The Hit List

Chapter 7

I kept losing words as I assimilated their unfamiliarity. My tongue rubbed against an open wound in my mouth and I tasted copper. My eyes glaze over and my brain shuts down totally, threatening to go dark on me again. "Hey! I'm talking to you."

His words hit my eardrum hard as if I were sitting too near to the marching band during a football game.

My fingernails pierce my palm, causing my mind to concentrate on the discomfort. Since they're trimmed short, the pressure is more monotonous than painful. Something like a mosquito buzzing close to your ear at night. My throat burns as I continuously swallow, all the liquid in my mouth long gone.

"I should have known. I should have listened to my intuition. Was all of this just a joke to you? And now that it has become a reality, you seem to be struggling to cope with it. Everything just got real for you, didn't it?" He moved away from the counter and walked cautiously in the direction of my trembling body.

"You're human, and you've never felt this side of yourself have you? The true fear of your life being threatened. A life you never realized you truly wanted to live until I came along to remind you. It's important to remember how fortunate we are to have been given the gift of life." He spoke as if he was on a stage. As if his words were written by a playwright who had long left this world.

He wasn't acting convincingly in the part. The words hit me, but they didn't stay in my system; instead, they left me feeling empty. He was posing as some kind of rescuer, but his eyes never failed to reveal who he was. They were lifeless and dead. Their narrative differed from what he said.

His finger flexed against his pocket, clearly craving something to do with them. A need to hold onto something physical in this endless emptiness of conversation. He had seemed so invincible originally, a hardened criminal who had avoided capture for who knows how long. Looking at him now though, it was easy to notice his endless list of weak points. He wasn't natural, but nor was he supernatural. His lack of blinking was calculated, as though he were afraid to lose his prey in the second it took to dampen his pupils.

Despite having demonstrated his ability to read my past, he was now staring at me as if some pages were missing from the book. That the words on those pages were ones he had failed to grasp. The type he recognized enough to pronounce, but not enough to know the true meaning of. He could live in the silence, but only for so long.

He craved chaos, the clearness of screams over the confusion of whispers.

I couldn't imagine when his last normal conversation was. He seemed like the type to show up three hours late to an event rather than ask passersby for directions.

He didn't make it out much. Possibly only forcibly by his parents, if they even still spoke. It wouldn't be surprising if he was too much for them. Forcing them to cut his branch from the tree to avoid the whole thing contracting his sickness. If he has any siblings did they exhibit the same peculiar mannerisms as he does? Do all the sheep in the flock have dark wool?

If they still spoke, was their last communication through phone or in person? Do they speak with pride when asked about him, or does shame creep into the long pause before being brushed away with uncomfortable humor? Was he the cause of the party's lull? A long-running agreement to never be spoken about by those who shared his blood?

"Do you think I came all this way to kill you?" His eyes turned downward. He knew I didn't have an answer I could provide him. All he wanted was for the silence to not grow any more oppressive against his chest. He took a big breath, cracking his knuckles. A habit I had hated from a young age. "I know you're not stupid. You have a degree. Granted, it was in Art, but still. You are a semi-intelligent adult. We can have a civilized conversation." I contemplated how deep his research went, and how much of my footprints he followed into the ethos.