Eyes

With blood pouring down my face, I picked up the dead man's cell phone and called it in.

"It's done. You can let her go now."

"Not quite," the voice said. "You've still one more assignment."

Silence on my end.

Finally, I mustered, "Isn't there another way?"

The voice didn't reply.

Frustrated, I conceded defeat and hung up. I closed my eyes, wishing the throbbing pain in my head would fade, that the blood would stop seeping into my eyes. My sight was important. Without it, I had nothing to rely on.

How many had died for her? Ten? Twelve? Fifteen? It wasn't a staggering number, but killing anyone ripped chunks from a man's soul, to the point where that person became inhuman, a monster. Once you kill, the soul was essentially a goner, and so, too, the man with it.

Searching the ground for my sword, my head became increasingly heavy, and I collapsed to the ground. There, sticking from the corpse -- there it was. Shining blue steel, my third arm. The organization who had taken her had given it and vague instructions to me:

"Use this sword, and only this sword, to conduct your business. Then she will be set free."

That was it. I had wondered why they hadn't equipped me with a gun or some other more efficient weapon, but I found out soon enough.

It's the eyes. The eyes give it away.

When you stab a man through the heart, all the while listening to his hopeless gasps for breath, you witness a quick flash in the eyes. Brief, almost too brief. In that moment, you get to know a man better than you ever could -- you see his hopes, dreams, memories, everything, vanish into thin air. They're yours now. Absorption. However, because everything that once belonged to that man has changed ownership, you begin to lose the essence of what you call "yourself". It's unpleasant to say the least. I'm hardly me anymore.

That's why the organization equipped me with a sword instead of some other weapon -- all of this murder is beginning to kill me from within. But finally, I have only one more target to defeat. One more target.

Still lying there, blood pulsing from the head wound, I unstuck the gleaming steel from the man's corpse and brought the blade to my throat. It would only be a matter of time before they found me, and then, only then, would they let her go. Sweet release from this awful assignment.

I hope she knows what I've done for her.