“What is life but seeking an ending,

and what is a story but failing to reach one?”

I open my eyes.

Blazing toward my target, I streak through a dusty atmosphere.

Accelerating through the enemies, I rotate, impacting a surface.

Before time can flow, I clutch the smooth handle of a weapon I create on a whim.

I don’t see it, and never have, but I inherently know every detail down to its atomic structure.

Grinning, I let it loose. Firing a colorless laser, I aim at every blurry placeholder daring to fight me.

The drab cityscape illuminates in a brilliant lightshow as they disappear, deathless. Pure adrenaline is through my body, felt as exhilaration pushing me onward.

Bursting forward, I see and dodge every bullet attempted at me.

Right foot on the ground, twisting around my center of mass, I dance, unleashing my new weapon that has always been a part of me.

This feels amazing. Every part of me is in perfect sync with the flowing pathos of my motion.

Air rushes around me, tugging at my hair and clothes, launching myself further towards my apparent target.

Catalyzing more nameless weapons, parallel to me and in line with my vector, the surroundings rush behind me.

Reality heats with the fervor of passion as my breath shortens yet.

My probably-human target takes the blinding impact along with a vortex of dust before rushing to meet me once more.

Launched skyward, I move as if even the air can’t stop me from moving how I want to and land a falling kick faster than lightning.

They react even faster, and I circle around their position, creating a crater in the earth to have space to avoid its formless attack.

I concentrate everything I have into one final effort in which I have yet to realize.

They take it, blown back and impossibly damaged, but remaining infinitely far away from defeat.

Keeping with my stream of movement I—

…

I blink the delusion out of my eyes and refocus them to a far more boring sight. I should really stop being so childish. I have a job that I need to focus on.

The midday sun shines heat onto me, adding a layer of discomfort that serves only as an annoyance. Right now, I lay prone on top of a rooftop in the slums, overlooking the fortified area of the upper class. Our mission is to assassinate the enemy leader and get out. Whether or not we can accomplish this will change the course of the war—as if we weren’t going to win anyway.

I noisily shift from my uncomfortable position and readjust my focus to look through the lens of my familiar TAC-338 sniper rifle once again.

Dang, I was too preoccupied dozing off to notice that I have a clear shot on my target. Odd, I don’t normally do that. I’ll have work on improving my attention later.

Doing calculations quickly, I take in relevant factors for the shot. Distance, wind, gravity, humidity, bullet type, barometric pressure, and Coriolis force—all accounted for. I don’t have years of experience but doing the calculations quickly and aiming in the right spot aren’t that hard. All you need is the right mindset for improvement along with the necessary physical skills. Both of which I mastered long ago. One might say that I’ve trained all my life for doing this, but that would be a lie. I trained sure, but never with any particular goal in mind.

“Target in sight, distance is 1,900 yards. Adjust—” My elite spotter starts from behind me.

“I know. I have the shot lined up.” I say in my mid-toned voice without any inflection. “Comm the others to confirm that they’re in position.”

“Roger that.”

While he follows my command, I observe my target through the window of his mansion. He is the “enemy” leader that commands a significant portion of their army. Coincidentally, he is also another human being that believes that he’s doing what’s right for his country. From his perspective, I’m the enemy that needs to die at any cost. So, he really isn’t that different from me. Other than the fact I have him in my sights, that is. But it doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m going to kill him for my own selfish reasoning. Even if I didn’t, it would be someone else, right?

Past the lens of my scope, he interacts with his daughter. I obviously can’t know what he says, but his wide actions indicate frustration. Are those going to be his last words?

“Alright, Delta and Theta are in position. Fire when ready,” my spotter confirms.

Focusing, I pull the trigger.

A gunshot resounds as the bullet’s vapor trail launches outward. It takes a few seconds to reach its destination.

“Kill confirmed,” he says both to me and through the comms.

It’s done. I’m a murderer once more. It isn’t the first death I caused and won’t be the last as long as I keep with this career. I can have time for feeling bad later. Right now is the riskiest point in the whole operation. Not that there’s much to be worried about.

“Their movements?” I casually ask my spotter as I already prepare to head out.

“They’re moving quickly. We have about 2 minutes tops till they’re on us.”

“More than enough time then.”

Hopping off the ledge, we land on the rough dirt. My body armor and sidearm make a metallic clink as my heavy backpack weighs me down. We nod to each other wordlessly and split up to head towards our preplanned escape route. A single person running is much less suspicious than two.

Of course, our route along with the entire operation is completely planned out, including seven contingencies. As long as we predict every likely action that our opponent could take, and plan accordingly, we won’t lose. Not that it’s possible to do so with 100% certainty, but the odds are far better than any other option. So always follow the plan; never have the freedom to do anything else—that’s what the optimal strategy is. It’s technically my strategy, but that doesn’t make it any less restricting to me. If anything, it makes me even more bound to it.

Explosions sound around the city as I slink through shaded narrow corridors. They’re triggered alongside our false evidence and act as decoys to provide chaos. Because with it, there are always opportunities.

As I jog down corridors that have been cleared ahead of time, a ping sounds on my wrist. It notifies me that intruders are detected in the building that we used as a sniper outpost. I punch the eight-digit code into the watch to detonate the prepared charges we set up far in advance. This won’t be even remotely interesting if they act so hastily against us. Which I definitely want them to do, right? There is no reason to want a challenge in these circumstances.

I stop as I reach the single necessary intersection in my route. Focusing, I take in my surroundings as fast as possible and make a mental profile of every relevant detail. There is always benefit from gaining better information.

Most notable is the squad of ten soldiers followed by a metal truck making their way to the city center. Seven of them wear gear covering their faces, but the three who don’t, show weariness and stress. Also in the intersection is a shop owner hurriedly trying to close his store. A couple argues whether to go back and look for a ring they apparently dropped. If they tried, they would be able to see that it is around four meters to their left, probably kicked there. In general, the atmosphere is chaotic as people rush to safety.

In the reflection of the shiny metal truck, a 22-year-old guy with a balanced, muscular build stares back at me. His hair is styled—or lack of it—in messy spikes colored a glossy white. On his face are focused gray eyes with heavy bags under them, along with a carefully guarded expression that gives no information. A desert camo is worn as the local military uniform for deception. And also, he wears some plain black fingerless gloves, which I can’t deny look cool. If I saw this guy on the street, I would absolutely give him my attention. That face can’t be doing anything good.

Wow, my thoughts really are sidetracked now.

“Hey, stop!”

As I cross the intersection into yet another narrow alleyway, a shout sounds from the side. One of the soldiers spotted and identified me somehow. It doesn’t matter that much though; I’ll do the optimal course of action for my benefit. Is there no way to communicate to them that if they stand in my way, I’ll have no choice but to kill them?

Immediately before two armed soldiers round the corner, I fire my submachine gun, letting them walk into the bullets before they can have a chance to fully recognize the situation. I quickly run out of my clip as the remaining eight soldiers approach loudly.

Not even an inconvenience.

In one fluid motion I drop the sub, toss a frag grenade, load a spare round into my sniper, and fire it perfectly at the grenade as I round yet another corner, protecting myself. I can’t guarantee that they died, so that must count for something, right? The wrenching feeling in my stomach says otherwise.

It was at least fairly satisfying to execute, even if it wasn’t too difficult. I say that as I kill or injure ten people? Eh, I do know that I’m not a good person to say the least.

Thinking from their perspective, they should have shot before yelling to give me no time to react. The reason why is that they didn’t want to hurt somebody who could be potentially a citizen. Also, grouping too close together is in general a bad idea; it’s far too easy for an explosive to take them all out in one shot. Not to mention, they could have simply shot through the wood buildings. Oh well, they had such little time to react. They followed what their gut instinct was, which is usually wrong due to its sheer predictability. Which I capitalized on.

Honestly, is there any point in trying to analyze the actions of people I just murdered? Learning from mistakes is crucial, but at this point, I’m doing nothing but entertaining myself from this boredom.

Thudding one foot after another on the hard dirt, I enter the final section of the slums. Most reasonable people are sheltered inside wherever they can find. Those that don’t, see my uniform and move out of my path. Unfortunately, there are going to be some people that stubbornly refuse to be reasonable. Rounding yet another corner, a guy roughly in his late teens and dressed in rags stands, staring angrily at me and refuses to move as I approach. He shouts in his native language, which of course I understand from my preparation. If there is useful information to gain beforehand, why not learn it?

“I refuse to back down! You can’t keep destroying your own city like this! I refuse to bow!” he defiantly snarls, lowering himself into a fighting stance with only his bare fists. Great, an angry revolutionary is mistaking me for being a part of their regime, who in this situation is ironically innocent.

He is unarmed, so I lean my shoulder forward and attempt to barrel through him. He makes the right move for stopping me in this situation, which is to duck down and grapple my legs. The fastest way to get out of this is with a simple bullet to his head, but something stupidly small makes me pause—his defiant determined look that won’t back down against overwhelming odds. Somehow nostalgia rushes through me, and I don’t pull the trigger. Instead, as he grabs me, I tuck into a roll while kicking my leg upwards, catching his chin at the perfect angle with only enough force to knock him out for a second or two. I lost a bit of time that I could have saved, which supposedly matters a lot, but it really won’t make a huge difference.

I can’t help but be reminded of myself as a kid and how I was always so obsessed with improving myself however I could. Probably either due to or causing me not to have any friends. After a while, it felt bad to not be getting better at something useful. Keep doing that with a boring puberty, and you’ll get to where I am. There is only so much you can gain from being skilled though. I thought that I would be some sort of superhuman if I could just perfect my mind and body. And yeah, I am at the peak of human performance now, but above all, I realize that doing so never brought any real meaning to my life.

I would choose some skill with apparent value, such as martial arts, and focus on mastering it for as long as it takes to get there. In retrospect, I realize that it was simply my method of coping with parents that were too preoccupied with work to notice me. Nobody around could ever compete with me, but that’s just the big-fish-small-pond effect. Meaning that there is a challenge somewhere out there, and that I can’t relax my training ever. Not until I can have a chance to truly prove myself.

Which of course there never is.

At some point, I heard some people say something about how elite the U.S. Navy Seals were. So why not? I decided to join them on another one of my whims. Somewhere along the way, during the standard training, I was pulled into a select team for top secret missions, which is where I am now. Maybe, just maybe, I thought fighting would be enough to actually excite me. That’s what one would expect, right? In reality though, it’s the same as everything else: Master the fundamentals, get enough practice, calculate all of the variables, prepare for said variables, and you’ll win every time. Too easy. Far too easy to be exciting. My heartrate hasn’t even gone above 100 beats per minute.

A breeze kicks up dust, bringing me away from my self-reflection and obscuring my vision of what would otherwise be a straightaway to my goal. Continuing forward regardless, I once more take in as much detail as humanly possible.

Ahead of me, on the edge of the city, lays an inconspicuous building containing our escape vehicle. It appears uncompromised. Between me and it is the last open area of the mission. If this were a movie or something, here would be the climax where the final epic firefight occurs while the main character somehow manages to dodge every bullet and makes it just barely in the nick of time. Real life is rarely so predictable though. Most of the patrols have been called into the city center to search for the decoys we set, leaving my path clear. That’s not the only way this situation could have played out, but it’s what I find myself in.

Silence falls for a period, only broken by the padding of my boots on the ground and my restrained breath.

As I near the extraction point, our pilot communicates to me through my earpiece. “Delta, Beta and Theta are all ready. Just waiting on you, Epsilon.”

“Almost there.”

I swing the door open and see our custom F-35 Lightning II, modified to fit four people. I quickly climb aboard, slightly out of breath, and give a thumbs up to the pilot, Theta.

He flips a few switches as the final member of our team, the tech guy, codenamed Delta, enters a command into his laptop to release the dummy vehicles, giving us a bigger opening.

The jet engine unavoidably creates a huge amount of noise, but explosions sound even louder, letting us know they took the bait. The firing rate of this city’s defense system is very slow, so they won’t be able to fire at us for approximately thirty more seconds.

The holding gear retracts, and the makeshift hanger door opens as we rapidly accelerate, taking off into the air almost immediately.

There is nothing left for me to do anymore in this operation. Lazily, I look through the back window and see a few missiles fired at us. They are too far back from us to matter as we approach Mach 2. The g-force is fairly extreme, but nothing that isn’t capable of being dealt with.

I sigh as I shift in my seat. After this mission, I’m required to take time off and go on vacation for the next month. Most people should be excited to take a break, right? Somehow, I can’t help but dread the emptiness in my life that lies before me…