Cold

Cold, wet like the dampness of your soul before you pull the trigger. The walls dripped with icy water, cascading to the ground where it gathered, like lost feelings, forgotten endeavours. A shiver surveyed the area, a ghost gliding the waters edge spreading across bare skin and across wounds. It gave you an enlightening, to those whom thought they were dead. It aroused you to remember, you were on the edge of the world.

“Time heals all wounds…
Who ever said that had never stared pain in the eye.
If time could heal everything then why do I still feel it…?
I feel it, every time I move, every time I think about it Maybe I should just forget, about everything, start over
Is it possible though?
Can I start over?
And feel almost like
I did the right thing…
Can I feel…?
Forgiven...”


Breathe in…

It felt as if I’d never existed, slipped into a hole of despair where not even ecstasy dares show its brilliant outline. I was drawn to the wall, a stream running down the back of my shirt, skin numb as grass beneath the snow.
My legs would have been a colour distant to its original. Scratched, my eyes were too, weak in the darkness, but I have my imagination and pain as a judge.
If only my arms were to have seen the same fate. Bruised, tied back, broken, severed and lacerated they were no longer my own.

Unconsciousness had captured my existence for days. I had been beneath its blanket of cold undisclosed horror since I raised my barrel for the last time. That was the reality I had chosen, one where I stand behind my weapon and watch the bullet tear through lives like a piece of irrelevancy.
I made a mistake.
A mortal had made a mistake.

Breathe out…

Washing away the blood that seemed to have scorched my vision, I tried to observe the shadow I’d been thrown into. Pain tore through my spine, the frozen water surging over the tears across my weak surface. I pushed my self forward in agony, only to feel more torture as the rope around my wrists made itself known. I could feel the crimson drip softly across my finger tips, across broken fingers and down into the river of existence astray.

My hands shook, fear engulfed everything, for the first time I felt it creep up and take me from behind. Like a hostage, about to be slain, grasping onto life like a thread.

That’s the price you pay for living by a weapon.
That’s my price.

I could hear a laugh, a shudder within the midnight, like the sound you hear before glass shatters to pieces. And as it grew it became those sharp edges, lethal, deadly and unassuming. There was a click, the sound of that metal fragment being thrust into a tunnel of casualty, fear and disillusion.

A laugh seemed to splinter, surrounding on the ambush as if I were prey to be devoured and deeply enjoyed. It silenced. There was a hush amongst the stillness, a shuffle and tremor, ripples amid the silent water.
I lifted my gaze, my eyes half open battling the darkness and pain for a glance at whom or what had joined me in this seemingly forgotten reality. Footsteps set themselves toward me, a blur standing, steady, clothed, released of chains, locks and restraints. I felt myself begin to yearn the chance for answers, my throat humming, only to be thrown backwards into a coughing attack. I felt more blood flow down my throat, erupting over my lips, a cerise river. It was as if a dagger pierced me internally slowly tearing at me from within, slowly. I could no longer breathe, I gasp, something’s chocking me, what’s happening?

“It’s metal. Fragments, debris you swallowed. They made you swallow. You weren’t conscious, you couldn’t have helped it.”

A voice so angelic, soft and reassuring like the sunrise after an everlasting storm. The coughing ceased, finding myself hunched over, more blood soaking the clothes covering my chest and thighs, I rested back again. The darkness had overwhelmed my sight once more, no use in trying for identity.

The voice came from a young girl, younger than anyone I had ever held a gun too.

“Who am I you ask?” I could feel the girl smile to herself, run the pistol across her cheek and feel the cold metal on her skin. “I’m just a nightmare. Come to relinquish you.” With one eye I peered through the night at where she stood, watching with a cold blue stare.
Her legs were long; she stood tall, wearing red blemished clothes, straps to hold her pistol, her arms bare, scratched and battered, not far from my own, littered with bullet wounds and knife abrasions. She herself used but one eye, the other scarred vertically bleeding with sorrow and hatred.

She bent down, looked at me directly, “Do you know what I have been sent to do?” I could feel the barrel of her pistol against my leg and I flinched in fear. My skin began to tremble, every touch becoming as dangerous as a blade. I shut my eyes, clenched them hard enough the tears couldn’t escape. But she knew I feared her, feared her weapon and her profession.

I’d lived in the shadow of a gun since the weapons existed. They killed without regret, without repentance and without glancing back. They load their weapon, strike fear into the hearts of thousands around the world and yet they show nothing, but a notorious eye for cold, bitter murder, standing at the height of society without fear. That is until they become the hunted, until they become the ones to be stared down upon.

The girl lowered to her knees slowly, keeping eye contact. She reached behind her back, I leaned towards her, opening my eyes now ready and adjusted. The object she retrieved was black, long and slender, a flask of some sort. My lips began to salivate, feeling the moisture once again loosen the cracks deep below. Twisting the lid she shuffled over, placed the flask on my lips and lifted.
It didn’t matter to me whether it were poison, alcohol or water. My throat ached, like being stripped down slowly, serrating, and allowing me to taste the blood. There was no trust between us, just instinct.

It was water.

I could feel the liquid heal the wounds, devour the splints as I drank slowly as if it came from the holy grail. It dripped down my chin, burning the bent knees below, cut so profoundly, the water seemed to sink and disappear.
The girl retracted the gift and placed it back at the belt around her waist. She stood up again, still, looking out at the surroundings.

“I was like you once.” I coughed, trying to swallow the bloody water and remaining metal in my throat. She looked towards other shackles attached to the ceiling and floor like a scene from a past nightmare. She stepped backward, crossed her arms and lent against the black, cold wall behind her. “It’s where I began, chained, beaten to the death, forgotten and alone.”
“What?” My mouth managed to move, voice being able to produce. I smiled within, I could breath again. She glared down, her stare as deep and meaningless as a cold moonless night. I panted, feeling my new found capability.
“This is where I began, it’s where this began.”

The gun dropped to my knees, dark, illustrious, almost far from reality. Weapons, just when you begin to think we have a full grip on our lives we are faced with a disruption, something that clicks, snaps, pulls back and fires. There is no resistance, no moral ethics, no mercy, nothing but a mechanism that delivers to destroy.
And now it faces me, staring deep beneath me, inside. Watches past sins, crimes, times of innocentcy and grace and sees the person I am, the person I want to be.

Then I shatter to a million pieces, in its destructive path.

Time heals all wounds…

I don’t struggle to free myself from the clasps around my wrist. I just watch and wonder at its beauty and complexity. She does not retrieve her life, but leaves it lying, helpless without a grasp. The urge is to grab it, turn it on the teenager and be over with everything. But she knows, I’m far too helpless to move a muscle, far too weak to cough and speak than brake the bounds and kill a young girl.
With one blue eye she watched me, curiosity seemed to fascinate her, maybe it was the act of seeing my freedom within an arms length, knowing it was so close yet so unbelievably far from being a saviour.


Who ever said that had never stared pain in the eye.

“Kept for entertainment, for the pleasure of men to prey on. Watch her cringe, watch her scream and feel her bleed, watch her cry, watch as she reduces herself to nothing and becomes one with the deep waters a misery within this hell hole. I was here once, without water, metal cutting at my throat throughout every breath, tied back and forgotten until they craved me once more.
“That’s when they made the mistake of giving me the same option I give you now,” she whispered. She no longer watched me, looked at her dark weapon. “Their blood is still sprayed across these walls.” She smiled, closed her eyes and hovered her head in shadow.
“Revenge was never so sweet, so full of colour, lustful and satisfying. Watch their eyes slowly dilate as they grip your knees trying to speak their final words, attempting to breathe. But their reality becomes darker as they sink into the tar hell they belong in… they belong in…”

She laughed, hushed beneath her breath.

“What do you want,” I spat, blood and water circling my lips. Trying to sound stern and confident I stared up but it seems as though she could see right through every act I had planned.

If time could heal everything then why do I still feel it…?

“Do you want to live assassin?”
“Yes…”

The question stood still in the silence, my answer echoing through the corners of the room. I wanted to live, I wanted to brake through this hold and walk tomorrow, free of chains and restraints and deep nightmares of demon torture. But then what would become of me? Would I still wonder the streets covered in the shadows of tall buildings, feeling the rain drip down the barrel of my trusted weapon on the finger over the trigger? Trusted weapon – is that an oxymoron? How could I trust something with such a ruthless destructive force?

The girl pulled from her belt something that glinted even within the darkness of the cell casting a light across my blindness. It dashed across the room, the air rushing aside my tightly pulled back arms.
I suddenly felt a release, my hands slipping from behind me, unconfined into a layer of blood gathering on the cold floor. I gasped, feeling my bones almost fall back into their original position, comforted by their new freedom despite their weakness.

“Stand.” I heard her whisper, but it seemed almost impossible, as if she asked the world of me. I struggled to mauver my arms, pressing the splintered broken fingers against the floor. I forced myself upwards, bringing my knees forward.

I felt myself slip, my limbs twisting, I sank deeper and hit the cold and it engulfed me once more. Everything seemed broken, my skin was so lacerated I could feel blood seeping from the growing wounds and the bruises lengthening slowly. My lungs collapsed if I tried to devour a small breath to make me last a little longer. But it seemed as if I wasn’t meant to continue. I couldn’t move.

I feel it, every time I move, every time I think about it

I opened my eyes, watching the water ripple around me. It soaked into my skin, colder than ice, like knives slipping through your veins towards your heart. I could feel everything around me seem to crystallize, slow and give in. I wish it were easy. I wish dying were easy, as if it were a smooth guided path towards a bright light, white wings and shining gates. But no, death, the afterlife, its pain and suffering and you feel every inch of it, you’re kept alive almost, made to watch, made to feel yourself sink away and disappear.
You think when you fall off your bike, or plunge down a rocky range that that’s what the worse pain in the world must feel like. But there’s nothing like the pain of feeling your soul being sucked through a passage of deep hell.

Is that where I lay down?

The water slips towards my mouth and I allow it to drip down my throat slowly. She waits patiently, tapping what ever new weapon she has in her grasp against the wall. I push myself up against the wall, a wrist shackle points its way against my spine. I roll around, attempting to hold myself steady, gripping the wall, nails digging into the dried blood and cement.
I stand.

Maybe I should just forget, about everything, start over

I can see her more clearly now, I can see her silver smile glint softly, cruelly, possessing. She is surprised, her eyes widen as I release from the wall and show her the gun I hold in the opposite hand. She looks down at it, my finger wrapped around the trigger, nothing more than a habit.
“I admit,” the girl pauses and looks at me with her brutal blue stare. “You’re stronger than I thought.”

My breathing seems to erupt, my legs shake as they continue to bleed the desire to collapse and give in but I try to cover myself with confidence.

I watch her closely for not more than a few seconds. She couldn’t be older than seventeen and yet be lethal enough to tear apart a life. Her arms and legs were scarred deeper, overwhelmed with bullet wounds. It was a miracle she could still stand. Her hair was long like the chains on the walls and damp, tied behind her. How could someone so young and almost innocent be so corrupt?

“I offer only once. You said you wanted to live, is this still your intention?”
I longed for the sound of my own voice. “Yes it is.”
“Then with the weapon you hold so very well, eliminate the threat.”

Is it possible though?

The room became bitter, shadows frosting on the edges and sinking, taking cover. The air seemed to cease, suspended as she stared watching with her liquid crystal, ice, blue glare. I’m standing on a knife blade, on the edge of life or death, my next step judging whether I lie here once more, sinking deep within dejection, being forgotten among the unending destruction of life. And if I jump, take the plunge and take another’s years in order to save my own, will I leave victorious or a cold blood murderer.

Can I start over?

I threw the gun at her feet, keeping my gaze downwards. If people can’t see through the way you stand and the way you speak, even the youngest assassin can see emotion through your eyes. It’s something about the way it glints even in the lights absence and the way your iris slowly disappears to reveal nothing, a dark cast shadow. And when the tears begin to swallow sight and threaten exposure, they can see through you, your name and your weapon to where your ultimate fear lies.

She looked down, her slight grin turning on me. Her gaze rose again to stare, as if transparent.

“You don’t have a choice. Kill or be killed.”

My hands began to shake, I could feel my feeble body buckling beneath my knees.
“I can not… I won’t, I will not…”
I struggled to breathe again, lowering my head sucking in oxygen. The weapon remained at her feet. She kicked the weapon, it bouncing against the wall at an almost impossible angle. It tore above my head and fell, within all the dark and impossible visibility I heard her catch it with her right hand.
Her finger gripped the trigger instinctively.

In a moment so grossly wrong, she placed the gun out on an extended arm toward me once more, as if giving me a second chance – an assassin’s second chance? I shook my head, trying to breath, refraining from her gaze once again.

And feel almost like

This time she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Knocking me in the ribs with her shoulder I was thrust up against the wall. Pain ruptured through my entire body once more, feeling as if my bones were disintegrating beneath her impact. I dare not cry out in vain, afraid the girl would take another opportunity to entice what she’d already done and grip my weakness with both hands.
Instead I gripped her shoulders with one hand and shoved her backwards like a child against the year 12 bullies. She smiled, I could see her blue eyes narrow towards me.
“So you do want to live?”
“Instinct?”

She laughed at my petty attempt at humour myself and give her that tiny awkward feeling that I wasn’t going to stand down just yet – not just yet.
“There may be no more open doors for you, why do you resist?”
I said nothing, stared at the ground, trying to breath through what seemed like a microscopic hole. I coughed again, pressing my weight against the frozen wall to hold myself up.

I did the right thing…

She came at me again this time. She held the gun, pressing it against my chest, I could almost hear the bullet rotating within the barrel waiting to be released and tear my life apart. Panicking, I grabbed the handle of the weapon, trying to pushing it towards her, back on her. The barrel scrapped against her neck, digging in tight, the sharp metal cutting at her fair but scarred skin. She didn’t press back, hard against my grasp but allowed the tip of the barrel to disappear within a layer of skin. She didn’t resist, she allowed me to push the risk until it was well within a threatening range.

Her eyes weren’t shut, they watched me directly, her hands beneath my own almost drawing the gun inwards further.
I began to pull it back as so did she.

“What are you doing?” It sounded as if I shouted

She pushed me backwards again, pushing my shoulders into the concrete wall. I cried out in pain momentarily before I watched her use my momentary weight loss against me and push the barrel towards herself again. She clicked it back, the bullet awaiting the final movement to end her life.

I stopped, my fingers barely gripping hers. I could feel her cold skin, bitterness flowing within her veins and back towards her crescent heart. Her heart beat through the pressure I gripped her, it steady like a fading life, on its descent becoming slower and slower as she breathed.

Can I feel…?


She flicked her wrist between us, the barrel suddenly turning against me. I watched her eyes, her cool blue sinister gaze watching me slip within her design


Kill or be killed. There is no in between and there never will be.


Time ceased, surroundings frozen, drips of water hovered in mid air as if dangling by a delicate thread. I drew in a breath, soft and colourful as it entered my lungs and looking back at her, her blue eyes burning with the desire for revenge a cloud, a mist of sorrow hanging beneath her penetrating blue crystal gaze.

The barrel slipped between my fingers, and the metal struck my shoulder. Pain soared through its hollow structure like quick silver poison, smashing into my flesh. I clenched my teeth in pain, but remained silent, watching her, watching her desire to pull the trigger and do away with me, her desire to end my life.

I was just an object in her game of desire and destruction, nothing more, possibly less.
And at that point, I was invisible, presence irrelevant; all that existed was the gun, the source of my annihilation and her.

She pressured the trigger, the firing pin allowing it’s mechanism to fly forward and the bullet released.

The sound echoed through the small room, the drops from the ceiling failing to hold stance, plummeting to conform on the floor. Crimson cascaded from the remains of my clothing, searing slowly towards the concrete frozen prison base. My knees buckled slowly beneath my weight and ache began to overwhelm.
I lay, immersed in the water as it continued to fall from the ceiling, flowing through the red stained strands of my hair and gathering with my tears.
My lacerated, burned and battered body lay limp, immobile within the deep scarlet river, breathing beginning to cease, everything becoming still, silent and cool.

The mist began to erupt once more, my soul shuddering within the skin that was its source of inadequate protection. The ghosts began to rise as she opened the door to my coffin and allowed the light to warm the scars. She turned and stared down at me for a few moments, smiled quietly.

Releasing the door, she bent down into the cold ankle deep water and then onto her knees which slowly, absorbed the frozen sins that began to consume my shadow. She lent down, touching my shoulder with soft contact that was almost heavenly. And there she was, only seventeen, a young teenager in the silhouette of a gun.

She kissed my lips, though bloody and torn. She grasped me, holding me close pulling me into her arms.
“Goodnight Soldier,” she said softly. A tear fell from her wounded, infinite war-torn eyes and onto my forehead.

From there I shut my eyes, no longer in need of existence.
I slid over the edge…

Forgiven...