here. Make sure she disappears without a trace, got it?"
"Yeah. How much is the job for?"
"Three times the usual fee."
"And I just have to keep her alive till he pays up?"
"Yep. If he doesn't, we'll have to show him your... talents."

Alex walked home, with the information and supplies in hand. The photo of the girl seemed recent, and it was all he had to go on. It didn't quite sit well with him however. He didn't like this idea of holding a person's life as a commodity. Killing people was different. Most of the time, they were just in the way of what he had come to do. Sometimes, they witnessed what he had done. Stealing information, sabotaging projects, assassinating the opposition... those were all easy. Toying with someone's life like this did not so well.