Elegy for a Dead Rose

working for the knife

A blood-curdling scream coming from down the hallway. Gunshots fired, nothing hit. Sobs came from his strained throat as footsteps echoed on the wood floors. Blood stained the sheets as the screams turned to silence.

Dead.

They're dead, Liu.

⦻————⦻

She glanced down at her list, double-checking that she had the right address. The target lived in an apartment on the second floor. The girl started walking up the stairs, counting how many steps there were for no real reason. Thirteen in each flight.

Fidgeting with the heart charm on her choker, she walked up to the last apartment on the floor and attempted to open the door. It was locked. Duh.

She groaned and took a hair clip out from her ponytail, bending it into a shape more adjacent to a line. She inserted the hair clip into the doorknob hole, twisting it around in a circle until she felt it catch on something. She pushed it further into the lock until she heard a small click sound.

Stuffing the bent hairpin into the pocket of her cropped jacket, she quietly opened the door and peeked inside. She slipped into the living room, shutting the door behind her.

The lights were off, making it difficult to see all the details of the apartment. She listened carefully as she clicked on her phone flashlight, making sure the residents weren't around.

The targets were a young couple who had wandered too far into the woods and had seen a bit too much. Usual stuff, shouldn't be too difficult to get rid of them.

The girl scanned the room with her flashlight, taking note of the layout before slipping her phone back into her pocket. It was simple, a small kitchen and table next to a living room with a couch and another table. There was a hallway in between the kitchen and living room, leading to the other rooms in the house.

Reaching into her small satchel, the girl pulled out a decently sized, newly-sharpened, knife. She set the satchel down next to the door, being careful to not make any noise. She slowly made her way down the hallway, peeking inside all the rooms until she made it to the bedroom.

Nobody was there.

Weird. If her research was right, the couple should be asleep by now, not out of the house. The time was right, the address was right, what was going on?

Sudden footsteps came from behind her. She swiftly turned around, gripping her knife, ready to attack.

"KNIFE. DOWN. NOW."

A panicked-looking boy shouted at the girl, holding up a baseball bat, prepared to swing if necessary.

"KNIFE. PUT IT DOWN." The boy shouted again.

Fuck. She was in the wrong apartment. She could've sworn she was told to go to the last one on the second floor, could she have read it wrong? Were the directions just fucked up?

If she ran away now, whoever this guy was would probably call the cops, and she'd get scolded when she got back to the mansion. Guess she'd just have to kill him.

⦻........⦻

Sully watched as a girl he had never seen before in his life walked through his apartment. From what he could make out, she was wearing brightly colored clothing with plenty of stripes. Her hair was tied back into a long ponytail using a large bow. Hung around her neck was a small purple satchel, which set off alarms in Sully's mind as she watched her reach into it and pull out a knife.