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.

Runner Bullshit

---------------------------

Edit:

The following was posted over the course of two fits, the time it took for me to salvage the hard drive after the laptop was smashed at the end of the last fit, the time it took to transfer that to a new hard drive, the time it took for subject 926 to finalize his draft after all that, and the time it took for me to edit this draft with a disclaiming edit thereafter.

-Fracture

---------------------------

Edit: Edit: (?)

FUCK YOU!!!

-Swan (ß An additional fuck you! My name is nicer!)

---------------------------

FUCK, it hurts. FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK

THISISRUNNERBULLSHIT! I’m a proxy damn it! FFFUUCCCKKK

la, la la.

Getting ahead of myself. Let me scale back for a second or something. If I’m going to do this… I really should do it right. I’m going to take a page out of Captain Flying Rock Monster’s book and see if this isn’t easier if I try to tell it from the beginning. Keep in mind this is NOTFORFUCKINGYOU. This is for me. I need to figure out exactly what happened. Since Fracture is being extra useless this is last fucking alternative.

Since the crying has finally stopped, let’s begin.
I seem to be suffering from migraine inducing memory loss. That is to say, whenever I try to remember what the fuck happened I break out in sweat, migraines, crying, itches, and the urge to bang my head against the fucking wall. The brain pain starts whenever I try to remember anything that happened within the last, what I am assuming, 8 days and feel insanely worse the later into that time period the thing I am trying to remember is.

Roughly two days after my first post, which is about two days before that fucking painful 8 day period, I finally managed to catch Fracture off guard at the hotel. I slugged him and when he turned to face me I slammed my shovel down on top of his skull. Then we stared each other down until I was sure he knew we were good and even and left after slugging him again. I think he went to deal with his bleeding scalp. On another happy note, I spent much of the next two days throwing lit firecrackers at Firecracker because it freaks her the fuck out. Ha ha. She gets so mad.

Two days later (Fuck, I can already feel the fucking migraine start to kick in.), Fracture had me call everyone together for some stupid fucking meeting in my room. Using the book I brought back, Fracture had managed to determine the location and goals of that stupid fuck Kreeger and his stupid fucking cronies. Apparently those sick fucks had been collecting children being watched by the master and were gathering them in some shack in the fucking woods of all places in an effort to force the master in a place of their fucking choosing for a fight. They corralled the little shits by way of tranquilizer or something. It hurts a little to draw on specifics... um... the stun stick. Fracture gave me a new toy.

“I’m hoping to brin(FUCK)g some of these bastards back alive. To help you with your little killing prob(FUCKFUCKFUCK)lem, I had this made.”itswas astupid fuckingstunstick shapedlikeaknife with ahiltand everythingthat goesoff whenever you presstheknife part to anything.

FUCK. Fuckfuckfuck! Why the fuck did I do that to myself. QUIT CRYING YOU FUCKING PUSSY!

… La, la la, la la, la…

And there went the TV out the window. Fortunately, the fire escape caught it.
I’m going to go ahead and move forward and we’ll see if I can’t finish this without throwing anything else out the window. Just in case though, I have Fracture with me this time so if I do snap I won’t break anything important in the room. I’ll just break him.

So we picked up and went to Kreeger’s group’s stupid fucking hideout. First by car, FUCK, and then walking, sneaking, elephant. Once fucking close Fracture did some recon. The children were… god damn it, in the fucking basing in a giant fucking cage of all motherfucking things. Seriously, what the fuck. Nine. 2 up, 5 mid, 2 down. Firec and Tren wnet top. Frac bot. I waited 5, charged mid.

IFYOULETTHEMHURTTHOSEFUCKINGKIDSI”LLENDYOU

whatever

Clear

Clear

Clear

... (That one was trent.)

They missed one. Down thestairs. Firecrackerlookout!

THISISNOTFUCKINGACCEPTABLE!whathappened,whathappened,whathapstopfuckingcryingandjustfuckingrememberalreadypagoha[hj]aeoargnargbuinbzfkj;agbjoleri[oaoBlackbloodaerop;aasgnoFUCK

…la, la la…

And after that I broke my laptop… on Fracture I think. I’m not sure. I think he might have moved. In which case I probably broke it on the desk. Fuck, I’m rambling.

I spent several hours looking over what I wrote to try to figure out what the fuck happened which also hurt but not nearly as much as remembering and writing it did. I… think I have a better understanding of what happened, except Firecracker isn’t dead or even hurt so, oww, sure something happened there. Fucking headache flares up at the simple fucking thought of that. ThefucKWHY...

Not even sure how we got back. Those fuckers much have fucking carried me back. And I noticed something on that end note. What in the fuck does FUCK. Ow. I’ll try to type this fast.

blackblodo

FUKFUCKFUCK.

…mmean. Why do those two words hurt so fucking much to think about…

…La, la la…

I should stop before I break something again.

On a closing note, according to Fracture, all of the kids made it out alive and have been returned to... umm... somewhere? I'm assuming their homes or wherever the master was storing them. We also didn't manage to bring any of Kreeger's gang back alive which suits me just fine. Fuck those assholes, seriously. They deserved it. Fracture says the book only had ten names in it so with any luck that is the end of them.

God damn it! Even this tertiary crap is hurting my head to think about.

I can’t take anymore fucking crying,
Ugly fucking Duck out.

Nothing

We’ll I was wrong, yesterday sucked.

We watched that door for hours but no one came out. I was beginning to think there may have been another way out and that the mark had slipped away on us. I had the great misfortune of being wrong. As the sun began to rise I decided I was done waiting and told Fracture to start for the motel while I deal with the mark. I got up there to find piles of canned foods. It looked like the mark had been here for a while and had no intention of going anywhere. That’s a pretty cocky move for someone living on someone else’s roof. And then I got a look at my sleeping mark and realized why he thought this was going to work out for him. He was about 9 years old.

The gravity of this took a good minute to sink into my brain properly.
How did a 9 year old get his hands on this much food?
How did he sneak it onto the roof of a hotel?
Why the hell was this mark assigned to me?

As far as I was concerned, this wasn’t happening. They could send someone else to take care of this. I already did the part of finding him. The next hunter would just have to come up and slit the little shit’s throat when I was good and gone. That’s what I kept telling myself as I pulled out my phone.

That’s what I kept mumbling as I looked down at my phone and realized my vision was starting to blur.
And then once more, the world went black…

When I came to my senses I found I was coated in blood. I was holding a… piece of the kid. I had mutilated him, but my knife was clean. I had carried out this gruesome scene with my bare hands. I was in complete disbelief. I had to close my eyes so I couldn’t see it or I was going to vomit.

This never should have happened.
Not like this. Not by me.
All I could think was that this was part of my punishment. The master must have made me do it because he knew it would hurt me. That’s why I’m alive right? So I can endure further punishment for my disobedience in my last life. So the monster I call master can teach me a lesion that I can carry to my grave.

Perhaps this is what I get for making rules for myself that I put above him. If I’m going to get through this, I’m going to need to be ready hurt more children.

It’s all very hypocritical of me anyways. I always justified the killing with the logic that no one life was worth more than another. Since I have already killed someone, I was being disrespectful to the dead if I wasn’t ready to kill absolutely everyone else. I never included kids in that everyone, but I guess I should have.

It’s got me thinking though.
What makes my life worth more than my victim’s since I keep surviving but they don’t?

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.