People are so easy to kill.

Just a knife through the heart and you’re no longer breathing. A new corpse added to the masses. No one would even know or care that you’re gone.

Even with an armored body and heart, there’s no chance of survival. Blood pours and skin breaks, mouths cry out and limbs flail, but, nonetheless, you’re dead. A forgotten body among the rest.

Evan watched unflinchingly as the building burned. Smoke clouds billowed from the many burning rooms, as well as ear-piercing screeches and guttural screams. He concealed his fear and often failing empathy with the façade he’d spent years developing.

He didn’t save anyone. He didn’t even save himself.

Evan’s gaze glided around the crowded street in front of the burning home. So many terrified faces who have no idea what happened. They all had no idea that Evan was the one who had sparked the blazing inferno. They all had no idea that Evan was a murderer. An arsonist. That he deliberately did this, on command.

“You’ve done your job, Evan,” a male voice crackled over the walkie-talkie in Evan’s hand. “All you need to do now is wait. I’ll come by and drive you back later, over.”

“Got it,” Evan whispered into his device. “Over.”

The walkie-talkie buzzed with static, and Evan restlessly stood beside the terrified people surrounding him, waiting for the man on his walkie-talkie. He flinched when an explosion from one of the top floors popped and crackled charred debris onto the street, almost catching the concrete on fire. Embers flew but died out before they could touch the street.

Everyone was so caught up in the moment that they didn’t notice the sleek red car pulling up to the alleyway directly next to the burning apartment building.

Evan ran toward the car, dodging the crowd of people until he reached the door handle. The entire car reflected the burning building, the mirror-image flames dancing in the rearview mirror. Evan tried to hold back horrified screams as he finally realized what he’d done. He’d killed all the people in the building and burned it down to the very foundation.

And no one knew.

The window rolled down, revealing a man in his late twenties, his hair meticulously and fashionably styled. It was Elameere, Evan’s mentor in assassination.

“You’ve done well, I take it?”

Evan heaved a deep breath. Elameere’s gaze was set on the flaming building behind him. Evan barely glanced at the odd little smirk on Elameere’s face.

“You’re ready. You really are ready.”

Evan held his breath. The sick smell of smoke clung to his clothes like a pestering leech. He climbed into the sleek red car, Elameere beaming in the rearview mirror.

“The job is done,” Elameere whispered.

“All there is left to do is to complete my next mission,” Evan said in a robotic tone, shoving his emotions deep inside an abandoned cavern in his heart. He could practically hear Captain Zonya’s raspy voice whispering in his ear: Emotions are not fit for an assassin. I never would have gotten this far as a mercenary if I had a shred of emotion left.

“Straight to the Captain’s house we go, then. You’ll get your chance yet, Evan. You’ll get your chance.” Elameere ran a hand through his hair, a habit he got when he was nervous.

Elameere had been training Evan for over ten years in the ways of a mercenary. He had no right to be nervous on Evan’s behalf. He might have raised Evan, put a roof over his head, clothed him, and fed him, but he still had no right to be nervous. No, it was Evan with the fleece over his eyes that day.

“I smell like smoke,” Evan noted, fidgeting with the hem of his black sweatshirt.

“You can wash up after you meet with the Captain,” Elameere responded. His eyes flicked back to Evan, but he showed no emotion in his eyes. And that was what he was supposed to do, as assassins aren’t fit for having emotional connections. Though, of course, Elameere didn’t always obey that rule. “It will go away, eventually.”

Evan closed his eyes. Elameere didn’t understand. He could never prove himself as an assassin when he couldn’t even punch a person without feeling guilty, let alone kill someone without feeling utter regret. He didn’t even directly kill anyone this time, and someone was bound to survive the fire. But every time he blinked, he saw the ashes and embers flying. This wasn’t his first time he watched a life being taken. But this time was different. He had caused the pain and suffering of those people. He had killed all of them. But, Evan convinced himself, it’s how we pay the bills.

Elameere and Evan sat in silence as the car rumbled across the uneven concrete of Morti roads. Evan drifted away and into sleep; dreaming of fire, ash, and burning flesh.

—

Evan shouldn’t have fallen asleep.

Maybe if he was conscious, he would have stopped Elameere from parking the car in front of this murder house. Maybe he would have been spared the reek of blood and pain.

But Captain Zonya wouldn’t have waited any longer for Evan’s next mission, Evan would have just been avoiding the sadly inevitable. This was something he needed to do.

The car shook to a stop, grinding gravel beneath its black tires. Evan startled awake, his eyes flooding with light. He had to squint to make out the outline of the house in front of him. It was a neat marble house, gleaming white, and flooding with unnaturally bright light reflected from the two suns above.

“The greatest assassin in Morti,” Elameere growled, wrinkling his nose. Dislike flared in his eyes, but he just clenched his fists and led Evan inside. “You’ll get used to the light,” Elameere reassured him. Evan blinked several times and the blinding light was tolerable.

The large marble house was even brighter inside than on the outside. Chandeliers sparkled from the ceiling, and some sort of creatures with shimmery neon wings sparkled in small jars. They were in a grand room beside a corridor that led to many other rooms, but all of it was silent and eerily lifeless.

“Pixies,” a raspy but, oddly enough, hypnotically beautiful voice announced from the top of the grand, sparkly marble stairs, “from Lunaris. Pretty, aren’t they?”

Elameere’s hand reached for his dagger, but it stopped when the glinting helmet came into view. It was the helmet of Evan’s nightmares, the monster under his bunk. Captain Zonya, the greatest assassin Morti had ever seen. And, by far, the most terrifying person Morti had ever seen. She won that award fifteen centuries in a row.

“Deadly barbs on their wings. Bioluminescent. So elegantly pretty from afar, so lethal up close. I find them to be great company. We have lots in common.”

The pretty voice grew closer, and a shimmering white feather dress that perfectly matched the marble came into view. “There are so many interesting creatures that inhabit this world.”

The dress sashayed closer, and a woman that seemed to match the white dress and white marble smiled. Though she looked rather young, she appeared to be in her late twenties, her shimmering, snowy blonde hair was almost white, and her creamy, ivory-grey eyes were unsettling. It was hard to believe that she was many, many centuries old when she looked like such a lively young woman. She then took off her golden helmet and showed that she had scars to match the white colors of her surroundings, they were whitish pink in color and covered her face like a spider’s web. “This dress is made of an angel’s feathers. Beautiful, harmless creatures. I do not enjoy death without challenge, but this animal was different. This one had fear in its eyes; a frantic, panicked look. Just like you, small one.”

Elamere wrinkled his nose. “We came here for this small one’s badge. Evan is ready to become a fully fledged assassin.”

“Ah,” Zonya said, “Of course.”

Zonya pinched Evan’s cheeks, inspecting him from head to toe. “He’s certainly fit enough, but is he emotionally ready? The fear in his eyes tells me no, but he may be able to prove me wrong.”

Evan swallowed nervously. He brushed the tips of his fingers along the hilt of his knife, nervous that he might need it.

Zonya motioned silently to the door beside her and an old man (Evan could tell by the graying, receding hair and incredible age of his eyes) with shackles was led by two guards through the room to Evan. Elameere tried to conceal his surprise, but a flash of startled emotions danced across his face, making Evan more nervous than he was before. Elameere had warned him that Zonya was going to make him do something mind-shatteringly violent, but this almost seemed too easy. An old man was easy to kill.

But Zonya’s expression said otherwise. The mix of smug smirk and snarl on her scarred face made Evan’s stomach turn.

“Kill him.”

Evan’s face stayed emotionless, but the hesitation could be seen. He prayed to the gods above that he would find repentance in the afterlife. This old man probably violated a law, maybe committed treason. Evan didn’t care, as long as the life was peacefully drained out of him.

Evan brought out his knife, swallowing again. This time he had a bad feeling in his stomach. He could almost feel the fire behind his eyes, the one he had started just hours ago. You’ll have your chance, Elameere’s voice said in his mind. And he will. He would take his chance from this man. He was going to die soon anyway, by the look of him.

But then, the door opened once again by the second guard and a family of three was let in.

Evan almost puked on the spotless marble floor. It was two little children, a boy and a girl, and a woman that must have been their mother. He looked over to Elameere, who’s eyes were wide with surprise and horror. He cursed under his breath.

The boy let out a gasp and dashed towards the old man. “Grandpa!” he yelped. The girl, tears streaming down her face in rivulets, sobbed so hard she fell to the ground. She grasped the old man’s robes and sniffled into them.

Captain Zonya cleared her throat. With a swish of her angel feather dress, she said “In your assassin work, you may come across a victim’s family. But you must not show emotion. To be an assassin, you must kill without remorse. Don’t give into the regret, the guilt, the thoughts that tell you to spare a life. Death is holy, death is forgiveness. Death is much better than the other options we could be dealing with. Evan, you must kill this man.”

Evan gulped. He looked down once more on the family. The mother holding her children tight. The old man with no fear in his all-seeing eyes. The boy looked up. “Are you… a monster?” he asked, hushed.

Evan looked away. He quite honestly didn’t know how to respond to that question. He took a deep breath, unsheathing his small dagger. He was going to do this. He needed to be strong. To be vulnerable is to be weak. When you’re weak, you’re singled out and killed first. He set his eyes on his target, and threw his dagger with eerie precision. The sound of the dagger piercing flesh and the agonized screams of the family were drowned out by the sound of Evan’s own heartbeat. There was no going back now. Flames licked at his shoes, he practically felt the heat on his cheeks.

The boy screamed.

“You are a monster! You killed Grandpa!”

“How could you!”

“Look at what you’ve done!”

Evan smiled, the fire now filling his whole being, consuming him fully.

“The job is done.”