"Remember this: taking away a life will extend your life by a few months. As time will pass, you'll need to kill more as one death will offer you less and less extension for your life. Overkilling won't make a difference. Whereas if you miss one kill by a few minutes, your internal organs will start to slow down and physical pain will begin. For your death."

It was so much to take in. Aelin felt her insides curl up and she wanted to puke. "You'll need to repeat all that." He didn't say anything and stood still, as if he witnessed the situation and reaction uncountable times before.

Tears began to form in her eyes, but she refused to cry openly. Her voice was a soft whisper as she asked, "Do I just...kill anyone?"

"The answer is no. We will select names and locations within the city."

"But won't that be the same as killing anyone?"

"No. It will be individuals who are very close to their deaths. You will just have to take their life away by about a day earlier or so."

Aelin could swear she was close to puking on his face. He spoke so nonchalantly, as if talking about taking lives away was as light as an afternoon tea talk.

Her lips trembled and she held onto the wooden doorway with a hand, not believing she was about to become...a murderer, pretty much. But she didn't want to die, it felt so early, so sudden and...she wasn't ready to back off from the world.

So she decided to kill.

"What is this process...where you kill to get your life flowing for longer? Why is it even a thing?" Her voice was cracked and rough from silent arguments with herself.

"In short words, you get energy off the life you're taking away, which gets added onto your life. And that would only happen if we allow it to happen on you, which we will. But the more you kill overtime, the less energy will get into you, which would lead to you going insane and taking away even more lives."

He stopped, as if purposely adding a dramatic effect. Aelin didn't have time for that. "There will be a point when no life will help you and you just have to die."

She swallowed down the knot in her throat. It was unbelievable how much was going on behind people's knowledge. "What do you mean by 'we'"?

"That, I cannot answer."

Glaring up at him, she realised she never wanted to punch anyone so badly before. His straight face showed it was all up to Aelin now, which added more weight on her guts.

She ran inside to her bathroom and puked.

~