Chapter 5 - The 47th one.

Aloe’s cries fill the now destroyed bar, she calls out to Shira who lays motionless on the floor in a pool of her own blood. The once lively bar now looks like a bloodbath, the men and women who spoke so passionately are all drained like pigs all over the bar tables, and the strong and beautiful Shira was mutilated in front of me and Aloe. The three men who invaded the bar pull their knives from the corpses and they wipe their hands of any blood, they look at me and Aloe as we are both on our knees beside each other, they start to speak amongst themselves in a language that is all too familiar to me… Artenian.

“Hey!” I speak in their language, somehow through all the fear and trauma.

The three of them look at me, shocked that I know their language, one of them even chuckles as they start to converse amongst each other again.

They turn to me again after a minute.

“Boy, how do you know our language?” The man in the middle asks me, his voice clearly has the accent of an Artenian speaking our language.

“I fought in The War.” I say plainly.

“Someone your age fought in The War? For how long a few months?” The man on the left laughs at me.

“No. Six years.” I say plainly.

The three of them look at me, all of them unsure if I am telling them the truth or making up a lie to scare them. For some reason my fear starts to fade, after finding out they are Artenian this situation has started to feel like familiar territory for me, I have been in hundreds of scenarios like this one.

“You must look young for your age!” The man on the right says, believing my claim but making up a reality where he doesn’t have to fear me.

Pride is the death of a man. That was told to me by my father and my bones are aching to prove those words right at this moment.

“Well you old crook, you seem to be the unlucky one here. We have no orders to kill you but we also can’t leave any witnesses.” The man in the middle says as he breaks out into an evil cackle, the other two of them follow suit.

“W-why? W-who sent y-you?” Aloe stutters and cries, the knife still stuck in her arm.

“Aha! That there is a secret young lady, all you need to know is this is necessary.” The man in the middle says, he grins and continues, “Just be glad we aren’t sickos, or you’d really want to die at this moment.” They all laugh.

“Well that is only because it's no fun killing someone who wants to die!” The man on the right cackles.

They spend the next few minutes taunting us and laughing at us, Aloe cries louder, and something in me continues to brew, the familiar part of myself, the thing the damned royals groomed me into. Even in this moment, I am here because of those fucking royals.

“It has been fun guys, the least I can do is tell you the name of your killers.” The man in the middle says with a big smile on his face.

“I am Arturo.” He says while holding his chest.

“On my left is Matty.” He points to the man to our right.

“And this guy is Serpis.” He tilts his head to the man to our left.

“Well Miss Aloe, Matty here will have the pleasure of-” He pauses to look into Aloe’s eyes, and he smiles at the tears starting to fall down her cheeks, “- slitting your throat!” At this point they all start to laugh like maniacs.

Aloe doesn’t say any words she just screams in utter terror as the tears continue to pour down her face, she glances at me for a second before she attempts to run away. The once annoying and batty girl completely gone by this point, the moment before someone dies will always be the most pure, and this is the purest she has ever appeared to anyone ever, for the first time in her life she is crying tears that actually mean something, down to her very core. You could say her mask is cracking and breaking rapidly.

The man named Matty chases after Aloe who only gets a few steps before he grabs hold of her short, beautiful, jet black hair. The sounds of her screams make me wish for my ears to deafen, no matter what, Aloe’s death is not righteous, it isn’t necessary to anything or for anyone, no matter how annoying she is, that is what makes this reality dreadful. Because she is about to die… for absolutely no reason at all.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Here it is, reality. Aloe stares into my eyes, her eyes are still full of tears and under her eyes her skin is red, Matty turns her to face me as he holds a six inch knife to her throat. The knife is a decorative kind of knife, it’s handle is about as long as the blade, and it is painted white with a gold accent, the blade itself is a beautiful silver, it shines brightly in the red lights of the bar. It isn’t the kind blade you would think was being used for such a purpose. I focus on the blade, it starts to carve into Aloe’s throat, she begins to scream in pain as it pierces her skin and draws blood, but it stops, Matty grins in ecstasy, he wants to make it slow, and bask in her fear for longer.

Before I realize it, the man named Arturo is holding his own blade to my throat.

“Truly sorry about this friend. She is a beauty.” Arturo whispers in my ear.

The blade being held at Aloe’s throat cuts deeper, drawing more blood. For the first time she doesn’t scream in pain, she just looks at me with desperation, that’s it, her mask is completely shattered.

“Please save me!” Aloe screams, her face desperate, but we lock eyes again and her face changes… to fear.

The change in her expression is a reaction to my own expression, I have seen it before. My bones have been aching for this, I know exactly what I am doing as I grab the blade at my throat with my right hand and yank it, sending it flying into the shoulder of Matty. I lunge at him, as fast as I can, before his beautiful knife can even touch the ground my left hand is wrapped around the back of his head, and my right hand, now missing the pinky finger, is wrapped under his chin as I grip as hard as I can, and push and pull in opposite directions, the look in his eyes shifted from pure joy, to pain, to the fearful realization of his impending doom, in a matter of seconds. His mask came off, and in the next instant the life left his eyes as his body crashed to the floor.

Silence fills the room.

“45” I whisper under my breath.

“What the fuck!” Arturo yells, his face no longer is that of a man in pure ecstasy, but one of shock and fear.

Arturo scrambles around trying to get a blade from his pocket only to realize he has run out of any weapon to use.

“You shoulda brought guns.” I say plainly.

“Who brings guns to an assassination job you dumb Eccacian!” Arturo screams in frustration as he motions to Serpis.

They both charge at me, Arturo is the first to throw a punch at my face, but Serpis also throws a punch aimed right for my ribcage. This is a skilled assault, I can tell these two have fought many battles together and honed their compatibility over many years. It is unfortunate that some people simply bring the team down. Arturo’s punch is faster and any random person on the street wouldn’t be able to dodge such an amazing punch, but I was trained for this purpose, his punch whizzes past my face, unable to touch a single hair on my head. Next is Serpis, his punch has not gotten close to me and Arturo has already missed me, I deflect his punch, changing the direction entirely, leading his sloppy punch precisely into Arturo’s Jaw, this sends him stumbling backwards as he catches himself with a chair.

Serpis continues his assault, he throws a punch, I dodge and counter, again and again, my right finger begins to bleed even more from where my pinky used to be. Before Arturo can even get his footing back, I have turned Serpis’s face into a swollen and bloody mess. Arturo screams in frustration and he throws a punch at me, but he stops, before I can react he grabs hold of me and pins me to the bar.

“Kill the fucking girl so we can get the fuck out of here!” Arturo orders Serpis, he knows he has lost this battle so he is trying to escape with good news, even if it means leaving me alive.

Serpis lunges towards Aloe and she screams once again. As suddenly as he charges at Aloe, Serpis falls to the ground, courtesy of a knife they left stuck in the man they killed.

“What the hell are you d-” Arturo pauses in shock as he sees the knife sticking out of Serpis’s skull. Arturo looks at me, his mask begins to crack.

“That makes 46!” I shout out loud.

“You guys left all these knives laying around, you should have used them instead of trying to punch me up!” I say in an excited tone that surprises both Aloe and Arturo, even me.

“Not that it would have changed anything.” I say as I plunge one of their own knives in and out his shoulder.

Arturo screams in pain as he releases his grip around me and falls to the floor, clutching his shoulder. My gaze shifts to Aloe, and she looks at me with horror. She has seen me, without my mask, she has seen what the royals, her family turned me into to fight their war.

“P-p-please spare me! I will tell you everything!” Arturo pleads, my eyes shift back to him.

“...Sure.” I say plainly.

Arturo goes silent, he clearly thought he was gonna have to beg harder for my mercy.

“W-well, w-what do you w-want to know?” Arturo shudders in fear.

“Hmm, maybe something like… who sent you? Obviously.” I say while lightly smacking his face a few times.

Arturo goes silent, he seems scared to reveal who gave him his orders, he debates himself in his own mind, questioning whether or not I am the most dangerous, or if the person he takes orders from is. He doesn’t realize he doesn’t have as much time as he thinks to think. I punch him square in the nose, he begins to plead as I punch him in the nose again. My hand begins to start to feel numb from blood loss. Before I punch him again he pleads loudly.

“O-ok ok! It was Master Dane and Princess Angela I-” He is interrupted by my fist striking his nose again, he lets out a yelp.

“That’s bullshit! Angy would never do something like this!” I scream.

“I swear!” Arturo screams as he senses another beating.

Soon I no longer feel in control of my own body as I punch him all over his face. He screams and begs, he says I promised to spare him, but those pleads are falling on deaf ears. One hit after another, even after he went unconscious I keep on hitting him more and more. My right hand is in excruciating pain and the blood from where my pinky finger used to be mixed with his blood pouring out of his face.

It is only as Aloe pulls me off of him that I am able to witness the scene before me. Arturo, the once smug, maniac assassin, gargling on his own blood.

“That’s enough Zee!” Aloe shouts at me, the look on her face is fearful of me.

I look at Aloe, again her face looks so much like Angela’s. It pains me to see a face so similar to hers in such anguish. Her arm and neck are both still bleeding, and no one has cared to remove the knife from her arm, which is probably a good thing, but she is using all her strength to hold me back, as if she is holding my mask together, preserving my humanity, or my sense of morality. I look at Arturo on the floor, he no longer makes a sound, his mouth wide open and full of blood.

“That’s 47.” I say under my breath, and Aloe begins to whimper while holding me.