[Anatox]

I can't do this anymore.

I know Dagger told me to keep an eye on Tonix. And I was willing to do so, since there's obviously something really weird going on here with our connected brains or whatever. But I am not someone who likes being cooped up in my quite small apartment room with a mental case that obviously needed more therapy than I could give him. Because I feel the same way, so there's not much in comforting him.

At the moment, I was now walking across the bottom floor of the collapsed parking garage that was the organization's "headquarters." Funny to call it that, sounds much more sophisticated than the smell of cigarettes in a not at all insulated concrete room littered with trash and other miscellaneous objects. I heard some people fighting somewhere in the room. I didn't check it out, and made a beeline to Dagger's office.

He was conveniently coming out of his office when I happened to be reaching for the handle. I caught myself before I ran into him, took a step back to recollect myself, and met his surprised eyes.

"Oh, hello, Anatox," Dagger nodded in greeting. "Didn't expect you here. Aren't you supposed to be home?"

"I need an assignment," I started blatantly. "I'm not gonna be stuck in my own apartment watching some guy with maybe one very insane brain cell left in his empty head. He'll be fine. I just need to go out and do something to unwind."

Hopefully he'll be fine. When I'd left, I'd explicitly told him not to leave, kill himself, or get into anything while I was gone. Sometimes he makes me feel like I have a dog or something, only that dog is six or seven feet tall and losing his mind beyond comprehension.

"Aren't there other options to get out of the house?" Dagger chuckled, crossing his arms with that smirk he always wore when he thought I was being "stupid" or something along those lines. "Like, you could go see a movie or something."

"Okay, first off, there is no point in that," I said, rolling my eyes. "Second, if I stay still long enough to watch a whole movie I'm gonna die on the floor from blood loss long before it ends. And third, I am raised in chaos of many forms, and when I don't get that I get bored. Quickly."

"All fair points," Dagger said. He sat there for a moment, thinking before he slightly nodded to himself and looked back at me. "Alright. I'll give you a target. But only one - get back here to report your success or failure, you'll get paid, and you'll go directly home. Understood?"

I couldn't stop the smile from breaking across my face. "Understood."

Dagger gave me a lighthearted chuckle as he turned back through the door and began searching through the mess of papers on his desk. A minute or two of searching, and he came back with a paper and handed it to me. "There you go. Decent pay, easy target. You're welcome."

The profile was of not an adult, but an older teenager - the text next to the picture of the tan, short-haired redhead girl with pristine blue eyes said she was seventeen. High-school dropout, worked at a Walmart downtown. I found it a bit funny, since the target was younger than me - probably some very ticked-off ex wanting her out of their life entirely. Shame, but I didn't really care so long as I got paid. I nodded, and said a quick "Thanks" to Dagger before bolting back out of the parking garage.

-x-

I found the girl - Mallery Wilhelms - coming home from work around 6 PM. She was still in her blue Walmart uniform, a bright, happy expression on her pretty face as she walked with a slight bounce in her step down the sidewalk. Already I didn't like her. I could see why she was on the target list.

I'd already decided on the way how I'd kill her - my hand curled around the grip of the handgun I kept barrel-down in my pocket at all times. It was easiest, and least traceable. Plus there was no one around besides passing cars - best to maybe draw her into an alleyway before finishing the job. This should be pretty easy.

I found a good spot on the roof of a building to follow her. I needed her someplace no one from the road could see her. How I would draw her away, I still needed to figure out. I could probably distract her with a gunshot... though that may draw other people as well, maybe even scare her off. Of course, people are idiots, so it's entirely possible-

Mallery paused, seeming startled as she turned her head to the alleyway she stood at the mouth of on her left. I ducked behind the safety of the building's roof, her change of focus sudden enough that I feared she may have seen me. But she wasn't looking up at me at all - her eyes were glued to the alleyway. Slowly I peeked over the building's side to see the redhead slowly and timidly start walking curiously into the alley.

Huh. That works too, you walk blindly into a creepy alley then, I retorted in my head. Quickly I ran to the back of the building, the part that led down to the dark alley below, and jumped silently onto someone's fire escape balcony. I found the ladder and slid down, wincing once as I cut my hand on a protruding piece on the old metal ladder. I caught a glimpse of the small sharp piece corroding away as it made contact with my blood as I balled my hand into a fist to put pressure on the small cut and climbed down to the ground.

By the time I'd reached the alley ground, Mallery was already visible in a four-way alley section. I ducked behind a rusty dumpster and almost stepped on a raccoon, who immediately snarled at me before scrambling into said dumpster. I hoped Mallery didn't come to check out what had disturbed the creature.

I peeked around the corner that blocked the girl from my view, to see that she'd turned away from me. She was looking around, looking for something. Something.

"Hello?" She sounded like someone who liked to sing, a smooth, strong soprano voice that called out in the fading light of sunset.

I ducked back around the corner, pulling my gun from my pocket and loading it as I prepared to shoot.

However, it seems someone else did the work for me.

As I turned a swift blur came from one of the alleyways that branched from the section Mallery stood in, and suddenly the girl was on the ground. Her screams reached my ear before I could register, and I darted behind the dumpster once again. The screams were followed by choking, followed by panicked struggling and the sound that I could tell was tearing flesh and bone. A sickening crack of a breaking skull sounded as Mallery's voice was drowned out. And through it all an almost animalistic snarling, though with a male, near humanlike backing of strain leaking through.

A minute or so felt like an hour as the gruesome sounds finally faded to silence. Mallery's terrified voice was replaced with heavy, exerted breathing, the sound of exhaustion. I couldn't smell much over the overpowering garbage of the dumpster, but the smell of exposed insides was enough to show through and make me gag.

Taking a deep breath, I slowly peeked around the corner to the gory sight that used to be my target.

Mallery was unrecognizable on the ground. Her blue irises contained a pale, lifeless film, confirming alone that she had passed. If the way her innards were scattered and torn didn't hint it enough. The wet gash on the back of her head stained her ginger hair crimson, the same crimson that surrounded her like she was an island in a lake of blood. Her ribs were gone, I believed; I didn't see them in what was left of her torso. Broken inward, I guessed.

Bent over her where a shadow-concealed face covered in patches of the girl's blood and about shoulder-length brown hair, sharp, bright green eyes met my gaze.

And suddenly he turned and began to run.

Immediately without thinking I bolted from my hiding place, jumping over the corpse and trying not to slip and fall in the redness of death covering the concrete and running after the tall figure. Even from twenty feet back I could see every inch of him was covered in blood - enough so that I had trouble deciphering his features at the swift sprint I ran at from behind. Every now and then he'd stumble, glancing behind him before continuing sprinting down the alley, turning deeper and deeper into the dark maze. I kept following, barely breaking step.

A knife of agony stabbed through my skull, unfocusing me enough to send me crashing face first into the concrete. Pain shot through my brain, and I felt something warm and liquid sting the skin above my upper lip. And still my head throbbed, a harpoon driven through my mentality as I tried and tried and tried to will it to go away.

Then suddenly the pain was gone. I lay there for a few moments, the only sounds I focused on being the pound of my own racing heart and each of my dragging breaths. I couldn't hear footsteps, I couldn't hear much of anything. Cars plowed down the road somewhere outside of the alleys.

Slowly, slowly, I started to push myself to my feet. When I wasn't met with pain when I moved, I managed to drag myself to my feet. I wiped just under my nose, the glitter of red blood evident on my hand. Nosebleed. Annoying. I simply wiped the blood away and decided to resolve it later.

I looked around. The bloodied stranger was gone, no sight of him anywhere. I cursed to myself as that realization dawned on me. I hadn't even gotten a good look at who it was, besides his eyes...

His eyes.

Bright green, glowing eyes that cut through the dark. Just like Tonix...

I shook my head, now simply confused. No, it can't be him, of all people. He's not someone who'd do that... he's messed up, but he's no murderer. Plus, he should be back at the apartment.

I assured myself with these thoughts as I gave a glance behind me towards Mallery's body and decided to leave the mangled girl there. Not much I could do, really.

Oh hello, officers. Why am I dragging a mutilated corpse down the sidewalk? Hah, we'll it's actually a funny story!

I chuckled a bit at that thought, but quickly pushed it out of my mind as I started to run away.

-x-

[?]

That could've gone better.

What the hell am I talking about, there was no better way that could've gone! That was awful!

I was exhausted - I'd run for a long, long time. I was back here now, the place I'd been before running off. I leaned against the wall of an old building, slowly sliding my back down, without care that my shirt got caught multiple times and caused the flesh of my lower back to get scraped by brick. I sat down, burying my face into my knees and my blood-soaked hair.

Why.

Why?

I chuckled, almost as if my own pleading thoughts were funny. "I'm a murderer... again. Why do I always do this?"

No answer. I wanted to claw at the wall behind me until my fingers bled, but I couldn't find the will to move. I didn't want to.

Tears were streaming down my face before I could register it.

Why can't I just die? It'd save a lot of future lives if I wasn't here?

No, I can't die. I have a purpose to fulfill.

What am I talking about? Purpose? I've killed hundreds already, maybe more, what kind of purpose is that?

Mine.

My purpose, my reasons to live.

More like reasons to die.

I need to shut up.

I need to shut up.

Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!

I leaned my head back against the wall, tears still fresh in my eyes. I needed to get home. Don't want to worry anyone. Someone saw me, too.

That should end well...

Oh well.

Hopefully I can explain all of this. Or hide it at least...

-x-

Again, thank you to SquishyWritesStories for giving me ideas to contribute this, I'm very grateful :D

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