Phoenix

Chapter Nine - The Cat's Confession

 New scars replaced the new wounds that for days had swelled over his skin at the tinge of pain from gun powder and steel, yet today he was not any less blessed to be sipping from his old friend —the wineglass that has been one of his loyal companions in times of victories. The cold winds greeted him from above the twilight sky while he enjoyed his tiny moment there in his usual spot on the rooftop of the Manhattan tower. Soon, his moments of solitude will be interrupted for the woman he's expecting to appear had yet again followed him like her old habits.

"I've missed you." Catseye called behind his back; her voice was unbelievably weak that which descended from nights of crying. She hugged him with despair surrendering to a sudden contentment and repeated her words. DK remained motionless sipping through his wine though unable to hide the pain from his gaze.

"You should take a rest, you know, a longer while. What do you think? One or two years." she told him worriedly while she tried to meet his eyes distant in contemplation.

"New plans for the Org needed to be carried out soon. The Em—"

"But listen, you must—"

"No, I can't!" DK exclaimed furiously driving away Catseye's caring treatment.

Silence suddenly broke the conversation and DK went back to his wine.

"You have already done a lot, DK. Haven't you thought about the future?"

"There is no future." he said calmly.

"You always say that. We have a future. We all do."

"There isn't but hope."

"And you don't believe it is as good as what we can view as our future, do you?"

"See, those two are different things. Hope is what we've only been able to reach from the multitude of possibilities so people continued holding on to it . . . hoping day after day until we die. Then there is no one but the youth to carry over the hope until someday, they eventually die." DK spoke with certainty. "There is no future."

"I believe in change, DK. Why don't you, too?"

DK never answered. His thoughts carried him back to his childhood —a cold hard past he could never change like old cement around his heart. Somewhere in it was a yearning for affection he had never felt for a very long time; he searched for traces of it among his memories and succeeded but eventually, the future, as he sees it, would easily turn him back to his cold-heartedness.

DK grew up alone. The Empress started his training even before he had awareness of the world which he had found to be worth of despise. It was full of hatred and death; it has always been. His toys were knives and blades; his entertainment was pain and death. He remembered how his mother had punished him for not doing well in his training; how he had spent a week enduring hunger within a locked chamber. Everything was for the sake of training himself to be a weapon.

As a child, he had caught a rat for dinner severing his fingers with bites yet they healed and he was amazed yet the training would never stop. The Empress was satisfied and gave him a delightful meal but for the next years, the situations just went harder and harder until all difficulties had faded.

Yet how could he blame his mother for doing such a thing! Look at him. He has no fear at all. Nothing can break him apart . . . though there were some points in his life he could never forget and never fully comprehend and even as he tried to, there was no remedy to mend it. But most surprisingly, just like his mother had instructed him which he always believed in, it gave him strength —the strongest kind of strength. It channeled anger within him; too strong that once he had learned to use it, it spread out to his entire body forcing him to do things he never thought he could do. For him, it was the best learning that he had learned through suffering. That strength allowed him to kill somebody while staying free from fear and mercy so in that manner, it became his life the purpose of which abides to his leadership of the Organization.