Deserving | ✔

Chapter 39

Today is the day. Today is the day that I'll officially meet the man who has been my mission for two months, twenty and three hours. Yes, it is the 3rd of April, 3:00 AM in the morning. Do you know what I'm doing right now?

I'm practicing. Yes, I'm practicing my gun shooting. I'm practicing the art of killing.

How, you ask? Simple. I bought a toy gun from the nearest Wall Mart, bundled a few of my old clothes into a human form and I've been keeping it in different spots and aiming from various distances. First, my aims were a little off, and it always reached near its abdomen. But that won't kill anybody. I'm the living proof for that. So, I practiced and practiced and now I can aim straight to his heart from a distance of twenty feet. Of course, the recoil velocity and the weight of the real gun can affect the aim I have gained from this toy gun, but I believe in fate. And I can feel that that bastard's fate is in my hands.

Ugh, I so wish to see my bullet pierce through his thick layers of skin and reach straight to his pumping heart. I wonder if his arteries will break and blood will flow out rather than ooze. Yes, I would love for that to happen. He needs to bleed to death, thinking about all what he did to a previously normal man like me that made me the raw monster I am now.

I feel a small tap on my shoulder and that makes me turn around and aim with the gun.

"Woah!" Trisha raises her arm but then drops it and smirks. "Toy gun, Bhai? Really?"

"What are you doing at three o'clock in the morning, Tri? Go sleep!" I order her. She already has dark patches near the rim of her eyes and I don't want to increase it. Poor girl will look like a zombie if she doesn't get her six hours of sleep.

"I could ask you the same thing. What are you doing at 3 in the morning, with a toy gun," she points to the gun in my hand, "a plastic bullet," she points to the bullet on the ground, "and a freaking human effigy?" 

I shrug. "I'm practicing, Trisha. I need to perfect my gun aim. It's better now because I practiced all night. Look carefully."

I take another plastic bullet out of my pocket, load it in the gun and walk away from the effigy. Straightening my right arm to the shoulder level and aiming for the left side of his chest, I pull the trigger. It strikes straight at its heart before it falls to the ground. 

"Bull's eye," I say and fist the air in victory. Tri's eyes, however, are watching me in scrutiny.

"This was what you were doing all night? Practicing how to aim straight to the heart? What has happened to you, Bhai? What have you done to yourself?" her voice cracks.

I sigh. "You want to know what happened to me? Tragedy, injustice, betrayal... Life. Life happened to me. Have you seen National Geographic and Discovery channels when you were young? They say that when a species is taken out of it's natural habitat and forced into a different society, it will slowly lose all its traits and habits. It will lose its identity. That is what happened to me, Trisha. I've lost my identity ever since my habitat, my home, my love has left me. I'm forced into this new world where Stephanie is missing. So, I have no choice but to slowly lose myself to the obscurities of the world."

Trisha takes a step forward and wraps an around my neck. "I hate seeing you like this, Phillip. I hate what life did to you."

I place one arm on her back and caress her up and down. Honestly, I loathe this version of me. But in some twisted, sadistic realm, I also love this version. I am a man driven by his mission now. I can do anything to complete my mission; I can kill, even. I should kill. That's my mission. There's this electric surge of adrenaline running through my veins that I like. It's almost ecstatic, this adrenaline. Almost.