Her

Chapter III

Her

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I sit on a metal bench, watching two men fighting each other; one of them a seasoned assassin and the other a brand new experiment like myself. A punch here, a punch there; a high kick, a low kick; the swing of a silvery knife; the clunking sound of metal... I know I'm up next. Soon it will be my turn to prove the the training has paid itself off and that I'm ready to be apart of this team.

There is only one other woman here. She hides herself in a dark corner, her short brown hair shielding her face. Timid. Waiting. She'll go after me, when I'm either dead or I've won the fight. Her head jolts up suddenly as the sound of a body crashing to the ground catches her attention. I too look at what has happened and what I see surprises me. On the cold, hard, grey cement is not the new experiment but the seasoned assassin - the one they call 'Soldier'; the one who is supposed to be unbeatable.

"Molodtsy, eksperiment (well done, experiment)," our master says to the other man "Teper' sdelayte vash vybor (now, take your pick)." He gestures to the rest of us who sit patiently on the cold metal bench.

I tense up suddenly, not expecting to be fighting with one of our own. And just my luck that he choses me. I stand up and my eyes go cold hard, strained on my new opponant. All of my training kicks in and I use my shorter height as an advantage. As he goes to take the first punch, I duck under his arm and slide myself through his open legs, popping up behind him and using both of my feet to kick him square in the back, pushing myself to the floor. He launches forward from the kick and lands on his knees. I use the momentum from my attack to jump back to my feet and jump onto his shoulders, using my legs to choke him. He stands up again and punches my legs which gains nothing so he grabs my waist and uses his strength to pull me off of his shoulders and slam me to the ground.

"Davay suki, pokazhi mne, chto u vas yest' (come on bitch, show me what you've got)," he tried to intimidate me.

Useless.

Intimidation would never work on me, not after the training that I had to go through for being a woman. So instead I gave him a sly smile, quickly glancing at the Soldier (who I noticed was watching me intently) to put him slightly off guard by taking his focus away before lurching foward, punching him in the stomach to wind him. As he leant towards me in search of air I cupped the back of his neck and forcefully slamed his face into my rising knee and pulled him to the ground. Out cold.

The Soldier watched on...

**********

The plane ride to Romania was not pleasant. I had to sit in the cargo hold of the giant metal bird along with other passengers' luggage. Since I had never been on an airplane before (I think), I seemed to suffer from motion sickness of some kind, causing me to become very drowsy and eventually making me fall asleep. My dreams also were not pleasant.

Relief had washed over me like a wave from the ocean when I could feel the plane beginning it's decent back to Earth. Two minutes later and the wheels hit the tarmac, making the plane bounce up and down until it smoothed to a slow crawl. When the plane eventually stopped moving, I made my way over to the landing gear opening and hopped out, landing on my feet beneath the plane. When the coast was clear enough, I came out of hiding and followed the other passengers towards the terminal. Quickly, I found my way to the exit after entering the builing and left it all behind, heading towards the busy streets of Romania.

Snow feel softly outside, landing on the footpath in front of me and on my shoulders too. It melted into my hair, which I noticed was really quite long now. I had it in a long plait that rested over my shoulder, bumping fowards with every step I took. It needed a wash, for sure, but that was the least of my concers. For the moment, I had to find whoever it was that that woman spoke to me about. I needed questions answered: what happened, why it happened, who did it and who I was. They were my four questions that I had absolutley no answer to.

People of Romania rushed passed me, bumping my shoulders every now and then. But I continued to walk, eventually coming to an open square full of shop fronts and market stalls. Fruit and vegetable stalls were the popularity among the group of citizens who were out shopping. My stomach grumbled loudly.

"I need sustainance," I whispered to myself.

Grabbing the roll of money out of my jacket and taking a small amount, I strolled over to a stall where no people stood by. An elderly man stood behind the table, a toothless smile plastered on his old, wrinkled face. He greeted me as I came up to him and I greeted him back before selecting a number of different fruits and vegetables. He put them into a brown paper bag as I payed for them and told me to have a good day.

Good day...

I turned to face the busy square and streets around me, studying the people who walked or rode by on two wheeled bicycles, or who were pushing prams in front of them. So many different types. They all knew who they were and where they came from, all I knew was that I was not one of them. I was something very much different.

As I stood there, marvelling over anything I could think of, I started to feel as if I were being watched myself. My senses spiked and I took a step backwards, trying to cover myself in the shadows behind me, my eyes scanning the surroundings. Sure enough, only a hundred metres or so away from me, stood a man, his full attention captivated on me. He wore a cap on his head and beneath that, long brown hair stuck out. I could tell that he was very muscular and strong. But he also wore only one black glove. Just one.

Curious.

He knew that I saw him watching me and he began to take steps in my direction. So I turned and ran into the ally way behind me, leaving it all behind. I'm sure he would've started to run after me but I dared not look back. Buildings arose all around me as I winded through their mysterious path ways, until I came to a dead halt. Listening. Waiting. But there was not a sound. I could feel no one near me, or watching me. Now I could look around at where I was - in the middle of a dark, empty pathway intersection. There seemed to be an abandoned house to my right so I stuck my hands in my pockets and walked over to it, the brown bag bumping on my leg as I walked.

The house was most definitley empty, probably hadn't seen a soul in years. It smelled stongly of dust and stale air as I opened the creaky wooden door to be greeted with a pitch black darkness. One foot in the door and I realised I was wrong, there was someone else in that house. I turned to run back out but the door slammed shut, hitting me in the face. I fell backwards, landing on my backend. Whoever was in there stood right behind me. I felt a sudden sharp pain in my head and I was gone. Knock out.