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Title: The Assassin

Genre: Fantasy, maybe mystery/thriller

This story is about how an assassin became an assassin, how a murder became a murder and, about how they met.

This story is a work in progress

Chapter One: The Beginning

I suppose it all starts when I'm fourteen years old and see my first monster. I am walking home from school one day when I feel something staring at me, something looking at me and so I turn around to see if I could spot anyone but, I see nothing. I continue walking, quickening my pace an occasional glance behind me.

Then I hear footsteps as if something was getting closer to me and so I start to run. I am scared and have no idea who is following me and I just ran. I made a mistake by looking behind me because when I did I trip over something on the ground. Well, it isn't really a something more of a someone. It is an elder old lady and I try to help her up but, she looked passed me like she sees something.

"Run, my dear. Run it's not safe here." She tells me.

"What do you mean-?" I try to ask but, the old woman vanishes. I turn around to where the old woman had been staring and that is when I see my first monster and I fall back on the ground. It is the worst thing I have ever seen. It is a grey blob with red eyes and I can see it's sharp crooked teeth when it smiles down at me. It is hideous.

It charges at me before I can even stand up and knocks me back on the ground. It's hand was around my throat. It is choking me, trying to kill me. I try to kick it away but, it is useless. I try to scream but, my voice can not be heard.

"She made us suffer and we shall make you suffer the same." It hisses at me. A moment later it is gone and I am breathing heavily. I try to calm my breathing but, I can't I just kept reliving what just happened. When I finally manage to calm myself down I run home up to my room. I jump on my bed and bury my face in my pillow and scream, or at least I try to scream. I notice that no sound comes out.

I sit up on my bed and try to say something, to say anything but, no sound escapes my lips. I can't speak anymore. I am mute.

-----

The same day I see my first monster my father doesn't come home at his usual time. A knock comes from the door. I freeze. Should I answer it? I think. Perhaps it is just my Dad home from work late and he forgot his key but, that isn't like him. He never forgets anything. Maybe he woke up late this morning and so they made him work over time but, it isn't like him not to call or text me so I wouldn't worry. I get up from my bed and wipe my face from my tears and go to answer the door.

At the door is an older woman, maybe in her late twenties or early thirties. She has dirty blond hair that was put in a bun and she is wearing a long sleeve blue dress. Her expression is stern and cold but, if you look into her eyes you could see kindness.

"Mai Lynn?" The woman asks me. I nod. "Come with me." I stay where I am. A part of me knows what had happened before she says it. A part of me that doesn't want to believe it and so I try not to listen to the voice in my head telling me something's wrong and then the woman spoke what I am afraid to hear. "Your father's dead."

I freeze. It's not like I was moving before anyway but, I stop breathing. It's so different when you hear what you had thought happened then when you think it. It makes it so much more real. I don't want to believe it. I want this to just be a dream, an awful dream along with the monster. I want this whole day to be a dream. But it's not.

I want to ask her where she is taking me but, I can't. I still can't speak. I am hoping that this was a temporary spell that would leave in an hour but, it had been more than an hour since the attack. I follow her into the car and I sit in the seat behind the drivers seat. She had left the engine on so the car was already warmed up.

"Perhaps, I should introduce myself properly. My name is Dahlia Jefferson. You can call me Mrs. Jefferson. " She informs me. "I'll be taking you to a Foster Home I don't know how long you'll be there because if we can find some family members of yours then you'll go live with them." I nod to show that I understood.

When we arrive at the Foster Home she had taken me to Mrs. Jefferson walks me inside.Then, she introduces me to the Foster Mother and the other children. Then, she showed me to the room that I would stay in.

"Here you are. Oh, you don't have any of your stuff. I'll bring you your things from your room later, okay?" Mrs. Jefferson tells me. I nod. "Still not speaking?" I nod again, looking at my feet.

When she left I sit on the neatly made bed in my room and look around. The place seemed so lonely, so sad. If I end up staying, I think, I'm fixing my room to be happier. I don't remember how or when but, I end up falling asleep.

Chapter Two: Fading Voices

I wake up to a girl, standing over me and staring. She sighs with relief when she notices I opened my eyes. She gives me a small smile. I recognize her as one of the other kids that live here. What was her name, I ask myself, I can't remember.

"Sorry if I frightened you. Foster Mom told me to wake you. It's time for dinner." The girl tells me, backing away from the bed so I can get up. "My name is Ava. I know that Mrs. Jefferson introduced you to all of the kids earlier, including myself but, I also know it's hard to remember names when given so many." I nod my head toward her, after standing up. "I heard you haven't spoken at all since you've found out what happened and I know it must be a shock that something so unexpected just happened it was the same way with my family..." Her voice trailed off before she added. "Sorry, I'm speaking too much again, aren't I?"

She leads me to the dining room and sits down in a seat. I try to sit in the seat next to her but, a boy comes and pushes me away from the seat so he could sit in it. Ava looked over at me, a expression of pity shown on her face.

"It's his seat." She explains. "We all have signed seats so nobody fights over a chair." I nod to show that I understand.

"Miss Lynn, you can sit on the opposite side across Miss Grace," said the Foster Mother coming into the room. Ava gestured to herself and then pointed to the chair crossed from her. I follow her gestures and sit in that chair. I eat dinner which was grilled cheese and tomato soup and drink my tea. When I am done I go back to my room and lock the door behind me.

I lay back on the bed and stare up at the ceiling. After a few minutes I hear a growl and I sit up quickly and look around the room; I don't see anything. Perhaps, I'm just imagining things, I think. And then a minute later not a moment before or after I see it.

This monster is the monster I had seen on my way home from school. I recognize it's red eyes that feel like they could see right through me. It has been lurking in my closet and jumped out at me and it attacked me, throwing me against the wall. I can hear someone running to the door and try to open it but, the couldn't because it was locked.

I try to run away from the monster before it could attack me again but I am too late. It has come over me and has a long stick shaped sword with a long point at the top and it stabs me in the stomach and then pulls it out and and sticks it in again. It did it over and over again, the pain getting worse each time. I try to move to the side before the stick sword could attack me but, I can't. I am paralyzed once again and I am about to die. I don't know what to do I am panicked and I am dying. I think about just letting go. My father's life was taken. My mother's life was taken. Why shouldn't my life be taken too?

The door opens falling and I could see my Foster Mother, who I had only just met. Her face was pale white and she stares at me as I bleed on the floor. Slowly dying. I don't want to look at her stricken face because even though I didn't know her for long I could tell she cared for me like she did all of the other children.

The Foster Mother overcomes her shock and says, "Mai, what do you think your doing?"

What I'm doing, I think angrily, I'm dying because a monster stabbed his pointy stick in me.

"Mai stop stabbing yourself with that knife." The Foster Mother tells me.

I'm not, I want to scream but, I didn't mostly because I couldn't. Then I realize. She couldn't see the monster like I could. She was seeing something else entirely. The monster left quickly as the Foster Mother approaches me, taking a cell phone out of her pocket.

"Help, one of the foster children tried to kill themselves." The Foster Mother says to the recipient. I couldn't hear what they replied with but, the next thing that she says is, "Okay, thank you."

She walks over to me and picked me up. She carries me out of the room and outside the house. A few minutes later an ambulance carried me away and I faded into unconsciousness. I thought I heard a yell as I became unconscious. A scream for help, my name being called, a whisper of goodbye. I heard so many voices yet none could hear mine. They began to fade as did I.

Chapter Three: The Hidden Boy

While I am unconscious I see this strange dream about people who hunted monsters and monsters who hunted people. I see how the monster hunters treated each other like a friends, like a family. So close, so connected, so similar yet so different.

In my dream I see a glowing white orb and around it are black cards. As I moved in to get closer I see that the black cards aren't really black but, more like shadow cards than black cards. I figure that they are some kind of trap and that the reason why I want to pick one up so badly is because there is some kind of charm on them. I look away from the shadow cards and back at the glowing white orb. The orb changes and is now a golden color and it shows something inside of it.

It shows my mother, father and, me at a park having a picnic. I am running around and my father is chasing me while my mother is setting the picnic up. My father had scooped me up and took me by my hands spinning me in a circle and I was giggling like crazy. I remembered this day. We were all so... so, happy. So many things have changed since then.

Mother's death. Father's death. My voice lost. My family lost. Monsters chasing me. I wonder if they are real or if I'm losing my mind. I continue looking around in my dream landscape I don't see any one or really anything else in the room besides the orb with the cards. I began to wonder if I am dead, if this is a dream at all but, the afterlife. Or the moment before I die where I see my favorite memories of my life.

I look back at my orb and it changes again to a purple color. It shows me in a forest, surrounded by trees. I wonder if the orb was showing me where I am in reality because I couldn't think of a time in my life when I was in the woods or a forest alone recently. But in reality I was on my way to the hospital, wasn't I? Plus, the me in the orb vision is wearing the same clothes I had been wearing when I fainted? Passed out? Died? I wasn't sure.

---

I wake up expecting to find myself in a hospital but, instead I'm in the room I was given at the Foster Home. I lay in bed, adjusting my eyes to the light peering in from the window. I sat up slowly, scanning the room. My eyes fall to the closet that the monster had crept out of the night before. I shudder at the thought of it.

I don't appear to be injured in any way. I find that really odd. Could it be that the monster attack I had just experienced was a dream? But why did it feel so real? I stand up out of bed and stretch. I move my way, slowly toward the closet. When I get there I peer inside holding my breath, scared to see what I might find.

At first all I see is an ordinary closet that's empty. Then I see a small figure on the floor. Their eyes were closed. It was a little boy. I thought about all the other foster children and tried to place a name with him. I couldn't. I couldn't even recognize him as one of them.

I nudge my foot near him trying to wake him up.

"Please don't hurt me, please." The boy sat up quickly, pleading.

"Huh? Oh don't be silly. I'm not going to hurt you."I mouth to the boy. I still couldn't speak. I mouth again, "What's your name?"

"Chris." He says. "My name is Chris."

What are you doing in my room? Should I go get somebody? I wonder in my mind.

"No, I don't know how you can see me. Most people can't anymore. If you get anyone they'll think your crazy. I'm in your room because it used to be mine. You should get going." Chris answered.

Just then the door opens and Ava walks into the room. She looks at the bed with a surprised expression. "Mai?"

I walk toward her but, she still doesn't notice me. I'm right next to her now and I tap her shoulder.

"Oh my!" She yelps, as I had surprised her. "You are so quiet. I'm supposed to let you borrow in outfit for school today so, come to my room." I follow behind her into my room and we choose an outfit. Then, I got to the bathroom to change. After that we walk to school with the other foster kids together.

We drop the younger kids to the elementary, the younger middle kids to the middle school and, then the older ones who remained went to the high school. When we arrive at the school we all go our separate ways and I head to my locker then, go to class.

I think to myself perhaps this could be a good day, a normal day but of course it wasn't going to be and it all starts with the hidden little boy who was in the closet.

I go through classes pretty easily for the first half of the day and have a usual day except for the small child I had seen this morning in my room. My mind keeps going back to him. I keep worrying if he's okay and if he's dangerous. If he could be a monster in disguise. I also wonder about the monsters if they're actually real or if I have lost my mind.

I think about my father and it suddenly occurs to me that I have no idea how he died. Nobody ever told me. It seems quite strange that nobody mentioned it or allowed me to go see my father's body. Where is his body now? Had it already been buried? If so, where? If not, why? Would there be a funeral? When? All these questions and so many more swim around in my head.

I go to my locker before my next class and when I open it a box falls out of it, opening and, dozens of papers come falling out. I picked them up and saw that each one said the exact same thing over and over again.

I'm watching you

I'm watching you

I'm watching you

I'm watching you

I'm watching you

I'm watching you

My reaction is to look around me and as I do my heart starts beating fast and suddenly I can't breathe. I look back at the stack of papers and the box that they had fallen out of and saw that at the bottom of the box there is a journal. I set the stack of papers aside and pick up the journal and then I open it. It's empty. There's nothing in it.

Then the bell rings, startling me. I pick up the stack of papers and shove them and the journal back into the box. I grab my things and slam my locker behind me and start running to my next class.

My next class is gym. When I arrive the teacher is explaining thing to my classmates who are sitting on the gym floor like usual. I set my stuff down on the bleachers and go sit in my spot. The gym teacher doesn't seem to notice me or if they do notice me they are ignoring me. As I'm sitting I try to concentrate on the words my gym teacher is saying but I can't. My breathing is still heavy and I can hardly catch it or calm down.

And then out of the corner of my eye I see it.

A shadow of a person beside the bleacher. A monster hanging in the corner of the room, slightly looking at me and slightly looking at the figure.

Then everything went black and I hear shouts and screams of the people around me. When the light comes back on I'm no longer in the gym.

Chapter Four: The Woods

The figure in the shadows comes forward toward me slowly. The figure isn't looking at me though. The figure has it's eyes locked on the monster as if the monster is it's prey and it's the predator. The monster hasn't moved since I first laid my eyes on it. It just stared at me and the figure as it drew nearer to me.

The place we are in is no longer the gym but, a section in a forest or some other place surrounded by trees. Although I couldn't recall a time I had been in this forest or in any forest the place felt familiar as if I had been here before. Almost comforting like I'd once called this place home although I felt certain I hadn't. The feeling itself is enough to make me feel uncertain.

As the figure draws closer to me I could see that it is a male. His hair is to his shoulders and is black, curly and, tangled. His skin is a dark tan color and there are scars all over his body. As he comes nearer I start to back away.

"Stop moving!" The male hisses at me, not taking his attention off the monster.

What is that monster? Who is that man? Where are we? I think.

"Stop talking!" The male demands, his voice harsh and cruel. I am confused because I hadn't said anything I had only thought it. Was he addressing me or the monster who still hadn't moved? Despite what the man said I try to move and find that I can't as if I am frozen it my spot, maybe even paralyzed.

Then, all of the sudden, the monster leaps over the man and tackles me down to the floor. I try to wrestle away from it but I still can't move my body. I try to scream but I still can't use my voice. The man who had been in the shadows before races toward us with a dagger in his hand. He slices the dagger into the monsters back and the monster roars out in pain.

The monster tries to use it's sharp teeth to bite my neck but, misses when I move over as soon as it comes down. The man with the dagger attacks the beast again this time in the neck and instead of red blood, a goldish yellow color comes out of it. The beast instantly goes stiff and then it turns slowly into ashes or dust.

The man offers me his hand to help me up. I ignore it and get up on my own. As soon as I stand I feel really dizzy and was about to fall but the man catches me. I try to move back, away from him but he wraps his arms around me tightly not letting me move.

"Who are you?" I try to ask but, still had no voice to do so.

"I'm Brendon Parker and I'm in love with you." He leans in to kiss me but, I move my hand from my side and slap him in the face. He steps back but, doesn't appear shocked by my reaction. Just then he shrinks and where he was standing now stands a little boy.

Not just any little boy.

The boy from my closet.

Chris.

He'd followed me.

But why?

I attend to find out soon.

"What are you doing here? Why are you here? Why'd you try to do that? Just who are you?" All these questions fire out of me but none of them could be heard.

"Don't worry. I can understand your questions even if you don't say them. I can read your mouth when you try to speak them and I can read your mind when you don't."

Read my mind? I wonder what that means, I think. Powers? Telekinesis? A joke?

"Your close. Not a joke. Yeah, I have powers. Yes, one of them is telekinesis. I'll answer your questions one by one so, be patient. Before we do that we need to get out of here. Away from your school."

Aren't we al-?

"No questions for now. I'll explain later." Chris said, interrupting my thoughts. Just then I notice that the trees around us started to fade and the gym started to appear again. I look around and what I see scares me. My classmates, the gym teacher, all of them. Dead. It's hard to see someone dead even when you weren't that close to them when a few minutes ago you had seen them alive. Is this my fault? Did the monster somehow kill them? Did the boy? How, how hadn't I seen this happen?

"Come on." Chris urged, taking my hand and pulling me into a run. We exit the gym and run down the hall, turn a right, then another and, run until we get out of the school. When we get out Chris stopped running and lets go of my hand. He scans the area and cups a hand behind his ear as if listening for something. I decide not to ask what because of his "no-questions-until-i'm-ready-rule" and instead I watch behind us, making sure no teacher, staff or, anybody else come out to find us.

After a few minutes Chris takes my hand again and begins to run again. This time at a faster speed that blurs my vision. The next time when we stop we are at the edge of the woods. The woods.

The ones I recognized. The ones from before.

The woods.

And then we went inside.

Chapter Five The Thief

We stay silent while walking except for an order from Chris every once in awhile. He doesn't seem in a hurry ever since we entered the woods. While walking I let my mind wonder and soon enough I'm thinking about the woods and how familiar they are. And then I remember. The orb. I saw them in the orb when I was dreaming. I look over at Chris. I wonder where he is taking me and if I should trust him. If I could trust him. From this point I don't really like him but then again he has saved my life.

"You don't have to like me to trust me." Chris says, interrupting my thoughts. Oh, I had forgotten that he can read my thoughts. He stopped walking and turned back to face me. He stared up at me, his eyes kind but his expression hard. "The fact is you trust me at least a little because your following me. Here let me tell you something. I trust you with my life. I trust you more than I trust myself. I really do trust you." Then he turned back around and started walking again.

This...this little kid thinks he can trust me and he doesn't even know me? I thought, astonished. I know he probably heard that and all of my thoughts but still he can't just go saying things like that to strangers he hardly knows. It may just end his life one day. Chris saying things like that worries me. It scares me. Why'd he say such a thing? Did he really believe that?

"I do know you and you once knew me too." Chris tells me and says nothing else. We walk in silence for what feels like hours. The sun going down resembled how late it was getting and Chris finally stopped walking. "We'll set up camp here." Then he waved his arms in front of him, mumbling something and a large tent appeared.

Wow! I think as I took the sight in. Then I ask Chris in my mind, Where are you taking me anyway? What about the Foster Home? They'll notice I'm gone. And why have you been following me and watching me? How did you do that just a few minutes ago? Who was the guy you transformed into back there and why did he seem so familiar? Why are monsters after me? Are they even real? Why aren't I in the hospital or dead? The one monster in my room attacked me and the Foster Mother had taken me. And one about-

"Oh my gods, will you just shut up?" Chris asks, annoyance showing in his voice. "Listen, you'll get your answers, just be patient."

You keep telling me to be patient and I have been. So tell me know while we aren't walking! Please? Isn't it easier? I continue to question.

"No." He answers simply, then he walked into the tent. I followed behind him but I didn't ask him anything or try to communicate with him. He points to a side for me to sleep on while he sleeps on the other. I curl up in the sleeping bag that was on my side and closed my eyes, trying not to think about anything and just sleep. My mind keeps racing for awhile but eventually I fall asleep.

~

"Wake up! Mai, wake up! Now!" I heard a voice saying, hurriedly. I open my eyes to see Ava standing over me. My eyes widened at seeing her here.

Ava, why? Why are you here, I think. I look at her with a shocked expression.

"We need to go and hurry. We'll be surrounded soon. Chris will meet us at our final destination so just stick with me for now. Don't argue and no questions, got it?" Ava tells me. I nod even though I don't really understand, but I suppose I'm not meant to.

We walk out of the tent and Ava tells me to take a few steps back. As I do so Ava mutters something and the tent vanishes. She then walks over to me and grabs my hand. She looks me in the eyes and with a small smirk she says, "Get ready for the fastest, most dangerous run of your life. So far..."

With that said she took off at a fast pace. So fast that my vision blurs and I can't see anything around me.

Ava, just who are you? I wonder. I don't expect a answer but a voice from behind me whispers,

"A thief. No, not a, the thief."

I try to look around for the voice but I can't really see and Ava shows no sign of slowing down or of hearing the voice. The strangest part was that the voice I heard sounded exactly like mine. Well, when I had a voice.

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