Disclaimer: the characters in this story DO NOT belong to me!!! If they were mine I would have made millions off of them by now. This fic is simply for the purpose of entertaining people and I'm not getting any money for this so DO NOT distribute it. If you wish to put it on your website then e-mail me (Sumire@weisskreuz.zzn. com) and tell me.-------------------------------------------------- Darkness. We are the darkness. In the darkness we run free. Kill. Destroy innocent lives. And only one single solitary thing stops us from dominating. The light. Not daytime or sunlight, but virtue. The anti-evil. And when that restraining force is gone, when we eliminate it...we...will...dominate. Our presence will strike fear into the hearts of the once-protected innocent men and women. Their children will be taught to stay out of dark alleyways at night, to avoid certain places after dark. Their children...under our knife. The heavy blade of power. And we will smile at their fear. Feed on it. Flourish in their trepidation. As we always have. And always will. ****** Nighttime comes. I pick up my usual weapon, feeling its coldness against the warm flesh of my palm. The gun will never feel a thing. It will never have nightmares and wake up in a cold sweat on the floor, tangled in a blanket. It will feel no remorse for the lives it ends, the pain it causes, the blood its bullets shed. I envy the weapon I wield by darkness, wish I had its qualities. And then I remember. It will never feel anything simply because it doesn't live. It's only a piece of metal appropriately fashioned into a weapon. It has never done a bit of wrong. I am the one shedding innocent blood. I am the one ending lives and causing pain. The gun is only my tool. So instead I wish I were like my other teammates. Like Farfello, for instance. He didn't feel a thing. Physical or emotional. He had learned to erase his feelings, to freeze his heart. But then in a stabbing moment of realization, I see what this has done to him. So I wish I were more like Schuderich. The happy-go-lucky twenty-two year old teenager-at-heart. He's so cool to everything, so coldhearted. Light him on fire and ice cubes will start dropping from his flaming body. But I don't wish to be cold. I only wish to feel no remorse, to eliminate the endless barrage of nightmares. Maybe I wish to be more like Nagi. So young, so innocent. And so ignorant. But he feels the pain I feel. Who do I wish to mimic? Maybe no one. Maybe every murderer like me feels remorse and wakes up in a cold sweat at four AM. The four of us are in the dark alleyway now. I walk light-footedly behind the others, wishing I was back in America. Away from Mr. Takatori and his evil, murdering minions. And then I remember that I am one of his murdering minions. My left foot lands in a puddle of muddy water and curse quietly. The moisture feels icy against my foot as it seeps into my shoe. Cold. Like I wish my heart could be. No. I don't wish to be a stone-hearted man. I only wish to eliminate these feelings of remorse! What is wrong with me? Why can't I stop telling myself I want to be a cold heart? It must be fatigue. Oh, yes. The fatigue. In hopes of ending the nightmares, I work myself twice as hard as I should, gazing into the soft glow of the monitor into all hours of the night. Burn the candle at both ends until the wick smolders to a small heap of black ashes. That's what I am. A burnt-down candle. A mound of melted wax. And the wax will harden as it cools. Just like my-no! My heart will never harden. I don't want that to happen. I just hate remorse! Maybe the extra caffiene is what's making me react this way. I drink much more coffee than I really should, just to alleviate the fatigue. Side effects of the cure, I figure. But what am I curing by putting myself through this hell? I still have the nightmares, still dwell on the murders, and the bloodshed, and the suffering. I dwell on it even more when I'm awake. But I hate the cold sweats and the nightmares, the tormenting result of my job. We approach the metal chain-link fence around the massive office building we are supposed to destroy. I see a light in some of the offices on the higher floors and wonder how many innocent lives will end when we finish the job. How many families will celebrate Christmas and miss a loved one. "Crawford. What now?" Schuderich addresses me. He motions to the top of the fence, which is lined with curlicues of spiky barbed wire with the intention of discouraging intruders. But that isn't what discourages me now. What keeps me from answering, what makes me think, is the question I'm asking myself now. How would I feel if someone I cared about were in that building? Would I do this? Schuderich puts a hand on my shoulder. "What are we supposed to do, boss?" He lightly shakes me, as if to rouse me from a disturbing nightmare-infested sleep. Maybe he knows- -No. He doesn't know. He will never know. It's just wishful thinking. Schuderich is impatient now, as Nagi and Farfello are. Schuderich crosses his arms across the chest of his double-breasted blazer and glares at me. I meet his deep blue eyes. They are searching my own brown ones, hidden behind my eyeglasses, for an answer. This time, Farfello comes up with a solution. "I have a wire-cutter," he pipes up. We all watch as his half-obliterated face lights up joyfully as he produces a long tool from within his coat. His nimble hands snip wires-click click click-and he pulls away the portion of the fence that he cut open. The destroyed piece of chain-link fence rolls back like a rug and the other three slip through the jagged opening. Nagi goes first, and being very skinny, he has no trouble at all. Farfello is second and he slithers through the jagged wires as if they were satin drapes. Schuderich struggles past the wires, and his sleeve catches on the edge of the rough metal. I free his struggling wrist. Then I slip through the gap. My own navy blazer catches in several places and I ignore it. I know there are several small rips in the dark cloth, and I don't care. My glasses slip down and I nudge them back into place with a finger. I ignore the questioning look from Schuderich. He knows something is wrong. He knows that I would normally pay attention to the rips in my clothes. He knows normally I wouldn't be so unprepared to solve a simple problem such as a fence. But he doesn't know what is wrong. And he will never know. He's got a heart of stone, as I wish I could possess-no. I don't want to have a heart of stone! What's wrong with me tonight? I don't want to be a cold, heartless man. I just don't want to feel the remorse, dammit! Nagi and Farfello slip unnoticed into the back entrance of the building with their arms full of explosives while Schuderich and I go down the hall in the opposite direction. Schuderich disables the security while I...wait, what am I supposed to do? Oh. That's right. I'm supposed to program the detonator. Schuderich rejoins me after he finishes shutting down the alarm system. I hear footsteps down the hall and pull Schuderich into a dark doorway. The footsteps pass by the corridor where we stand and continue on. That's the last time they'll ever walk anywhere too. Do they deserve to die? They have families. People that care about them. Just like everyone else. Why do we have to kill them all? The remorse is really bothering me now. Schuderich picks the lock of an empty office and pulls me inside as someone turns down our hallway. He shuts the door gently. I flick the light switch on the wall and put my black briefcase on the cherrywood desk against the far wall. I open the lock on the briefcase and pull out my laptop and the detonator. After clicking on the appropriate menu items, I open the program I need and proceed to program the detonator to set off the explosives. Schuderich switches off the lights suddenly and I save my work, switch off the laptop, and put it in my briefcase. It's time.
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