Tying Loose Ends || A Proxy Fanfic

6 - Cross The Rubicon

Cross the Rubicon

To do something that you cannot change later and what will strongly influence future events.

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A mind so blank. A stare so empty. A feeling so calm. Yet the excitement is gutting. For what I did does not matter. Who I was does not matter. Everything in my life led up to this one point. Only so it can all be forgotten.

It took me all my effort to calm down my quick breathing. Even slumped against the tree I had a hard time keeping myself upright.

Blood was pooling around my shoes, leaving a red coloured rim around the sides of them. 3 lifeless corpses were scattered on the ground, all with their own injuries which they'll never recover from.

I watched them die. I stood and stared as my friend picked them off one by one. Despite the calls for help, the cries to stop, he killed all three of them.

I didn't help him with killing them. All I did was look. But it felt so close. It felt like this was my doing, like I was the judge watching the executioner.

With that came the feeling of fright. But not because of what happened. Not because of what I did in this killing. I felt frightened of what I felt. It started when we sneaked up on our targets. It reached it's peak when I saw someone die in my arms. The excitement I felt was something I never experienced before.

The excitement felt so liberating but suffocating at the same time. It felt free to know that at that moment in time not a single soul was able to prevent what was happening. It felt quelling to know that this sealed the fate for the rest of my life.

Toby walked up to me. He kneeled next to me. His hands were covered in blood and there were red splatters over his hoodie. He didn't seem to care.

"Welcome to your new life."

I didn't look at him. I didn't want to look at him. I didn't want to face him and tell him what I felt. How something so wrong was one of the most exciting things I've ever done.

"I know that it feels weird, the way you feel right now. Th-that it seems so unreal to witness the deaths of three people. All I can tell you is that you took it well. You didn't break down and that's a whole lot better than most." He said trying to sound encouraging.

I lightly grabbed his wrist. I wiped some blood of his hand and held up my now red coloured fingers, inspecting them.

"It's weird."

"I know."

We sat there silent. We sat there for at least an hour. It got darker and darker. Now everything looked gray-scaled. The cold seeped into my skin. I started to shiver gently.

"We need to bury them," Toby said as he got up. "And you need the exercise to warm up."

He reached his hand out to me. I took it and he pulled me up. Together we walked to where we left our backpacks.

Toby reached into his bag and pulled out three body bags and a collapsible spade. He threw the spade my way and started walking back. I followed.

"I'll bag them. You can start digging."

I nodded. I wasn't going to complain. I rather have him handle those bodies. I needed the heat anyway.

I fixed the spade to it's working position and dug into the ground, mindlessly shoveling away dirt to create a grave for three.

It didn't take long before I started sweating. After ten minutes of digging I wasn't even half way. I looked over at Toby who had finished his task and was now watching me from a distance.