Academy of Legends

Prologue: The Killer (Guilty)

I look upon the body of the man I have just killed with a certain amount of fear. I have ended a life. It seems to be something I have done before, from the feeling I get inside of me, but I know I have not. I feel as if it has barely affected me, even as his lifeblood turns the carpet beneath him red. Does it make it worse that I killed him, and feel no remorse, although he is someone I have spoken to innumerable times before? Still I feel nothing.

The door into my victim's office opens behind me, and I turn to face the intruder. It is another person I know, and she stares at me with horror in her eyes. "What have you done?" she asks me.

I meet her eyes, smiling with emotion. "What needs to be done," I say. "Why has no one done this before? This place ... this academy ... it's tainted. I must clean it in blood."

The woman, Marian, looks at me with fear. "You don't know what you're saying," she says. "This is insanity. This is the wrong way to go about this!"

I shake my head at her. "I had hoped that you, of all people, would understand why I have to do this. Can't you see? They are tainting these children. They must be destroyed. Nothing can stand in my way, Marian!"

She steps back to the door, her hand desperately seeking the knob. "I will stop you," she promises me. "I won't let you go through with this!"

The woman is insane. She cannot stop me; it's already far too late for that. I step towards her, and I see the fear in her eyes. "I don't want to have to do this to you, Marian. I'd rather have you on my side. Why do you refuse to see reason?"

"This isn't reason!" she says. "This is madness! Absolute madness!"

"To some, perhaps," I admit. "But to me ... this isn't madness. This is the next step. And I'm truly sorry, Marian." I pull out the gun in my pocket and shoot her once. She falls with a cry, the life already leaving her eyes. I step up to her body as she draws in her final breaths, clinging to the last breaths of her life she has. "I didn't want to do this to you. You forced me into this."

Marian draws in a shaky gasp. "You ... are ... mad." Then she dies.

I shake my head in pity that her last words had to be words against me. "You are a fool," I tell her before bending down and closing her hazel eyes.

When I stand and leave the office, I am certain of two things. First, that I will never be the same again. I had killed two people, one of whom is one of my greatest friends. The second is that I am no longer an innocent. I am guilty.