Prologue

It’s surprising how a couple of hours can forever change the course of history, even more, if it only involves three people to do so.

On this particularly cold night in September, while most of Thalassia was at home resting after a long day, a red-haired girl walked alone through the city's dark roads. She was lost in thought, not paying attention to what was happening around the empty roads. When she was pulled out of her mind abruptly by the sound of gunshots, it was weird that something like that could happen in such a nice-looking street, but when she looked to her left the sight was surprising, to say the least. Nausea invaded the girl while tears blurred her vision. Right in front of her was the man, who was supposed to be guarding the building, lying on the floor with his throat open, bleeding hard, his eyes, lifeless, stood open dozing off onto the night sky. Then it came again, a gunshot, before she could process what was happening her body started running toward the building, her body on high alert for whatever was about to happen.

She started to follow a path of bloody footsteps going up the stairs, on the third floor they continued through a hallway, all the way to a room that had a big muscular guy lying on the floor unconscious, or maybe dead, bleeding out onto the carpet. A single bullet-sized hole was in his chest, his dark clothes meant he probably was a bodyguard for whoever’s apartment this was.

When the adrenaline started to warn off the girl realized that she was in front of a crime scene, while trying to find her phone in her purse a man appeared from behind the door in front of the bodyguard. When she felt like she was being watched she looked up, still trying to find her phone, and made eye contact with the mysterious man. He had dark neatly brushed hair with a skin so pale that he seemed to be gray, he had a perfectly sized black suit, which seemed to be made just for him, and finally, he had eyes dark as night with a cold expression that gave him this dark and scary aura.

“Who are you?” a cold, hoarse voice cut through the silence. Shivers went down the girl’s spine, while every muscle in her body tensed up with fear, after a few seconds of her trying to find her voice, the man spoke again in the same monotone tone, this time raising his arm with his gun on hand “I asked you a question, so if you could answer it I may not need to pull this trigger”

“M-my name is Megan,” the girl said in her soft hesitating voice.

“So” the man started “Megan” he spoke her name in a different tone, a spiteful tone. “Here’s the thing, you probably have already realized that I killed this man” he was back to speaking coldly and emotionless, “You also have seen my face, which means you could recognize me in a crowd. You also have a hand on your bag, meaning you were trying to grab something from it, a phone maybe, to call the police probably.”

Megan’s heart was racing, pounding so hard she swore the guy would be able to hear it. As she slowly pulled her hand out of her bag empty-handed, she looked straight into the man’s eyes, just then she realized that the guy was young, he was probably her age. Then why is he doing this? she thought.

The guy started talking again when Megan’s hand reached a resting point on the side of her body “So by now you already know I’m an assassin, and you probably think I’m going to kill the poor little girl who uncovered the most wanted criminal in thalassia’s identity.” said the guy slowly with a monotone voice “then you are wrong” something similar to an evil smile appeared on his face.

Confusion washed over Megan, if he wasn’t going to kill her then what was he going to do to her?

“W-what is going to happen to me?” Megan’s voice was soft and full of hesitation.

“Oh, that’s up to you darling,” said the man still with this weird smile on his face “You’ve got two options, number one: to kill yourself right here, right now”

Megan’s mind was now racing, was this man going to watch her kill herself?

“The second option is to become an assassin and work for me” The man who was still smiling looked kind of excited at this point, he seemed to be enjoying Megan’s fear “I’d sincerely choose the second one, it’s easier to kill other people than to kill yourself” as his evil smile washed off his face he said with a much sadder tone “Believe me”.

Megan’s knees failed her, and as she fell to the floor, what the man had said started to sink in. She had to choose between her own life and many more that she would have to take with her own hands. Nausea came back and suddenly she felt like she couldn’t breathe, she always promised to put others before herself, and she had done that her whole life, but when it came to this she felt like she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t choose others. When she was younger she always gave her life, and her energy to others, she was worthless, and even though she thought that she deserved to die, something in her changed. She wasn’t going to sacrifice herself anymore for some people she didn’t even know, maybe this would be better for her, and maybe her life would get better.

As she made up her mind she raised her head to look at the man “I-” she took a deep breath to steady her voice “I’ll work for you…”

“Wonderful” the man’s smile was back on his face. “Before you leave I want you to know a couple of things: for starters, if I hear that you’ve told anyone about this you will understand the meaning of the phrase “There are things in life worse than death”, clear? Next, my name is Keelan and you will be referring to me as so.

“Also I’ll be the one contacting you, never the other way around. You also have to burn any piece of evidence that could point to our organization. If you behave maybe you will get paid in the future”.

Megan was frozen in place trying to find her voice, as the knot in her throat tightened. She was only able to nod slightly as an answer. Before she could process everything Keelan disappeared right in front of her eyes, she stayed there, seated on the floor for what to her felt like an eternity, even though it was only a couple of minutes. She only snapped back to reality when she heard what sounded like police sirens, and she realized she needed to run away before the police thought she was the culprit in all of this.

With the unbearable feeling of being watched, she walked as fast as her legs could toward her apartment. When she finally arrived she collapsed onto bed, sleepless trying to figure out what she was going to do now that she was supposed to be an assassin. Tying to wash her worries away she took a shower, right after she came out she put her pajamas on and lay in bed, after a couple of seconds she fell asleep.

After a restless night, she woke up to her 7:00 am alarm. Just when she thought everything was just a dream she saw a little folded yellow paper on her nightstand. She grabbed it slowly, sure she hadn’t left it there, as she slowly unfolded the little paper she realized, that all was real. The paper read:

Dear Mrs. Megan

Since you are new to this organization you will undergo intense training for the next year or so with Mr. Keelan. For your first session you will be meeting at 2217 Emberway Street, Thalassia at 7:00 am, don’t be late or you’ll go through punishment.

After you read this memorize the address and burn this paper, if this order is not fulfilled punishment will be served to you.

Messenger 72634

After she read the letter probably a hundred times she burned it in the kitchen thinking about what the training was going to be, and what the messenger could’ve meant when they mentioned punishment.

The next morning she went to “training” not sure of what was about to come. Little did she know that after this moment her life was going to change and that her future was now set in stone.