He fell to his knees in defeat, his eyes pleading up at me, finally welling with those weak tears. The blood from his chest poured down between his armor and skin, soaking his shirt a dark inky color. I pitied him for a moment, the pain he must feel from my sword protruding from his ribs. No, no, I’d imagine there’d be no pain. The shock of being on the brink of death would block that out. Then I pitied him instead for the millions of thoughts his brain must be trying to hear at once. Last memories, quick plots of revenge, or how, if any chance, he might possibly live.
But no. I would not let this man live. Just as I have never let any other man who crossed me, live. As soon as I pulled my sword from his chest, the more readily his blood would flow, and the nearest he would be to death in that short span between the foothills that are life’s vicissitudes, and the fall from the cliff that is the end.
So I pulled. And as I did, my ears caught that sickening sound that flesh-muffled steel makes as it grates against bone. As the innocent man’s body jerked off my sword, his eyes widened and his jaw gaped open. He fell backwards into death, his face frozen in that corpse-like scream.
It was enough to haunt any weaker man. And certainly enough to terrify women. But this was my living. This was my life and what I did. There was no excuse for me to regret taking this man’s life, for his was no greater life than any I had taken before. His, perhaps was one of the smaller, weaker, simpler lives, and undoubtedly one of the easier lives to take.
But it was the look on this man’s face, just as he accepted his defeat that was different from all the others. I don’t know how. I could hardly conceive of it. But something in this man has affected me. Perhaps an extra twitch of a muscle in his face the rendered something deeper in the man’s eyes that I could not see then.
I stepped over to the man’s face and gathered everything I could from it. The cold night already freezing his features even before rigor mortis could apply itself. Nothing out of the ordinary presented itself to me.
Angry, I stepped over the body again to take a seat on a boulder by the forest side. Sheathing my sword, I rest my head in my hands, pondering, pulling on the depths of my mind on why this man’s face demanded to be different when he was not.
Many futile minutes passed where no conclusions came about. But enjoying my rest in the half moon lit night; I began recollecting a memory from my childhood. As a boy growing up in the far reaches of the country, there wasn’t a chance to have many playmates beyond my younger brother. We were the best of friends until I had to find my living in the city as just a lad. From the few letters I received from mother, he took it very poorly, and lived for the day when he could come find me in the city. I never heard from him and he never found me. I moved on once I found my job working as a secret assassin for the monarchy.
All the men I have been contracted to kill are usually getting to close to the royal family for the King’s comfort, for he is who gives me my assignments. This man, as many others was asking too many questions for his own good and seemed to know too much. He was a threat, and therefore had to be eliminated.
And then I saw it. The man… his face. It was mine. It was my face, on his. My arms shook as I tried to imagine how this happened. I slipped off the boulder and made my way to the man’s face. Kneeling down next to him, and placing his face in my hands. My poor, poor brother. How could I not have seen this face? This face that is yours and mine? This face that we share!
My whole body now shook as my own tears of rage now poured down my gritty face. He sent me to kill my own brother. He was probably searching for me! How- how could this happen?? How could the King, my ally, knowingly set me off to kill my own brother?! He no longer deserves my services. I no longer deserve this life! How can I-
My thoughts, they come slowly now. The blood on my knife drips off and mingles with my brother’s now. I feel the warmth of life leaves me now. The cold sets in. This is what I deserve, the cold.
I just wrote this over the last half hour or so. Tell me what you think! It was quite sudden. Haha.
~Yoyo
