I no longer hear the pain, the cries of voices. I no
longer can feel compassion for my fellow ?man?, for I no longer am one. If you
hear the faintest sound of a woman screeching, begging, for mercy, ?tis me. I?m
the very darkness, no not even darkness, the very HELL inside of you, the
essence of you.
"God! What in hell am I doing here again?." I
hollered only to be responded by winter wind. My eyes shifted from the bar to
the bank. What WAS I doing here? I didn't even remember, for it was none of my
concern or even remote interest until shillings were softly pocketed in the
palms of steely, cold hands. I knew better than to stand around in an utter
abyss of bricks, houses, and prostitutes. I knew full well what my actions
would consequence in, had this NOT been for money, but just to stand, just to
stand still I wouldn't be there. I wouldn't be anywhere, but in the Purgatory I
resided in.
How I hated waiting, how I despised my clients to be
late. The constant ticking, the repetitive clicking of a watch was the only
noise that I had ever even grown accustom to. My mind wander, and I looked at
the pocket watch on the ground, "Midnight. Dammit! Where is he?" I
turned around and around before I grew dizzy and nearly sickly. "Damn
him," the tipsy thoughts in my mind were rattled by the sudden movement in
the corner of my luminescent green eyes. The steps grew louder, but stayed same
pace. The slightest drip, and ripple of a puddle almost echoed. My head shot to
the side, ever so cautious and aware of what satanic beings prowled around.
"Dave. I didn't think you would come!" The
pizzicato, bellowing voice of an English gentile was recognizable with the keen
hearing I had. I glared on making sure he was hiding nothingness. The young
man's cloak hesitated to wave as if afraid I would utterly destroy it's very
value or rather its meaning in life and I would not stop to if it meant that I
had no place or even a will to shred it. I chuckled lowly, "You're late my
good man. About an hour late to be more exact." The long, deadly silence
that passed wasn't something I was quite familiar with when it came to my
clients. He smirked, grinning from ear to ear, "Yes, well, coming out into
the open like this, I'm no longer aware of the winding turns, and the
continuous clack of cobblestone." My eyes rolled. He stepped forward and I
nearly stopped him in his tracks, but he steadily, walked towards me and handed
me a sheet of parchment. "This is whom you will kill. He is to be killed
tomorrow about midnight. I'll pay you half now and half later." My lips
turned from a serious expression to a frown, "You pay me full shillings
now or you get no assassination." There it was again and that eerie voice,
"If you don't like the way I do things I'll get another assassin, or
rather I'll kill you."
He removed his cloak and at once, at a near god-like
speed, unsheathed a sword, and lunged at me. I couldn't help but pull a
Cheshire Cat. I was calm, eerily calm which was my nature in factual truth. The
shadows, my brethren, collected to my side. I grabbed a throwing knife, as a
matter of fact I had grabbed several. The uncanny spring, and slide of the
knives was quick. I was merciless, I was ruthless. The Cat faded, but in it's
place grew a wider, and more sadistic, sick, and twisted grin. The almost
nuclear green in my eyes turned almost light bulb like. The usual sharp click
of the knives against the wall was muffled by the cloth. The young man dropped
the sword. My brothers huddled around me. Their harsh, musty voice all spoke at
once, telling me, almost whispering in my ear to finish him off. The uncertain
voices almost boomed, exploded into my ears. My eyes grew wider, as the man
pleaded for his very life. I didn't care. It was not my place to decide whether
he lived just to decide how to kill him. My hands tenderly grasped a red vial.
It was filthy with dust, and boiled in my hand.
I grabbed a knife and took it to the skin on his arm, and
raked it downwards. His screams would not stop me. They would not halt my
actions nor did I wish to stop. Blood raced down his arm, to his fingers tips
till his arm turned bone white. I could hear the beating of his heart, but it
only made my thirst grow more and more. I dug the blade in to him more than
realized I had come to his wrist. With a sickening thrust I yanked the bloodied
knife from the now limp limb. Trails of the crimson water trickled from the
handle and down to my gloved hand. I turned the knife right side up and smirked
again.
A quick glance at him I could hear or rather see his
screams. I etched my face closer to the blade and licked the flat edges, than
the sharps forking my tongue. Nerves in my tongue screamed, but I paid no mind.
I plunged the vial in the large wound I had inflicted and watched as the acidic
parasites began to eat the flesh of the man. 'Dying alive. What pity your not
in a church.' The man cried out again realizing the parasites had already
almost eaten half of the remaining flesh on his bone. My cloak wiped about me
and my brothers. The laughed sadistically, hysterically. My teeth showed threw
a crude smile. I sheathed the knife, and dove my hand into the Englishman's
chest cavity. Clenched fingers, and a quick pull and I came to the conclusion
that I now held his still beating heart in my hands. Its slow and painless, thump,
thump, thump of his heart was like music to my ears. I crushed it and let fall
what did. The voices in my head cheered me on, called out to me and said with
their unmistakable cry, "The throat. The throat! THE THROAT!" Before
I knew what I had down my hands held an Adam's Apple, and voice box. Now filled
with contentment I let the throat fall with no regard about what happened to
it. And with that I left.
The soft tapping, rapping of my boots. The soft whisper
of my cape, and the dead silence that would forever follow my murderous nature.
And thus I'm Poison Arrow, the lethal weapon and the wrath of a Satanic power.
I'm the darkness, the nothingness that hides inside of you. I'm the one, the
only one that can, and WILL be your savior, your sacrificer, your murderer,
your life, your death, and your birth.