I was the final name.
I stared at the list in my hand for what felt like an eternity.
After checking off every name I soon noticed that my name was the last.
My name was the last on the list.
My own name.
Emery Cross.
This was the last list to complete. After this I would retire. That's the ending I wanted, right? To disappear. To finally stop this endless game of killing. I never thought this would be the price to leave the organization. I thought I would be able to finally leave. But, they didn't want me to leave. They left me with my final job. Just.. me. Killing myself.
I should've torn it up and walked away. I should have just thought of it as a joke. Maybe I believed I deserved it. They trained me to obey until obedience felt like comfort, maybe I just wanted that comfort. I know I should've torn it up.
But I didn't.
I just sat there in the run-down hotel room. I could hear the people in the room across the hall arguing. There was also a faint lingering smell of smoke. The place felt so plain to me. It was the type of place a drug dealer would stay at.
I could barely breathe.
I caressed the edge of the paper. It felt like a blade going against my skin. I'd held real swords, guns too. And yet, this little contract filled me with fear.
As I read the list over and over... their face. I kept on remembering them.
The people I'd killed.
Thankfully not all of them. God only know how many lives I've took. But some flicker in my mind, the pleading voices. The second before it all ends.
They haunt me every night. I don't know why I feel guilty. The lists I receive at the end of every month only have bad people on them. Is it truly wrong for me to kill bad people?
I normally tell myself it is just like a office job. I come to work, I do what I'm told and go home. Just a job.
I just kept on whispering: You are a soldier. Not a hero. You do what needs to be done.
I slouched back into the chair. The floor boards creaked beneath me as if it was tired, too. I looked at the reflection in the window. The face of the man looking back at me was much older than I had remembered. Gray patches in the beard. Cracks in the skin. Eyes as dark as the ocean.
I looked like a man way past his time
I carefully folded the paper. Slowly. Trying not to tear it. Then I set it on the table beside the bed.
The clock ticked, with every second I became more accepting of my fate.
My final hours where coming.
I did feel a little antsy so I walked through the city that night.
The cold air clashed with my skin, but I didn't feel cold. Everything around me felt like it didn't matter anymore. None of it felt like it mattered anymore.
My mind wandered to my old memories. Years ago. A long time before I became a hitman. Before I even became a soldier. Before I became this... thing. Back when I had a working leg. I was shot in the leg a couple years back running away from a gang, now I have a limp that I can't get rid of. I'll never be able to actually run again. Not that I need to run anymore but if I where any slower I would have most likely died.
I eventually ended up at a park.
It was quiet. I liked the emptiness. Just bare trees, dead grass, and a pond that had froze over. Christmas was just over the corner. Maybe this last hit was suppose to be an atonement for what I have done. For the countless families I have ended.
I opened my mouth, but my voice struggled to speak.
"Mom... Dad..."
The words felt as if they where something I shouldn't say. Like they didn't belong to me.
"I'm sorry."
My façade had finally cracked. Everything I had buried deep inside of me started pouring out. All the missions and blood. It all shattered.
"I'm sorry for what I have done. For what I have become." I whispered. "I'm sorry I didn't die sooner." The day I left for my first mission was the day a gas leak had happened. I know I should have been in that house during the explosion. I probably could have save them. But I wasn't there when they needed me. It still haunts me to this day.
There was no one to talk to. No one left who cared. Even if he told someone, the organization would eliminate that person. Under the assumption that they knew too much.
I slammed my hands against the table. My fists clashed against the wood like thunder, and a water bottle flew, rolling into the pond.
I sat down. Slouched. Shaking.
But I held back my tears. I believed it was unfair to cry, others cried for forgiveness. A little boy holding a stuffed bear. A young lady screaming under water. An old man clutching a locket. They all live in my shadow now. But I never stopped.
Maybe I felt okay with this because I saw it as an atonement, and yet the fear of death still was there.
"Mom... Dad..." I sighed holding back my tears, "I don't think I'll see you... again. You know after I do my last hit... I'm probably going to end up in a very opposite place from where you guys are." I thought of the time I first told them that I enlisted. They where against it but I thought I was going to serve for my country. Hell I didn't know that every countries government is corrupts. I should have just listened and stopped when they told me to.
It was time.
The job was quick.
I made sure of that. I didn't want too much pain.
No noise. Some hesitation.
Pfft
Then... cold.
Steel.
Blood.
Then nothing.
When I opened my eyes, something felt different... I felt different.
I wasn't dead. At least I felt alive.
The bed was soft. The air too, probably from anxiety. My heart started to pound. I glanced around the room, it reminded me of my apartment I had a long time ago.
"Ugh, where the hell am I." I mumbled to myself as I leaned up.
My clothes... gone. My gun... gone.
I bolted to the window. Something was wrong.
Outside, a white blanket of snow covered everything. People walked past happily in coats and scarves. Christmas lights twinkled from every building that I could see.
I froze.
I pressed my hands against the glass, and leaned forwards. My hands originally looked aged and wrinkled. Yet now they where perfectly smooth. Almost as if I was just born.
Then I saw the calendar through the glass.
Big, red, simple.
December 24, 2000.
Just when I was about to speak my words caught in my throat.
The date was exactly one day before I enlisted in the military.
Before I became... this vile monster.
I pushed myself away from the window, my heart hammered against my chest.
This has to be a dream, right?
A joke?
This has to be hell, I'm being punished for everything I've done.
Or...
This could be a second chance?
I don't know, and I don't care.
All I need to know is that tomorrow is the day my life changes.
I sure as hell didn't want to live that life again.
Then maybe this time, I don't have to end up as a ghost that takes lives.
Maybe this time... I can choose who I want to be.
Or is it already too late.
"Ahh fuck it!" I yelled to myself, "I know I don't deserve a second chance but... I'll take it."
Maybe I won't sign up this time. I will be at home and save my parents. I will finally be free.