Freedom Comes: At a Price

Prologue 2

The boy was skating down the freeway.

Alone.

Cold.

Scared.

"Turn around kid," I plead, watching on; knowing that he wouldn't turn around, not back to the hello-hole of a place that he once called home. I take a deep, time-consuming breath, hoping, praying, that the kid might get scared and piss off before I rest my gun onto the windowpane and rest my cheekbone near the sight of my, Cheytac sniper rifle. I knew this would be an easy shot.

I take one more, piercing breath, before I pull back the bolt of my sniper, loading it. I hover the sights about an inch above the kid; the kid who was just walking there, alone and scared.

"I'm," I stutter, "I'm, so, sorry."

I breath outwards as the bullet is propelled out of the barrel of my gun, quickly breaking the silence of the night, before striking the kid right in the side of his head. I watch as he slumps forward, falling off of his skateboard, face-first, onto the cold, hard ground. The silence of the night is all consuming. Eternal.

As I pack my gear away, knowing that the sun was going to rise soon; that my shift was almost over, and that my job would be over soon enough, I begin to make my way out of the building that I've been occupying for the past 8 hours or so. I change out of my urban-camouflage gear and into some more respectable jeans and a shirt, folding everything into my duffel bag, as well as dismantling and giving my gun a quick, yet thorough clean.

I walk out of the room, leaving nothing behind besides from the scent of piss and gun residue. Going down the stairs is harder than when I walked up; harder with a death on my mind, the death of a kid.

He was just a scared kid.

My dog tags bounce underneath my shirt as I begin to run.

I don't have much time, I think to myself.

I see him just ahead; a pile of dead weight, lifeless and devoid of soul.

As I approach, the smell of death hasn't quite taken over yet. There was only a strange emptiness in the air, like the emptiness of a room once someone has left.

God has reached out and has taken him, I sigh, relieved.

I bend over and lightly brush his short brown hair out of his young face. I can tell that he's only about 15. He will be missed.

I gently close his eyes, avoiding the bullet wound, and quietly pray that he isn't suffering or lost; wherever he is.

He's just a kid, I sob

"Just a kid," I say, aloud. I turn towards the city, the first traces of dawn finally rising out of the hills, awakening the locals.

I bend over, lightly picking up the small child and resting up against the edge of the freeway, making him look asleep; instead of dead. I close his eyes before praying, once more, this time to be forgiven and that someone will avenge him, no matter the cost.

"He was the last one," I promise myself, knowing that it wasn't true. This is my job. This is how I survive. This is what the world is like now.