(1).


The boy sat there in his class. It was the same routine every day. He would peek over his shoulder every few moments and look at the girl who sat near the back of the class. She was beyond beautiful, but in a strange sense. She was small for her age, actually petite. Her hair was a dark brown, with a small patch on each side died red on the front, and green in the back. Though she had braces, her smile gave life to the boy. No matter how angry he was, or sad, her little smile would cheer him up.

There was an issue however. The boy had not talked to her. He was too shy. He knew her name, and they had shared a few words, but that was all. He knew nothing about her. He had tried to talk to a couple of her friends, but they would just ignore him, or give him funny looks and walk away.

The boy soon began to think about what he would do. He thought and he thought, sometimes staying up till midnight trying to come up with a solution. He then had an idea. His passion had always been to write, so that was just what he would do.

He stayed up all night that night, trying to come up with something to write. When he did, he wrote it. The day, right before class began, he handed her the piece of paper. She looked at it, and read it. She then looked at him with a smile. “How sweet,” she said. “This is probably about the kindest thing anyone has ever written about me.”

Standing up from her seat, she leaned towards him. The boy hesitated. She then wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Her warm body filled the boy with joy. He smiled, and hugged her back. She leaned her head back and stood up on her tip toes, the boy leaned down, and they kissed.





(2).


Several droplets landed on his palm, and then the rain dwindled, until it stopped completely. It didn’t actually rain, but rather it was a hint of rain which often ceases and doesn’t start; or on some occasions it does start, showering mercilessly at anything under the sky. For him it wasn’t a problem either way, and he looked away from the palm, letting the hand fall to his side, and wiping it off the blenched, black trousers as he stepped forward.

He entered the mall. Considering it was Friday afternoon, the place was crowded. There were all kinds of people walking about; all kinds of voices reached his ears. Some annoyed him, some he didn’t mind. A mother yelled at her child right next to him, which made him flinch, and he felt a transitory urge to slap the woman. Such urges pass quickly—to his luck, or maybe the woman’s, or maybe even the child’s—and he turned his head away, taking all the transient attention he had given the two, and moving on forward, up the stairs and into a café.

As he expected, there was an unoccupied table behind the one taken by a young couple. Without looking at them, he passed by and sat at the free table. He took the menu and skimmed it, his look flittering across the letters, across the names of drinks and meals; but he didn’t pay attention to any of them, as his senses were concentrated at the surroundings. The waiter approached the table he was at and leaned over, propping himself with his long, sinewy arms.

“What will you order, sir?” he asked with an official tone of voice.
“What would you recommend?”
“Well,” he smiled apologetically. “We ran out of the good stuff.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, but there is a meal that would really spice up your appetite, sir.”
“Sounds good.”

The waiter smiled yet again and turned to leave. As he was passing by the young couple’s table, he brushed his hand of off the girl’s shoulder. Her lips parted from the partner, and muffled words, heard by the man behind, escaped her lips. “I need to go to the bathroom.” She smiled innocently and stood up, making for the ladies’ room in the back.

Turning around to trace her with his eyes, the partner smiled longingly. In an instant, his mien changed and his attention given to the man at the table behind him. To talk to him, he had to sit awkwardly, as the man was behind him.

“Oh hey.” The other one nodded. “I didn’t get to thank you for yesterday. My name is Stephen.”
“I’m Jukka.”
“Strange name.”
“Finnish. It’s nice to meet you. I’d shake your hand, but I slipped and fell in front of the mall, so I’d better go and wash my hands.”
Stephen chuckled. “Alright.”

Jukka stood up and went in the direction of the bathrooms. Standing in front of the men’s room, he warily looked at the people behind him. Stephen’s back were facing him, and other customers were engaged in idle chitchat, their meals or drinks, and none looked his way. Then, instead of going into the men’s room, he imperceptibly slipped into the ladies’ room.

“Took you long enough.” An audible whisper greeted him.
“Your boyfriend started a conversation.”
She gave him a dubious look. “Don’t mind him.”
“Right.”
She reached into the cleavage of her bosom and took out a USB stick. “Here. You’ve got some basic info there. There’s not much info, as you used to get, but that’s why you get more money now.”
“Gets me thinking sometimes,” he said pensively.
“What does?” She looked at him gravely.
“If that place is safer than pockets.” He pointed a finger at her breasts.
“Oh, snap out of it,” she said, irritated.
“What? It’s practical, that’s all.” He frowned slightly, but not seriously.
“I’m out of here.”
“Alright. I’ll wait a minute or two.”

Probably because he was anticipating a woman to enter and find him there, two minutes passed rather slowly. After they had passed, he decided to come out. Just as he opened the door, an elder woman attempted to go in, but was hindered by the apparition of a male figure coming out of the ladies’ room. She glanced at him, then at the skirted picture on the door, then back at him. He, too, glanced at the picture on the door, and looked calmly at the confused woman.

“I’m from Scotland.” He smiled, trying to imitate the accent as best he could, placing the cards on the woman’s ignorance. The woman’s eyes flared with momentary realization, but immediately after, her mouth went agape and she kept staring at him. He nodded assuredly and left the bewildered woman.

The meal was waiting for him on the table, but he simply put the money beside the plate and made for the door.

“Hey, see you again sometime.” Stephen threw from behind. Jukka paid no heed to it and just walked out. “Strange guy,” remarked Stephen to his girlfriend.
“What guy?” she smiled, caressing his chin.
He chuckled. “No guy.” And kissed her.


It was late evening when Jukka arrived to his apartment. The first thing he did was start his computer. Once the Windows loaded, he inserted the USB into the port. With a din, the folder opened automatically, revealing several files. He double-clicked on the photo, which revealed a young man, approximately his age, short, brown hair and peculiarly black eyes. He opened another file. It said that his name was Marcus Hill, and that he was twenty six years old; only a year younger than Jukka.

Every line was read carefully; every comma paused at. No word was left unchecked. Nothing had slipped unseen. He studied the contours of his face to the utmost detail, memorizing his face, letting it get ingrained into his brain. It took him four hours to go through the penurious information. Basically, it mentioned a wealthy locale called ‘Aquarius’, where the man would usually go on Saturdays. There was no home address, no mention of his job, no mention of who his friends were.

It was time to go to work. He took a briefcase, placed it on the table, and opened it. Carefully, but assiduously, he started arranging the tools of his trade inside. There were several compartments in the briefcase, and he filled them accordingly. Soon he was out of the apartment and inside of a taxi. The taxi left him a couple of blocks away from the club, as he demanded. The watch showed 11:47 pm when he arrived at the nightclub. All he could do then was wait.

The nightclub closed at 2 am straight; the last man to leave, and lock up, was at 2:31 am. Jukka went around the back. There was a narrow, dilapidated alley, at which end was a lofty fence, and next to the fence, a wooden door. He approached the door, kneeled, placed the briefcase on the concrete and opened it. Anxiety grew inside of him. No matter how long he did this job, anxiety and exhilaration were always there. At first they would cloud his vision and perception, but as he grew more experienced, he learned to put aside such feelings, and deal with them once the job had been taken care of. In one of the compartments was a chisel. He took it out, placed the tip in the small slit next to the lock, pushed it inside as far as it could go, widening the slit, and then he jerked it towards himself. The sturdy door wouldn’t let up, and it took several brisk attempts for the lock to break, and for the door to go ajar.

Jukka walked inside tentatively, for someone might’ve remained. However, there were no sounds. No sounds other then the silent, sneaky sounds his soles made. He reached the bathroom and looked around. A bin made of sheet metal immediately caught his eye. Checking it, he realized that there was some hollow space beneath the bottom, so he cut a hole at the side of the bin and took out a plastic bag from the briefcase. Using a glove, he took out the gun and put it in the plastic bag. Separately from the gun, he also put the silencer, and rubber gloves he used, in the plastic bag, which was tucked inside the bin. The bin was then placed under the sink; the hole he had made was turned to the wall so it wouldn’t get noticed.

He arrived home at 5 am, exhausted and sleepy. After taking a shower, he immediately went to sleep. No dreams bothered him tonight; no nightmares brought salvation. He woke up at 2 pm. After the sparse breakfast, he went out for a walk, as the uneasiness of anticipation didn’t give him peace to stay confined inside the apartment.

The walk stretched until 5 pm, when he decided to go to ‘Aquarius’ and wait. There was a bench at the premise of the nightclub, which was fairly convenient. He sat there and waited, furtively watching every person that would walk by. The club opened at 9 pm, but the queue was full an hour before that. Jukka carefully watched every face that had arrived, but there was no sign of his target—yet. Finally, at 11 pm, a black Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 drove up the curb and stopped. Four people exited; among them was the face of Marcus Hill, whose face Jukka immediately recognized. They walked in promptly, disregarding the queue. It was an opportune moment for Jukka to go inside as well—and he was glad, very glad indeed, as his rump was sore and ached from the long wait he had spent sitting on the bench—but he was not as pompous, so he had to wait in the line.

The line had some pretty big, buff, tenacious-looking men, and he tried to avoid cutting in the line to hinder them, as scuffling with people would be an utter waste of time, and it could cost him a lot. So he looked for smaller, shorter men to stand in front of, and still did that when the big men in the back of the line weren’t watching. An occasional ‘hey, what do you think you’re doing’ would scrape his earlobes, but he would sharply, threateningly look at the proprietor of those words and they would dim. Smartly moving through the line, he soon arrived at the head. A huge, black guy was at the entrance. Jukka stepped forward and raised his arms. The black guy checked every part of him with a metal detector, and let him through with a contemptuous look. It was probably because Jukka was inadvertently giving him the same look.

Nevertheless, he was in, breaking through the thick crowd with a lot of difficulty. It was a rave party, as usual. A lot of drugged faces surrounded him. People were dancing frantically. Many women were almost half-naked, their mini skirts lifted nearly to their hips. Jukka slowly advanced through the crowd. Once or twice someone collided into him, inhibiting his advance even further. He’d vulgarly push away people, and they wouldn’t even notice it; the pushes didn’t faze them, as they were drugged and aroused.

With a lot of effort, Jukka reached the bathrooms and walked inside. He could feel the moisture in his armpits, and feel the stench of his own sweat, as well as of the exuberant other stenches he brushed off the multitudinous number of people he came in contact with in the frantic crowd. Someone was vomiting in the bathroom. Two men stood in the middle and swallowed a pill, each. They gave him an irrelevant look, and resumed tripping. He could hear muffled, female moans, and hoarse, deep, male breathing.

“I’m coming!” she exclaimed and a loud moan escaped her larynx.

He was safe to take out the items from the bin. No one here would even notice what he was doing. With haste, he turned the bin around and put his hand inside, taking the plastic bag out. First he took out the rubber gloves and put them on. The gloves matched the color of his skin, so they would’ve been harder to get noticed. Then he took out the gun, checked the clip—there were two bullets in the clip and one in the barrel—and screwed the silencer on. Still weary of the ignorant people around him, he tucked the gun at his waist and put the shirt across, concealing it.

Jukka walked out, again into the crowd, tediously breaking through, looking for a place where he could gain some altitude to look around. His right hand was constantly feeling the gun; feeling it so it doesn’t accidentally get knocked out, or that it doesn’t slip further into the jeans. After a nerve-breaking swim through the crowd, Jukka managed to reach some kind of an elevation. Acrid air filled his nostrils as he rose above the dancing crowd. His gaze stopped at the table detached from the madness that was happening at the center of the club. There, his eyes caught a face that he was looking for. With an agitated sigh, he started breaking through the crowd yet again. Now a bit ‘into it’, he broke through more adroitly.

The exhilaration and anxiety inside of him were combustible, but he learned how to keep fire away from them; he was compelled to learn. Now he was at the threshold of finishing another job, doing yet another hit. He emerged from the crowd, hasting toward the table, pulling out the gun, but keeping his eyes fixed on the target. The gun was pulled out, facing the man who was waving his arms, laughing and swaggering in front of his sycophantic friends, and in front of several girls they had invited to join them at the table. Upon noticing Jukka, his eyes glinted right before a bullet hit his cheek, beneath the left eye; blood dyed the wall behind him. The two remaining bullets hit his chest. Before anyone could discern what was happening—or rather, what had happened—Jukka disappeared in the unsuspecting crowd. While breaking through the crowd, he looked for an appropriate person, and he quickly found one. A guy, his eyes almost completely lifted upwards, showing only that daunting white part, was swaying in the crowd, unaware of anything or anyone. Jukka came up to him and tucked the gun at the wasted guy’s waist.

No one saw who made the hit; Marcus’ friends and the temporary girls were too preoccupied with the sight of sputtering blood and the dead body to notice who was the one shooting. And even if they weren’t, it happened too fast for them to notice.

Jukka walked out of the nightclub. Yet another face was etched into his brain, joined with a number of others, constantly staring at him from within. They would never leave him alone; not the first one, nor the last one—especially not the last one.




(3).


His lord had been busy these past few days, much more busy than Eon would have liked. Was something going on that he had not been informed about? The idea itself was preposterous; he was the right-hand man. Why would he not be informed by his lord if something big was happening? It displeased him to think that, after all this time together, his lord did not trust him. Eon, who had been there through every malady and roadblock, was expecting to be brought in closer friendship with his lord any time now. That would have to be what this announcement was about, was it not? Why else would there be such commotion?

Day was slowly waning out, with the new moon rising high in the sky. The second-in-command walked to his lord’s tent, brushing aside the aids who were standing guard.

“I will speak with him alone,” he said, somewhat harshly. They obeyed, bowing. Entering the tent, Eon gave a small bow, barely showing any sign of difference of being in the presence of a cook than a lord. But he was too busy to notice.

“My lord,” he began, barely keeping his own excitement and yearning from his voice. “We prepare to go to the camps tomorrow, to subdue the peoples of the East. I came to ask you for the western half of the empire, as is my right,” he said.

The lord looked at Eon softly, slowly raising his chin a little. “We will not be going to oppress those peoples,” he replied calmly, knowing and fearing the reaction he would receive. Eon gave him a confused look.

“But my lord, my inheritance-”

“It will come, in a far greater way than you could have imagined on your own,”

“What do you mean,” Eon asked, beginning to retract into a hardened shell.

“These people deserve not annihilation or oppression,” the lord said. “We will not go to subdue them, but rather to serve them,”

Eon could barely believe what his ears were hearing. “Serve them? Those weak Easterners, and you would have us, the mighty Empire, serve them?” Letting his rage cool after a few moments, he let out a laugh. “You must be joking, old friend,”

The lord looked to Eon. “I would not joke with you, Eon,” he said, wiping the smile from his subordinate’s face.

“Then you mean...”

“Yes. My host of men will serve them. That is what a gracious empire would do, is it not? Why should we make them suffer? They are our people now, we should accept them as such,”

“Accept them? My lord, please. You must be very tired from your many days now of work-”

“I know what it is I speak,” the lord said, cutting him off. He was not speaking softly anymore, but it was a loud boom, for all the encampment to hear. It was not angry, however, but it was stern.

“These are my people. Would you refuse to serve them, to give them your humility? Or is your lust for power so great?”

Eon looked at him coldly then. “You betrayed me. You lied to me.”

“When have I ever lied to you?”

“I am your second in command. I deserve half of this empire. I am your closest friend. Would you deny me my rightful inheritance, only to make me get on my knees like a dog and...serve those pitiful, puny Easterners?”

“Your anger is not deserving-”

“Oh, but it is,” Eon said, in such a rage now that he could not be controlled. “If I kill them all, one by one, what will you do then, hmm? Will you stop me? Kill me? What makes them so special, that I, who is far above them, would be deserving of me to serve them? They are worthless. They deserve nothing from you. I am most like you - I deserve your power!”

“Eon, stop this, before you consume yourself in it,”

“It’s too late, you old fool. Someday...Someday you’ll turn your back, and your land won’t be there anymore. I will banish you to the Northern Desert, and let you rot there until you die,”

“You speak as if you would be able to do such a thing,” the lord commented.

Angry, Eon unsheathed his sword and held it up. “Why shouldn’t I be able to? I have been with you the longest. I know your mind - you cannot hope to oppress my powers!” Making as if to slash at the lord of the camp, his arms were suddenly restrained from behind.

“Damn!” He shouted, squirming within the other’s grip. “Damn you all! Would you be such fools as to allow this? What are they to you? What are they to you?” He yelled out to the guard who was holding his arms. The lord turned his back then.

“You are stripped of your position. Go, dwell among those Easterners you hate; mingle with them until you become one of them. Then I will banish you to the Northern Desert, where you may rot, and where you will already be dead. You should have known better, Eon. Leave this place. Now, for you are no longer one of us,”

“I hate you all,” Eon growled, still fighting his captors. “One day I’ll be back, with those...people you called your own. You’ll see, they’ll all turn to me. They’ll call out to me, their new lord, and I’ll be the one there for them. And in the end? Your kingdom will be like ashes in comparison to mine. Mine will be the mighty Empire, strong enough and wise enough to crumble the Sun itself!”

His mad raving continued, even as the guard threw him out of the tent. The rest of the encampment knew what had happened; they had heard it all. Turning to the men, Eon cried out.

“Don’t you understand? You’re all fools,” he said, beginning to laugh uncontrollably. “You will be condemned to serve those worthless beings! Should they not serve us, the ones who were powerful enough to conquer them? Can they summon the strength of the sun to smite their enemies? Can they call upon the rays of the moon to vaporize any who oppose them? Will you stay and watch as the mighty Empire crumbles under the rule of an equally worthless King? So follow me, I tell you! Follow me, and together we can build a new Empire, one free from impurity, and free from indolence! We will be able to build a tower that reaches the sky itself! We will be invincible!”

There were many, now, who met the speech with a loud cheer. Soon, others were speaking against this folly, contesting with the strength of the opposing voices. Fighting began to break out between the two casts, until eventually the lord himself came out of his tent. He saw the split in his men; they even visibly stood facing each other, weapons in hand.

Approaching Eon, while standing in front of his own army, he spoke to him harshly.

“Your own hatred and ignorance has brought this upon you. I regret that I let you get so close to me, that I would think of you so highly. And now, the disappointment you bring to my heart could not show more visibly. Love cannot save you, only the stern retribution and punishment you deserve. Harden your heart no more. I do not want to do this, but now you give me no other choice,”

Turning from the enemy lines, which had lost a few men who came back to the side of their lord, the lord returned to his tent. His new second-in-command turned to Eon, while ordering the rest of his troops to attack.

“Going to kill me, little boy?” Eon sneered, and ran, gritting his teeth to meet his foe. Their blades crossed, and after a long struggle, Eon fell to the ground. The blade of the soldier was at his throat; the look in the commander’s eyes was pitying, but he did not offer an escape, a way out. Lurching up, Eon attempted to strike back, but he only met darkness and death as he was hurled back to the earth.