Puppet {ManxMan}

CHAPTER 1

They call themselves the Con Rồng, the Dragons. They're the ones who caused the apocalypse, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a hand in that destruction. In the bible, God promised never to destroy the world with a flood ever again. He said the next time he ended the world, it would be with fire. He was right.

The Con Rồng spread the flames of lies, deceit, fear and blood before sitting back and watching in sick fascination as whole cities burned down into ashes, presidents were slaughtered and torn to pieces. They are the fire that destroyed the world, and I... I am their puppet.

For a long time after I was taken, the night I turned thirteen, I didn't understand why they chose me, in fact I still don't really know why it was me and not Kailas, who was a lot stronger than me physically. I remember very little, I think I must have buried the memories because of the trauma, but I remember they trained me, twisted me and played with me like I was a piece of wet clay, forming me into an image they could use as a figurehead of fear.

They spent years breaking me, teaching me not to feel. They desensitized me against emotion and pain, I could get a hairline fracture and still be able to run because that's what I was trained to do. The training, the torture, was brutal, bloody, but in the end I came out the perfect specimen of obedience and efficiency.

They sent me on my first mission when I was seventeen. I had very clear instructions that lead me to the capital of the United States, where I put a bullet through the president's head. Con Rồng told me to make it brutal, so I did, bullet after bullet, I think I emptied three full clips into his body until it was mangled and unrecognizable. Then the Con Rồng spread the rumor that it was a hit ordered by the royal family in England.

Months passed, they sent me on another mission, this one to England. It was sickeningly easy to take out the bloodline one by one. Every time the gun recoiled I could feel more of my sanity punching out. The lights left their eyes, I could hear laughter at the back of my mind, his laughter.

They blamed it on the United States, and war started.

For a while Con Rồng sat back and watched as the war grew in intensity, an all-out world war. Countries chose sides, bombs fell, blood soaked into the land. My handlers were so pleased with my work that they left me alone for a while, a full year I believe, until the war started winding down. They didn't like that, so they sent me out again, telling me to eliminate any and all politicians and people of interest that had the ability to negotiate peace and end the war. I obeyed.

By the time I was done I had assassinated over a hundred men, women, politicians, vice presidents, peace enforcers, protesters, anyone my handlers saw as a threat to their twisted cause. I became a monster. Why? Because that's what they trained me to become.

The world spiraled rather quickly after that. Third world countries became extinct, big cities were death traps, there was murder, rape, drugs, everything that could be wrong with the world, multiplied. Electricity was rare nowadays, unless you were rich or controlled the power plants with violence and fear.

I'd long since lost all sense of existence. I knew I was alive, I knew I was breathing, but there was no substance, I was simply going through the motions. I traded in my humanity for the ability not to feel. It took a long time to be able to block out the things around me, but now nothing seemed to phase me. It still affected me when they used me for things other than their killing, it was always humiliating, painful, disgusting, and left me numb and even less alive than before, but at least I could kind of block it out.

It had been years since they last sent me out for a mission. Con Rồng had what they wanted. Complete and total control over a wasteland of ruined humanity. Thanks to me. It seemed my job was done; my purpose had been fulfilled. I aided the monsters in the destruction of earth. They didn't want to get rid of me though, since they invested so much time and money into me, so they kept me locked away in a little room, sometimes for days on end.