Fire is Light…

… from which the truth must ignite.

So apparently Picasso made her own account. As far as I can tell she doesn’t have a blog and she doesn’t have any followers but she has an account. All the better to rant with, I suppose. To those who are curious as to why she keeps calling West a bear, it’s because he looks like one.  That asshole is a big burly, nightmarish beast in both stature and muscle mass. I’d dare say he is far more muscle than man if I thought that sentence would make any sense.

Limb snapping Maniac.

Speaking of betrayers,
I keep breaking my oath of silence. I don’t remember not talking being so difficult. I remember when I didn’t need words for anything and there wasn’t a situation I couldn’t wear a mask for. I remember when writing felt like a moral sin to my oath that I only practiced in an effort to finish the stories of the slain. Now it’s a mandatory fucking order that I stick on an imaginary wall for all of the world to see. When did I become so weak and co-dependent?

I bet getting me to break my oath was Fracture’s plan. He just kept calling me a dog until I snapped.
That fucker showed up to help with clearing the list. He didn’t actually get to help us though. I beat the shit out of him while yelling something to the effect of, “CALL ME A DOG ONE MORE TIME AND I WILL FUCKING END YOU.”

When I was done he disappeared. He popped out like he likes to do. Such a cowardly fucking ability. I use to hate that I wasn’t allow to path around like I see so many other proxies do, Firecracker and Trent included, but this talking thing has shown me that it would only be another crutch. At the end of the day I’m better off without it.

I suppose I’m burying the lead here though.
My list has once again been cleared and all six marks are once again dealt with. We used actual planning this time around. We scouted out each mark and figured out where each one slept and took out every single one of them within the same hour once we had their patterns down well enough. We left them no time to find out something was wrong and regroup. There was just swift silent death. Not the kind of death I prefer to give but at the end of the day it’s about results. Besides, I have weak ass squad mates to keep alive. Trent and Firecracker almost didn’t survive our last head on fight with a group so it’s best we play it safe… for now.

That’s not to say none of them put up a fight.
That first guy woke up as Trent and I were sneaking up. He grabbed a knife from under his pillow and rushed into the doorway to use as a choking point to fight us from, which wasn’t a bad strategy and he was a rather competent at defending himself with a knife.

The greatest problem with that strategy is you root yourself to the ground and make yourself inflexible. I may not have been able to penetrate his pillar of defense but by god I could knock it over, and so I did. I plowed into him and ripped his knife away from him once I had him pinned to the ground. And that was when the little girl came out.

“Sally dear, run!”

Little Sally Newbery, the whole reason we hit this house first and I came to handle it personally.

I pointed at her and tapped the crack in my mask to indicate she was to be taken to Fracture rather than harmed. I turned to finish her dad when I heard a stomping noise behind me. I turned to find Trent madder than I had ever seen him before. No longer did his eyes appear cold and soulless. I saw rage, pure fiery rage.

He dove onto the little girl and forced his knife into her and then let her drop as he pulled her dad over to him and disappeared with him into the path.

I went over to her. She was dying.

“Where is father…?” she forced out coughing, clinging onto me.

I figured I had already broken my oath once today, no harm in doing it again. So I started to answer, “He-”
But I was interrupted.

“Daddy said Father would keep us safe… h-help me, f-father…”

And then she went still. I let her drop again. I didn’t have time to process that information. Assuming Firecracker had taken out her first mark, there were still three more marks left and with Trent gone in such a huff I had to make sure they all went down before too much time had passed.

Fortunately Trent showed back up as his soulless empty self again and everyone signaled in their success. Besides that first encounter with Sally and her dad, there were no notable incidents to report.

I was curious why this group didn’t seem to have a base of some sort like the last one until I went back to investigate Sally’s house. I found their basement had been turned into a bunker complete with another small armory, an array of computers, and a table with a dissected body laying across it.

Further inspection confirmed my fears. Trent tried to hide it but I found a little mask in Sally’s room and another mask in her fathers. And then I barged in on Firecracker trying to hide away the other 4 masks form the other four marks. These people were proxies and apparently I was the only one who wasn’t aware of it.

Trent and Firecracker both drew their weapons.
I hadn't actually been planning to fight them but if they were so eager I was happy to oblige. I won’t get deep into the details of that one. The cliff notes are I tazed the shit out of Trent and planted my fist into Firecrackers gut and left her winded. With the stooges taken care of it was time to pay Fracture a visit.

I found him at our agreed rendezvous point interrogating Sally’s dad. He was quick to put a gag in his mouth when I came in.

“Shouldn’t you be out collecting information for me?”

I threw out Sally’s mask for him to see.

“I knew she was going to ruin this for me. It’s always the children with you Duckie, ever since Moth.”

I punched the wall hard at the mention of that name. He recoiled back, the memory of his beating fresh in his head.

“Settle down boy… that wasn’t intentional! Don’t hit me!”  he yelled as I cracked my knuckles.

“So you found out. So what? Does this change anything? I’m still the one who gives you your orders. Are you going to start questioning them again?”

I stopped.

“And it’s not as though we don’t have the Master’s blessing. I mean just look back at today. You saw me pop away. I couldn’t do that if I had fallen out of grace.”

I tilted my head.

“Confused? It’s because you’re still questioning and fighting things, still holding back which is so ironic coming from captain let lose! Just let go and be happy. I know your feelings on the Bureaucracy. I think it’s time you made good on expressing them without words like I know you like to.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why was this kept from me if you knew I would be on board?”

“For fun. I wanted to test all that conviction you like to claim you have. You’ve already started on this with me. Got to finish it now, isn’t that right?”

I punched the wall again. “…Yes.” And then left.

It’s bothersome how incredibly in my head he seems to be which wouldn't be half as bad if it wasn't for that insufferable fucking grin of his.

Back to work I suppose, I have an accidental rebellion to fight.
Ugly Duck out.

“I Just Want To Set The World On Fire...

…But first, I’m going to rip out your heart.”

Fracture should be shitting himself right about now.

Arbitrary news flash, Firecracker is back and bitchier than ever. It just wasn’t quite the same around here without a third untrustable subordinate to have to worry about. I say third because it occurs to me that I shouldn’t be trusting Trent.

I’m not sure how I overlooked that particular detail but it occurred to me recently that while Trent comes off as hollowed and harmless, there is still supposedly an actual person in there and not just any person. There’s supposedly a person whose life I changed in some way. So odds are about 99:1 that he secretly and ever silently wishes to gut me, which is about a point worse than the 98:2 odds of this in proxies I haven’t wronged in some way.

And you see, the more I think about it the more Trent reminds me of a proper mask. He doesn’t ever talk, he doesn’t make noise when he walks, he never fucking takes his mask off, and in hindsight I think he’s been scarring himself to teach himself lessons. I’m not sure why I thought he was doing that because he hated himself for being a hollow. Hollows can’t hate, they aren’t people after all. If he really is a Mask, that leaves some very interesting possibilities on who it could be if he's someone from my past.

I’m half tempted to sit down with Trent and skin him slowly for answers on who he is exactly but I recently gave up talking again. I would hate to fall back into the habit after I just gave it up.



On a far less trivial note, something seems to be up with my list again.
It’s not quite as bad as the never ending onslaught of red marks I had to deal with over a short period during the summer but it is just as alarming. My list has gone almost entirely empty. There are six people on it. Short of where to find them it has little to no information about them and each mark has a little post note informing me to collect and bring back as much information from the targets as physically possible following their termination, and if at all possible to have Trent and Firecracker bring one in alive for questioning.

This is starting to feel very Kreegery. I swear to god if I lose another entire week of my life, Trent dies.

Ugly Duck Out.

There Ain’t No Hope for the Hapless

…Those fuckers die easily. I just slit their throats and split their ribs, then I feed them to the bleeding tree!

Did you know hapless means unfortunate or unlucky? Yeah, neither did I. I was pretty sure it meant unskilled or something down that line of thought. Although, they say you make your own luck. In that respect a hapless person is probably an unskilled.  I of course mean unskilled in the respect of someone being a weak piece of shit. Fuck semantics. Fucking words.

Enough rambling, who remembers Nemesis?
I’d be surprised if anyone does at this point. He was kind of a foot note I left hanging a few months back at the request of the assholes who give me my orders. I killed his pet runner or some such shit. I saw him the other day.

That went something like this:

I was walking down the hallway. We don’t get much traffic; it’s just the four of us here after all. I could hear footsteps behind me. They were too heavy to be Firecrackers or Fractures. (Fracture walks like a little girl.) At the same time, they were lighter than Trent’s footsteps. (Trent also likes to drag his knuckles against the nearest wall when he walks for some reason.) Whoever was behind me wasn’t supposed to be here, probably. I slowed down a bit and pretended something ahead on one of the walls had caught my attention.

After a brief moment of changing pace I heard the footsteps speed up to further gain on me. When they got really close an unfamiliar voice called out ‘Black Blood’. I was ready for him though. I side stepped a stab and then grabbed by attackers forearm and slammed it hard into the nearest wall forcing him to drop his knife. I then jerk my arm back hard elbowing the attacker in his fugly fucking face and finally turned my head just enough to see who the fuck it was. I recognized the piece of shit immediately. I never forget the ones I intentionally let live; those fuckers always seem to show back up one way or another.

Without letting so much as a moment pass as to not give up my own moment, I grabbed his forearm again and slammed it against the wall harder. I couldn’t help but grin as I heard something snap confirming that his primary hand had been ruined. Too dazed from the Elbowing and far too busy screaming like a girl to properly respond, I spun behind Nemesis and bashed him hard in the back of the head with the hilt of my now drawn knife as I pulled a leg out from under him with my own leg. Fuck face fell hard on his fucking face. It didn’t take Nemesis more than a few seconds to start crawling forward weakly. It seemed he didn’t have much left anymore. Pity, I was just getting started.

I looked forward curious as to what exactly that idiot was crawling toward. His knife had flown a little ways down the hall to the other side of a chair Trent likes to keep there by his door for some reason. Further down the hall I could see Fracture standing there and watching, most likely drawn out by all the screaming. I felt my grin grow a little wider. I don’t particularly care for an audience but I wanted him to see this.

“Still trying to get your little revenge?” I asked him as I started walking toward him.

“Y-YOU’LL FUCKING PAY FOR WHAT Y-YOU FUCKING DID TO JENNET!” he yelled and crawled more desperately slowly getting closer to that chair. I could see him swelling with hope. Maybe this wasn’t over yet. ‘Maybe he’ll be too cocky and I can turn this around on him,’ I could imagine him saying. ‘Just a little further yet.’

“Oh?” I asked as I leaned over and slit his back open up the length of the left side of his spinal column in one swift motion. The pain stopped him in his tracks and left him cringing. “Your pet’s name was Jennet? Adorable,” I said as I walked ahead of him and stopped in front of the chair turning to face him.

“BLACK BLOOD!” he yelled before he started crawling again, slower now. “Wh-Why i-isn’t that w-working?!” he whined pleadingly, the desperation finally starting to show in his voice.

“You must have been reading me all this time,” I said as I started walking toward him again. “Studying your pray. How Commendable. I guess you do actually know how to hunt,” I told him as I leaned over and slit his back open up the length of the right side of his spinal column, but much slower this time to drag out the pain and the screaming. “Pity you suck at your job.”

I looked up at Fracture to see how he was enjoying his show. So cold was his grimace as he stood there watching intently taking in every word and every action. I could see Firecracker running towards me from behind him. She looked quite focused like a hell bent bitch on a mission. I’m not sure if she was going to help me or put an end to my show. I never found out. Fracture close lined her when she tried to pass sending her hard on her ass. I took the opportunity to get back to work. Fuck face had started crawling again. I followed again, this time keeping pace to his side.

“You’re just going to bleed yourself out if you keep pushing yourself like that,” I teased him.

“NOT BEFORE I KILL YOU!” he yelled with renewed hope and vigor in a mildly impressive display. ‘Just maybe,’ he must of thought. ‘Just a little further.’

“Just a little further,” I whispered to him. “Almost. Come on. This is for her. Redemption is just ahead.”

Before too long he found himself just out of reach of the chair’s leg. Just a little further and maybe he could pull himself forward to his knife and just maybe there would be a chance of winning this fight yet.

“You know, I just might have let you live. But I’m afraid you broke rule 926.”

“Oh?” he asked with a weak and failed attempt to laugh. “Wh-What rule i-is th-that?”

“Don't ever piss me off,” I informed him as I pulled his head back by his hair and slit his throat and saw the last of his fire drain from his eyes, his wrath and his passion now my burden to carry.

“What a lame line.”

“Don’t fucking start with me. I’m not here to amuse you,” I growled and got to work cleaning and resharpening my blade as I headed for my room. “Clean up this fucking mess and double check your security measures. I don’t want anymore of this shit getting through. Trent, check on Firecracker. Oh, and give Fracture a good slug. He did that to her.”

And then I disappeared into my room.

Good bye Nemesis. I hope you rot in hell.
Oh, for the record, rule 926:
‘Keep no pets. They will die on you.’

It’s in the handbook.
Swan out.

Fear

“Hello [Deleted].”

“Every time Fracture, every single time. Can’t let it die. One of these days someone is going to hear you and I will kill you. I will fucking bleed you dry.”

“Can we just get this session started, Mr. [Deleted]?”

“Bleed you dry!”

“I’m just going to assume that’s a yes… So where are we on your old little catch phrase?”

“My catch phrase, F?”

“Yes, your catch phrase. That stupid little thing you constantly used to say to justify your emotional disconnection.”

“I don’t recall.”

“I think it went something like, ‘Attachment is a weakness’, right? ‘I don’t miss my squad, such attachment is a weakness.’ ‘I had to give up moth, such attachment is a weakness.’ ‘I’m not sorry about what happened to Picasso, concern is attachment and that would be a weakness.’ … I think my favorite was that last one. You really had to start twisting your own words to make that fit. And I think you cried over-OWOWOWOW”

“Fracture, what did I say?”“That you’d kill me?”“Yes, I will skin you. Slowly. And then feed your skin to you!”

“You’re so afraid of your secrets getting out [Deleted].You're so attached to them. It’s almost like they're a wea-OWOWOW.”

“I WILL KILL YOU.”

“Calm down.”

[About 15 minutes of growling later, Duckie finds himself back in his seat and I find myself only mildly bleeding.]
“So… does that saying still hold true?”

“…True enough.”

“How’s Ember?” [This comment was followed by Duckie throwing a chair at me.]
“I can see I hit a nerve.”

“I think I’m done with this conversation.”

“Same goes for the squad you refused to send out for the first week you had them. Are you suddenly afraid of people dying on you? That sounds like a weakness.”

“Does this have a fucking point, F?”

“I just need to know if this is an issue or not. You’re not known for adjusting well to things… especially not to your own decisions. I’m not entirely sure how but I somehow predict this will also end in blind rage and your death. I’m just worried [Deleted].”

“Blah, blah, blah, threats. I hear you, ass. Are we done?”

“I suppose.”

[At this point Duckie walked over to his closet and pulled out shovel. I… well let’s just leave it at I left.]

I can smell your fear Duckie and that means they can smell it too. Tread lightly.
Fracture out.

Squad Member 00 - 'The Ugly Duck'

“H-he’s controlling you! You have to fight it!”
- A Runner

“Do you see an arm up my ass? This is me stabbing you! This is me laughing!”
- A Younger Swan

Ah, fond memories from a simpler time. I’ve really mellowed out since then, although I’m sure it’s hard for anyone reading this to imagine a more violent less stable me…

So I decided I’m going to introduce each squad member for Mask Squad with a post detailing my thoughts on them. Then I realized I was going to need to make a post for myself since I am going to be a part of my own squad. Not that I actually care to share who I am with a bunch of random assholes. Fracture says everything we say screams volumes about ourselves. So instead I’m just going to ramble and talk at you all.

First, I’d like to take a moment to declare the farce that is the united union of proxies under the bureaucracy. Hehe, that immediately got a yellow light. My greatest problem with it, with the exception of the people themselves because proxies are a bunch of bastards, is the name we’ve taken to. Proxy. It sounds so technical, just like the rest of the world has become in my absence.

I spent four years in what was roughly self isolation after my squad died. I came back to a world where my brothers somehow trusted each other enough to operate under one name and the assholes on the other side of the phone had taken to calling themselves the bureaucracy. Our heritage and traditions twisted further than they ever were before into business practices and an agenda…

I my day, we called ourselves masks. There were others, brothers all the same, who called themselves other things. They were Knives, Agents, the Hallowed, the Black Leaves, his Gentlemen, the Children, and those assholes, the Maskless. That’s just to name the few I had actually heard of. It’s funny now that the name Hallowed is synonymous with the hollowed. I don’t know that it’s true, but I just picture those self righteous assholes doing something so bad that the Master hollowed out all of them.

Back then some runners, as I’ve seen some of them that don’t blog still do, kept journals. They were little trophies to be claimed for our kills. I remember sitting down and reading them with our squad mates. That was how we found other runners and figured out how runners were changing as we changed. How they were adapting so we could counter adapt. People still had code names then. It was interesting seeing how often a runner would find another runner. It was funnier still when they fought with each other.

Although I guess the same could be said about us, both then and now. I knew proxies who kept journals. I personally thought that was the stupidest thing in the world… now I keep one online for the world to fucking see. Oh, how far I’ve fallen. And of course we fought and still fight each other. I don't imagine that will ever change. I don't know that I would want it to.

The point is, I can’t let go of the past. That time when we were not this thing we have become is very much still with me. That’s why I’ve named my squad the Masks, in honor of my old squad.

Ramble out.
Swan

This is About as Close as we get to an Apology

It’s been a rough week. I’ve been… paranoid.
I spent most of this week beating on Fracture, tying him up, staring at him, and eventually I threw him off the roof. That last one really takes me back to my youth. Huh, that kind of rhymes. And now I’m rambling.

Focus. So throwing Fracture off the roof did wonders for fixing his attitude problem, by which I mean his constant creepy smile. He even started talking and reasoning at me again. I think I might have missed that a little more than I would like to admit because I actually listened to what he was saying for once. The following is a rough retelling of it. I wasn’t hanging onto every word or anything:

“I think that was uncalled for.”
“I bet. You deserve every bit of it. You deserve more even.”
“And why would that be?”
“You betrayed me.”
“This surprises you? Have you read half the shit you’ve written? Don’t act so hurt. You were waiting for this. You constantly beat on me in anticipation for this. Had this day never come, you would look back on our time together and think on how my betrayal must have only been one more day away. Inevitable treachery stopped by a lack of time and opportunity.”
“Shut up!”
“Not having fun anymore?”
“This has never been fun.”
“Why so sour. This isn’t even about me is it? I haven’t told you anything you didn’t already know.”
“Of course it’s about you!”
“This ‘betrayal’ doesn’t even phase you does it? I bet you’re proud of me. Putting work aside for personal passions.”
“…”
“This is about her. This is a distraction so you don’t have to deal with the life you’ve ruined. Poor Picasso, you can’t even man up and face her.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Ready to get back to work Duckie?”
“Yeah,… fine.”

Then I threw him off the roof again and untied him. After he was done soaking away his bruises in the shower we talked on what I planned to do about the Twin. I was surprised to find his didn’t approve of my brilliant plan, operation: ‘Snap her Neck and Leave her in a Ditch’. There was an argument.

“Don’t kill her.”
“Why the fuck not? She’s a dangerous defector at this point. All who fail to serve deserve their end.”
“You were spared. Don’t you think she deserves the same opportunity? Don’t you think you owe her that much?”
“I have never argued the point that they should have killed me after your sentencing. She dies.”
“What would her brother have wanted?”
“Fuck you, that’s what.”

And then I stormed out. It’s time to fix my mess.

The Fire

Driving is long, boring, and annoying. Especially when you’re the passenger and your driver is constantly trying to get in your head with his constant psycho babble and opinions.  
“But you don’t see the flaw in that logic? You have to give life its worth and mea-”

I couldn’t take another moment of Fracture’s incessant babbling. I started wailing on him trying my damnedest to slug him repeatedly in the same spot over and over again until he finally shut up. We damn near fucking crashed into another car. But we didn’t so it was worth it, so incredibly worth it. The silence was so sweet… for about the five minutes it took for me to grow tired of that too. Now I can’t get Fracture to talk again. He’s such a girl.

In light of all the nothing there is to do I thought I would make a post. But now that I’m actually doing this I realize the nothing has left me with nothing to post about. So I think I’m going to take this opportunity to explain what the Fire is. I reference it enough.

I can see Fracture growing concerned as I read aloud what I’m typing. I’m really not supposed to talk about the fire. It is, after all, blasphemy to the Bureaucracy. Let’s see how far Fracture will let me take this before he starts talking again…

Let’s began with the boring part.
Fire is the essence of chaos and the element best associated with passion and obsession. It is the element most like man. It breaths like we do. It eats like we do. Fire is also the only element capable of homicide as a well handled fire can be used to extinguish another fire. In this way the flame more than any other element is truly a brother to mankind. I believe this is why fire burns us so. Brothers tend to be complete dicks.

Here is where it gets a little more interesting.
In much the same way that fire lives like we do, fire also has a mind like we do and a spirit too. The mind… well the mind isn’t too important here. We don’t worship the mind. It calls for the destruction of all things through the consumption of all things and the rebirth of all man has ever known through pain and fire. Not a big fan of the mind. The mind is an asshole.

All the flavor in life dwells in the spirit. It is the spirit of fire we worship… well, it was. If you haven’t caught on by now this is a cult, specifically a long dead proxy cult.

You should hear Fracture screaming at me to stop now. He’s such a girl.
Unfortunately for him, nothing is going to stop this post. I refuse to let the cult die in its entirety.

These embers must remain.

The spirit of fire calls forth for all to embrace their passions. It tells us to love all that we do with a fiery fervor. Let lose your obsessions and live a beautiful life in hope that your beauty may inspire others to do the same. It offers immortality through the creation of a moment so beautiful it will be forever remembered through the course of human history.  Above all else the fire demands complete freedom in which to pursue its passions and expects all others to earn the freedom to pursue their own.

It is through the flame that proxies are taught that death does not have to be an ugly affair. As a flame burns beautifully on a man as it claims his life, so too can the death a proxy bares to its victims.

It is through the flame that true loyalty to the master is taught for the master cannot make you do something if you take a passion in serving him and willingly do his bidding. This is something I find lacking in most of my ‘brothers’ who would sooner serve only when it convinces them.

Most importantly, the fire teaches you that you will die and it will hurt as no light can burn true forever no matter how beautiful or brilliant. It is through service to the master that we must find our death. If our loyalty is true, the master will usher us to a death worthy of ourselves so we may find a moment in time where our wrath will make us eternal.

I believe there were more lesions but I never learned the rest.

We were shut down.
“The Bureaucracy doesn’t understand. They don’t understand because they don’t care. The fire calls for its followers to pull away from those who would oppress us and the Bureaucracy sees that as a threat. The common desire to better serve means nothing to them. They serve their own interests before our master!”

These were the last words of my first trainer. He was brought before the class by five masked men and lit on fire in front of his surviving students to be made an example of. He uttered those words while he burned.

…It was beautiful.

Of Fear and Fire

I have not known fear for so long. Now I just don’t know how to deal with it.
I didn’t even leave my shitty little motel today. I just sat here paralyzed. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go. Just another afternoon trapped in my head. There was nothing but my memories to escape to. Nothing but old memories of a time long ago when I last felt fear like this.

I was fourteen. There was a falling out in the proxy command.  One of the handlers got a little too ambitious and rallied together a small army of 50 disgruntled proxies and left the bureaucracy with them. The superiors were not amused. But it wasn’t enough to just ruin their traitorous underling. They needed to destroy and humiliate him to ensure something like this wouldn’t happen again. So where the enemy had fifty, the overseers sent twelve to deal with them, two squads and two lone wolves.

Every other day one of my squad mates died. By the time it was over every one of them was dead. There was just me left. The doctor believed this was the root of my more serious issues. And I can’t deny that it did hurt. Not that I cared about any of them mind you. I hated them. I wanted to kill them. But they were mine to hate, hurt, and kill. No one else’s.

The point is I lost it when I lost four assholes I didn’t care about and started cutting down anything stupid enough to stand in front of me. The master himself had to show up and put me down. Moriarty, if you take my only friend from me I will burn this world to the ground just to make sure you go down with it. You will bleed.

…All that side. I’ve arrived at my marks last known location. I should probably actually do some ground work before it gets to dark.

Until then, fuck the world. I’ll kill you all.

Oh, and stay positive. You know who you are.

Cleared to Hunt

I do believe it’s time for an update. I wasn’t going to write another post until I had started on my marks but I was looking over old writings and realized I was updating every 2-3 days. Some idle habits are works of the master so it might be best that I don’t break tradition. Perhaps I’m being superstitions.
Bah. I’m rambling. I need to keep this short.
Hmm… idle rambling. I caught myself in a trap.

Moving on, I finished the stacks of papers. With this act I do believe I am officially a proxy again. Not that I wasn’t before but now my file should reflect this. I already have my hunting list. Not too surprisingly, I’ll be operating under the guidance of my old handler again.
I suppose I should be referring to him by his stupid designation, “Whisper”. I think mute might have been more appropriate. Because he refuses to communicate in any fashion, (speech, text, or otherwise) I’ll also be operating under the requests of interested overseers. Otherwise I’ll be moving across the states looking for people on the list.

I’m also being cleared to ‘take requests’. Cleared is such a funny term in their vocabulary because they use it when I have to do something. Apparently I’m obligated to take on the burdens of my brothers on the grounds that my sole duty is to steal their marks, which is odd because my solo job has always been to be the asshole claiming overdue marks. It’s possible they are trying to socialize me in light of my condition but it seems far more likely they’re still trying to kill me.
Oh well. I don’t foresee this coming up anyways.

On another note, because everyone in the circle I watch has at least mentioned this, some named August died. I really didn’t know him but I was happy to hear he died an angry death. I hope that fire lights his way.

In any event my list calls. Laters.

Hurt and Betrayal

So this was interesting.

After much time spent waiting around, reading, and commenting I was finally approached by my would-be executioner. I figured they would try to cheat me out of the kind of death I would have wanted but for some reason I didn’t think they would go this far. They sent something they knew very well I would not personally kill. I would not be sharing this now were more of you following me so here’s a special treat for you seven remaining readers. They sent a child.
And I do mean a child. The poor thing couldn’t have been older than eight. The mask they gave him didn’t quite fit right. He must have adjusted it four times in the minute I sat there staring at him. The knife they gave him must have been too heavy for him because he was holding it in both hands. Perhaps the most disappointing thing was how he was shaking like a scared cat. I figure I must have been intended to be his first kill.

I suppose there could have been some beauty in that death. I must have looked like he did then when I made my first kill. It certainly had a full circle kind of feel to it and while I wasn’t really satisfied with it, who is when they die? At least that’s what I told myself to reassure myself of my desire to see out my sentencing. So I stood up ready to let the kid have at me. I might have even instructed him on how to do it properly if it had came up but we were interrupted.
When I stood the kid panicked. He must have thought I was going to try to hurt him. He stumbled back into a second masked figure as it came through the door. This one was a man. He grabbed the kid and in one swift calculated motion slit the poor things throat. The poor little shit made a bunch of desperate gargled noises and crumpled to the ground. When he hit the ground his mask finally came off. He had this haunting look of pain and betrayal in his eyes. A part of me wanted to try to catch the kid and cradle him off into the darkness… and the rest of me had stiffened in an effort not to vomit.

 I stared at this second person for a few seconds trying to understand.
Was he actually to be my executioner?
Was this an effort to fire me up for the death I had requested in a way I would not have wanted?
And then I recognized that soulless stare in his eyes. I knew this man. This was yet another person I could not kill. This one was not a secret though. I actually liked this man. At one point in time, he was my handler.
He’s a cold man who nearly never speaks but that’s what made him so appealing. I never had to talk to him, argue with him, or deal with his shit. There was only ever silence. There was only ever silence and the mission.

“So what is this?” I asked him. “Come to see me off?”
He just stared at me. So I stared back. We did this for a good little while before he pulled out a knife and a mask. They looked like my old ones. They had all the same curves and markings. The mask even had the same crack in it. And then I understood. Or so I thought I did. I thought he was disobeying orders to try to help me.

“But the-” I started. I started but was made to stop. He put a finger up in a shushing gesture. Then he pointed to my waist. I looked down and saw two long stretched arms around me, the 'arms' of the master. I turned as fast as I could but in the moment he was out of my sight he disappeared on me. Not that it mattered really. His brief appearance made handlers point. He was here on behalf of the master, not for me. But that suited me just fine.
I turned back to handler. I still had questions. I had so many things I wanted to know about these last few days.
“Why am I still alive?” I asked.
“Why was I not allowed to kill that runner?” I demanded.
 “During what cold day in hell did the master start forgiving anyone for anything?”  I yelled getting more and more desperate with each question I asked.
And then I remembered who I was trying to talk to, a fucking mute.

And I fell silent again. There were no answers or explanations… only silence. For the first time in a long time, that just wasn’t enough.
He must have grown impatient with me while I was muddling around in my thoughts because he forced the knife and the mask in my hands. And then he spoke. He spoke and for that moment that’s all there was. The world went black and his one word drowned my mind putting all my concerns to rest. When I finally came back to earth I knew his word and it was the only answer I needed.
He said, “Proxy.”
I am a proxy and that’s all I need to know. I serve the master and there is only the mission.
Then he nodded at me and I nodded back to assure him that I understood. And then he left.

My mind was racing. Flying at 100 miles an hour at all the terrible things I was going to do for the master. I started for the door. I was too eager to wait and wanted to start practicing on the people outside.
I tripped and all my thoughts came crashing back to earth. I had tripped over the kid and I was reminded of the gravity of those terrible things. His haunting eyes… they reminded me of what it really meant to be a proxy. He reminded me that proxies are monsters only capable of hurt and betrayal. He reminded me that people in general were monsters like that. He reminded me that I was a monster like that.

He reminded me of so many things that would have been better off forgotten. That cowardly little shit took away my peace and left me with my confusion and my rage.
… But the more I thought about it the more I realized that was something I needed to thank him for. Things just would have been so much easier the other way.




So I buried him out in the woods. I made his mask his tombstone and I came back and wrote this. I wrote this in his memory as a thank you. It feels wordy but there really aren’t enough words you can put to an honest thank you so these will just have to be enough.
Here’s a little summary for those struggling with the underlying message: Thanks you little shit head.
I’ll keep in touch but I have a life of hurt and betrayal to readjust to.
Not that most of you seven care.