Guilt [in progress]
WHO: N.A.O.E.2 Jinx, Alba Meira
WHAT: Notifying families that their loved ones died in the bombing.
WHERE: The city streets.
WHEN: Day 109, late afternoon.
Door after door. The tears, the cries of disbelief, and Jinx trying her best to remain calm through the shouting and breaking down of the people before her. "There was nothing we could have done, Ma'am," she tried to convince a woman who had lost her husband. She screamed back that there was, that the AMC should have been doing their job, that the families should have fought it out to save the innocent. Families in denial slamming the door in her face. Others wrapping their arms around her for comfort. Watching every last person break into their rawest emotions as they found out one by one that their family, the people they loved, had died. And every door she went to made the pain worse.
There was a lot to think about while tuning out the anguish and grief of others. She could imagine the robot girl, Aigis, walking up to a door and knocking just as Jinx was. But not to tell the family that their loved on had died in a bombing, in a gang fight. No. Telling a woman her husband had died and when she demanded the information of how, relaying to her how they found the man. How his body had been sliced to pieces. How he had been tortured to death. Or how he was found naked in a hotel room with his throat slit and the word "Scum" written across his chest in the smoldering ashes of his cigar. The AMC knew she was an assassin. They knew the bigger things she had done, the jobs she got paid in the triple digits for. But they had yet to discover her agenda. The men she had slaughtered for fun, all the little incidents that looked like just a case of "bad luck." Every family to hear about the ones they had lost, the people who had to relay that information, and the heartbreak for everyone involved.
As she looked through the list, she was only halfway done. Parked on the side of the street in one of her less conspicuous vehicles, she rocked back and forth in the driver's seat, trying to calm herself, clutching the steering wheel, clenching her eyes tightly shut. All the pain, all the suffering... all the times she never cared a bit. While men begged for their lives, told her about their wives, their families, she just slaughtered them with that sinister smirk of hers. While little boys came at her with knives, she broke their necks without thinking of the mothers that would be grieving. The rich, the poor, young, old... hundreds upon hundreds of people sliced and diced, blood on her hands, how she wiped her knife clean on their clothing before she left the body there for some poor soul to find. Rocking harder in the seat, she finally hit her forehead against the steering wheel, the sound of the horn mixing with her raw scream.
After all the windows shattered in her car, she got out, did not even bother to close the door, and walked directly down the nearest alleyway. Wrapping her arms around his thin body, she walked unsteadily until she finally screamed once more and threw herself against the nearby brick wall, beating her fists into it with a blind rage, breaking pieces of it off with flares of her power, grinding apart the flesh that covered her hands. And then she collapsed to the ground, breaking down, throwing her back against the wall, her sobs echoing a terrible sound through the alleyway. Putting her hands over her ears, holding her skull tight as if afraid it would break apart, and she screamed at all the pain she felt in every last nerve of her body. The bricks around her began to crumble, the nearby dumpster twisting like an aluminum can. But she would not allow this breakdown to go any further.
Hands bleeding, face stained with tears, she continued down the alley, to the next, and further until she ran into the right people. Wobbling in every movement, she dug through her pockets and slipped a man a folded bill. In return, he put a small plastic bag full of dark brown powder in her palm and they walked away from each other. When she came back to her vehicle, not a soul had been stupid enough to touch it with all of the windows broken out. Sitting on glass, her power over probability saving her from a lot of damage, she drove out to a place no one would find her. And sitting on a bloodstained couch in the Di Luca compound, she snorted the heroin, sobbing the words, "Farmi dimentica. Per favore. Farmi dimentica..."
To make myself forget...
WHAT: Notifying families that their loved ones died in the bombing.
WHERE: The city streets.
WHEN: Day 109, late afternoon.
Door after door. The tears, the cries of disbelief, and Jinx trying her best to remain calm through the shouting and breaking down of the people before her. "There was nothing we could have done, Ma'am," she tried to convince a woman who had lost her husband. She screamed back that there was, that the AMC should have been doing their job, that the families should have fought it out to save the innocent. Families in denial slamming the door in her face. Others wrapping their arms around her for comfort. Watching every last person break into their rawest emotions as they found out one by one that their family, the people they loved, had died. And every door she went to made the pain worse.
There was a lot to think about while tuning out the anguish and grief of others. She could imagine the robot girl, Aigis, walking up to a door and knocking just as Jinx was. But not to tell the family that their loved on had died in a bombing, in a gang fight. No. Telling a woman her husband had died and when she demanded the information of how, relaying to her how they found the man. How his body had been sliced to pieces. How he had been tortured to death. Or how he was found naked in a hotel room with his throat slit and the word "Scum" written across his chest in the smoldering ashes of his cigar. The AMC knew she was an assassin. They knew the bigger things she had done, the jobs she got paid in the triple digits for. But they had yet to discover her agenda. The men she had slaughtered for fun, all the little incidents that looked like just a case of "bad luck." Every family to hear about the ones they had lost, the people who had to relay that information, and the heartbreak for everyone involved.
As she looked through the list, she was only halfway done. Parked on the side of the street in one of her less conspicuous vehicles, she rocked back and forth in the driver's seat, trying to calm herself, clutching the steering wheel, clenching her eyes tightly shut. All the pain, all the suffering... all the times she never cared a bit. While men begged for their lives, told her about their wives, their families, she just slaughtered them with that sinister smirk of hers. While little boys came at her with knives, she broke their necks without thinking of the mothers that would be grieving. The rich, the poor, young, old... hundreds upon hundreds of people sliced and diced, blood on her hands, how she wiped her knife clean on their clothing before she left the body there for some poor soul to find. Rocking harder in the seat, she finally hit her forehead against the steering wheel, the sound of the horn mixing with her raw scream.
After all the windows shattered in her car, she got out, did not even bother to close the door, and walked directly down the nearest alleyway. Wrapping her arms around his thin body, she walked unsteadily until she finally screamed once more and threw herself against the nearby brick wall, beating her fists into it with a blind rage, breaking pieces of it off with flares of her power, grinding apart the flesh that covered her hands. And then she collapsed to the ground, breaking down, throwing her back against the wall, her sobs echoing a terrible sound through the alleyway. Putting her hands over her ears, holding her skull tight as if afraid it would break apart, and she screamed at all the pain she felt in every last nerve of her body. The bricks around her began to crumble, the nearby dumpster twisting like an aluminum can. But she would not allow this breakdown to go any further.
Hands bleeding, face stained with tears, she continued down the alley, to the next, and further until she ran into the right people. Wobbling in every movement, she dug through her pockets and slipped a man a folded bill. In return, he put a small plastic bag full of dark brown powder in her palm and they walked away from each other. When she came back to her vehicle, not a soul had been stupid enough to touch it with all of the windows broken out. Sitting on glass, her power over probability saving her from a lot of damage, she drove out to a place no one would find her. And sitting on a bloodstained couch in the Di Luca compound, she snorted the heroin, sobbing the words, "Farmi dimentica. Per favore. Farmi dimentica..."
To make myself forget...