The Blood Assassin

Red

"Kija! Kija!" I wake up to someone shouting my name. As I open my eyes, I realize I have a splitting headache, feel groggy, and am dizzy.

I look around, trying to figure out where I am, but the sun streaming through a gap in the curtains blinds me. When I try to sit up, the sudden movement sends a sharp pain shooting through what feels like every crevice of my brain.

I clutch my head and collapse back onto the pillow in agony, hoping the pain will subside, but it doesn't. Why is my head pounding so much? I cover my face with a blanket to shield my eyes from the light. I try to remember where I am and what happened last night, but there's nothing—no recollection at all. My mind is blank.

You know that feeling when you have something very important to do but can't remember what it is? That's how I'm feeling right now. Oh and of course with the added discomfort of what feels like my head being crushed.

Panic begins to rise in my throat. I carefully pull the red blanket away from my head and, with one eye open, take in my surroundings. This isn't my house, that much is clear. I must be in someone else's place, but whose?

I slowly shift my weight onto my arms to sit up, hoping for a clearer view. As the blanket slips from my chest to my lap, I realize I'm naked. Great. I lift the sheets to confirm that I am, indeed, fully naked. Anxiety sets in as I wonder if anything happened, but then I notice a dried, dark purple, crusty substance smeared all over me. It's on my stomach, chest, arms, and hands. I recognize it immediately. I know this substance all too well. I've seen it many times. It can only be blood.

As an assassin, training usually starts at a very young age. I remember being 8 when I was told my parents were deceased. Given their secretive lives, adoption obviously wasn't an option for me, so 'they' kept me. They molded and trained me. I would have started earlier, but my parents had hoped to shield me from this life. They wanted to protect me from it. By the time I was 8, they had already completed thousands of missions and planned only to do a few more after that Prime Minister of UK mission before their plans of 'retiring'. But, as you know, that never happened.

Defying my parents' wishes, they trained me to take their place. They claimed they had an agenda and needed me to be prepared. For years, they subjected me to intense and grueling trainings. At first, I was rebellious—I would deliberately fail tests, ignore their instructions, or not even put in any effort.

But for a year, they were relentless, and the tests became a repetitive form of torture. "The sooner you comply, the sooner this will end," they told me over and over. No bluffing, no irritation—just a matter-of-fact, choose-your-own-fate attitude. Eventually, I gave in.

One test, in particular, was the blood test. Not the kind your doctor gives you, but something far more intense. The room was stark white, resembling a basement, with only one way in and one way out. It was no larger than 5x5 feet. They would lock the door behind me and sometimes leave me there for hours or even days. There was an opening above through which they could drop anything they wanted into the room. I had no way to escape—I was trapped.

They would suspend a live animal above me—a pig, a cow, a goat, or whatever they could find. While the animal was still alive and struggling to escape, they would butcher it right down the middle of its chest and allowed the blood to drain down directly into this room right on top of me. Probably for the first few months or so I would get sick—I fainted, I vomited, I pissed my pants. The sight, smell, and warmth of the blood was unbearable. But after a few months I reached a point where it no longer affected me.

Then they began using multiple animals at once. They slaughtered so many that the blood would rise to my ankles. Shortly after that they would drop the dead animals in the room with me once their blood had drained. Months would pass before I finally stopped getting disturbed by their next 'phase.'

Until one day, it wasn't animals anymore. They started using people. Yes...humans. The person would be naked and bound by their feet and mouth, hanging by their hands.

Muffled screams would echo as they struggled against their restraints. Sometimes their cries would go on for hours while I sat below with my ears covered. The screams only ceased when they were slaughtered down the middle, just like the animals. This continued, eventually escalating to multiple humans being slaughtered over me, with blood rising to my ankles and their bodies dropped into the room with me.

To say I was traumatized would be an understatement. But over time, that trauma transformed into numbness, and eventually, numbness became...normal.

I still get chills at the sight of large amounts of blood, but that blood test turned me into something of a blood expert—if such a thing even exists. I can determine the time of death simply by examining the color of the blood and gauge how long it's been exposed to the air by its temperature. I can distinguish whether it's from an animal or a human and even infer the method of killing based on the blood splatter. There's a lot you can learn from blood—it's actually quite fascinating.

So, what can I tell you about the blood on me right now? I know it's from a male who died about five hours ago.

With a pounding headache, I throw off the blankets and climb out of bed. My suspicions are confirmed—there's blood everywhere. What I thought was a red blanket is actually a white one covered in dried blood. Blood stains the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling. Someone was definitely sliced to death.

What the hell happened here? I begin to panic and frantically search for my clothes.

"Kija? Are you there?" The voice startles me, and I realize it's coming from my earpiece. "Yeah," I mumble softly.

"Where the hell have you been? Why didn't you report in? I've been trying to reach you for hours."

"Okay, okay, I know, Rocs. But could you dial it down a bit? My head is killing me."

"Your head is kil...Kija, where have you been? What's going on?"

"I don't know. I'm trying to figure that out now. Something feels off." I say, pulling on a robe I find draped over a nearby chair. "What's off?"

"I'm not sure. I don't remember anything. I don't know where I am, and it's... it's really bad here." I add, covering my mouth in disbelief as I try to make sense of the bloodstains everywhere.

"Alright, let's break this down step by step. I see on the tracker that you're still at Julian's house." Julian? I murmur, trying to remember who he is. "You went to the Byrds & Beez bar last night to make contact with the target. Your mission was to engage with him, get him to take you back to his place, retrieve his research data, and then eliminate him with an injection that would cause a heart attack."

"Well he definitely didn't die of a heart attack, I can tell you that much." While Rocs continued detailing the mission I had followed a trail of blood into the living room and discovered Julian's naked, lifeless body sprawled on the floor. He was surrounded by a pool of his own blood. From the bloodstains, it seemed he had been crawling from the bedroom towards the door before succumbing to his injuries.

"Shit," I muttered to myself, scanning Julian's living room for clues about what happened last night. "What do you mean he didn't die of a heart att...Kija, tell me what's going on?"

"Nothing, I'm just messing around. Everything's fine here. Mission accomplished. I'll send you the research data and photos when I get home. Signing out."

"Wait... Kij—" Rocs's voice cut off as I disconnected my earpiece and threw it onto the kitchen counter next to my purse.

"Shit!" I exclaimed while putting on my gloves and rummaging through the cabinets for aspirin and water. Once I found them, I leaned against the counter, considering my next move. "Okay, let's fix this."