Enter Apathy

Hitman, Hit (17.)

Kalaraja sobs, still on the floor. He refuses to look at her. He used to think that he couldn't feel anything, and he used to think that she was as apathetic as he was, but he now knows that she's much, much worse.

       "They have family," he wails, spit and slobber make his words sound distorted.

       "Every body has family!" She shouts back. She stomps toward him and leans over in his face.

       "And every body dies." Her words pierce through him.

Lilliana's eyes read his face. He's truly in pain, but it doesn't make sense to her. Confusion clouds her face. He's been killing for years. Him unraveling now, in front of her, makes her feel disgusted. He's blubbering like an unfed baby or a toddler that's been told no. Over this past week her apathy has grown tremendously. It makes her feel unsettled, but also liberated. To feel nothing means that she's free from the morals that society traps them in. Why wouldn't he want that, when he's had it for years?

Kalaraja rocks back and forth as she stands over him. Pain is evident in his eyes as tears stream from them. Regret is a worthless feeling.

       "Theo," she starts, then crouches beside him. "Because of you, I've grown into what I need to. I've... evolved."

The gun in her hand waves back and forth as she talks.

       "When you killed Kroj, I let all of my pain go. My only purpose left was to die, and you didn't deliver-" her brow furrows- "I didn't understand it at first, but maybe it was for the best. Maybe I needed you to help me let go of my past and the part of it that was holding me back. I noticed you losing yourself in the process... But I want you to know that I don't pity you."

Kalaraja looks at her between his tears. Striking a deal with this woman is the worst thing to happen to him. He lost his whole perspective after he encountered her. It's his own fault, for being a sadist and for enjoying causing pain. If he hadn't wanted to torture her, he would never have discovered that she was like him, actually worse, and then he would've continued with his profession without empathy, without the feeling of regret. He would've never had that flashback of his brothers, and he never would've flaked out of finishing a job on his own.

       "But I pity you," he whispers with a tremble in his voice. "You're never going to feel anything ever again. And though I used to think that was an asset, a strength, I now see that it's a handicap. You're the thing that's wrong with people. Not emotions, but rather, the lack of it."

She tilts her head at him. This man that claimed to feel completely nothing when he met her now feels it all. Regret, pity, sadness. It's a shame. He'll never again be the great killer he once was.

       "Don't pity me," she scoffs.

       "But I do," he replies. "You think you're superior for the numbness in your heart, but you're not. And I wasn't either. It's like you said, I shut down a part of my emotions because I didn't want to feel anything of that magnitude ever again. You said that to me because you've done the same. The only difference is that you've buried your emotions so far away that they'll never see the light of day again. You buried them six, no, ten feet under heavy soil and then covered the grave with concrete."

       Lilliana laughs dryly, "You might be right about that. But that's the thing Theo-"

       "Don't call me that." He snaps.

       "And why not? It's your name," she tauntingly smiles.

       "Because Edgar and David called me that, and you don't get to. You don't carry any love in your heart for anyone, and you never will."

Lilliana remembers her outburst to the detective that interrogated her on the night of the incident. He called her 'sweetie', and she had the same outburst toward him that Kalaraja just had toward her. The rememberance fills her with distaste for his response.

She stands up. Abruptly, she brings her foot to his shoulder and roughly kicks him over. His body limply falls against the floor. Any fight in him has been drained out with his tears.

        "You're weak," she tells him as she places her foot on his face. She uses her foot to squish his cheek against the floor. He doesn't fight back.

       She applies more pressure on her leg and she spits on his face, then snaps, "You're pathetic."

       "You used to be great, and now you're nothing." She berates him. She raises the gun and points it at him.

Kalaraja makes brief eye contact with her. She's certainly drunk with the idea that she is somehow superior to any other human being that does manage to feel emotions.

       "Are you sure you're not just angry because you're the outlier?" Kalaraja asks, voice muffled by the foot on his face.

       "Outlier? I'm the fucking exception!" She laughs. She cocks the weapon in her hand.

Kalaraja closes his eyes and lets a few tears fall as she carries on about being better than him for feeling nothing. She's better at being apathetic, and maybe at one point, a few days ago, that would have bothered him. But now, it brings him peace. He has his answers that he searched for. He shut off his emotions because the loss of David and Edgar destroyed him. He felt completely alone, and remained that way since their murders. But he knows now that he chose to. He could've done better for himself. He probably should have. He lost himself along the way, but now he's resurfaced. Even if only for the last moments of his life. Is this enlightenment?

He breathes in and smells the scent of copper. The brothers' blood a few feet away from him has finally reached his nostrils. The scent used to fill him with satisfaction, but now it fills him with sadness. Sadness for the loss of those brothers, and for the loss of his own. He remembers David's cheeky grin and Edgar's bad jokes that never made any sense. He remembers the pranks that used to get them all into so much trouble. He remembers all of the laughs and all of the sad moments they shared. Twenty-two years after losing them and shutting down, he finally feels the mourning he should have felt all those years ago. He doesn't believe in a God or a Heaven, bu if he did, he would take comfort in the idea that he could see them again. Instead, he feels grateful for finally being able to feel again, event though he didn't know he wanted to before these last few days. Finally, he's able to grieve for them.

Lilliana increases the pressure on his face.

       "It's been lovely, really, but I think that this has to end now. This has kind of run its course," she shrugs as the gun points in his face.

       Kalaraja closes his eyes. His end is here, and after ending so many others' lives this way, it seems fitting enough for him to be subjected to the same. He takes in a deep breath and then lets it out.

Lilliana squeezes the trigger, for the second time in her life. Kalaraja's body jerks after the bullet enters his skull. His body goes limp as the essence of his life exits its vessel. His eyes loll to the back of his head and blood pours out of the wound. He lays lifeless. What once was, is no more.

It's a shame, really. He was great and confident once. Lilliana takes this event as another sordid reminder that humanity is a blight, and so are feelings.

She steps off of his face. She hadn't expected to kill him, but she could not have dealt with another moment of his crying. She doesn't understand why he unraveled so quickly or why he couldn't just rebury his emotions, or at the very least, handle them.

She glances around the room and sighs. Corpses and blood litter the floor. She has three bodies to get rid of, and she'd better start now.

~~~

Thank you so much for finishing my first story! I'll be going through and editing some chapters, fixing errors, and adding details here or there. Please let me know what you think of Lilliana and Kalaraja's journey! If enough readers want it, I might cook up a glance into Lilliana's new life. Leave opinions in the comments and let me know what you all thought! I greatly appreciate all my readers, or my "Book Babies" as I like to call you, and I have adored all the feedback and interactions!