“Hey stop thief!" Shouted a short plump man at the sight of me pickpocketing his wife.

Now here I am on the run from the town’s guards. Yet again.

I’ve been here for a couple months now; working my life off for Mr. Jiseppi, the leader of a ‘private company’ that rescued me, supposedly.

“Hey, I said stop” shouted a guard firing an arrow at me

I just narrowly avoid it crashing hard into the wagon of a village trader

“You mottherf-”, the trader yells but I’m already making up distance

“Stop!” The guards continue inaccurately firing at me

I keep running, my calves are burning like hell

This is the town of Lyfia, an obscure village that on one side is nothing but forest, and the other a desert.

A place where nobodies born and die.

“Three of them!” I yell as I stumble into an alley

The closest place from this village is a massive ‘Holy’ city, one week away on foot however no one can survive a day through the desert

Raising my hands in the air as I see the guards approaching, “I give up, take me in.”

As the three men cautiously move towards me a group of cloaked figures appear from the shadows swiftly slicing their throats off

The sight of blood gushing out their throats doesn’t even phase me anymore, as I silently loot the corpses,

Another day at the office I guess.

***

(“Kill, Sell Kill, remember this pattern because it’s your life’s motto”) ……

The first thing the boss taught me on his ‘Business’

“Thirteen! Stop daydreaming and walk faster,

I don’t like being in this forest as is”

“I was thinking about what we do” I say

“You know, you’re getting pretty good at this”

Scowling at him I walk slower lagging behind

“I want to kill boss Eleven, I can’t do this anymore”

“Look I told you we’ll find the right opportunity,

I’ve been doing this longer than you,

How you think I feel, being a number,

Look let’s get to meeting place quickly, we’ll talk about this later,”

“…….….”

Numbers that’s what we are to the boss I was the thirteenth member he roped into his ‘business’, Eleven been here since he was a child, he’s right I need to be patient

“This is the place thirteen” eleven says as we approach a clearing in the forest

A cloaked figure is there

“Weapons” he rasps, “you have them?”

*Nodding* “payment?”

As he reaches for his coins, I notice gold piece of paper up his sleeve

“On second thought” Eleven says, rushing towards him stabbing him into his neck

Green blood gushes out, was he not human?

“Eleven what hells!”

Grabbing the paper from the humanoid creature’s corpse, he says

“Another lesson boss taught us, if the client has something more valuable than what they’re paying,

Kill them and take it.”