The first time he killed someone, it hadn't felt real. Like it was actually him pulling the blade across the aristocrat's throat. And maybe that was because it wasn't him, the boy whose body he now occupied.
Now, he supposed things weren't very different. That boy was long dead, his memories scattered throughout Timor's consciousness like the remnants of a fragmented star; Timor was a new man, forged in fire and cooled in the blood of enemies not his own. He racked up kills every few days without a second thought, without remorse. If he'd been superstitious, he might have been wary of the countless ghosts left in his wake, those restless souls with a grudge strong enough to tether them to the mortal world.
But he wasn't superstitious. He was practical, in every sense of the word. Logical, detached. Unsympathetic and efficient. He was a tool, the very best of the legion the World Government currently commanded. Well, aside from Lux, but Timor had heard whispers over the last year or so; Lux was lacking something - or, rather, he'd picked up some trait the Government did not approve of. Lux was on track to becoming a fallen idol, and from what Timor knew of the man, he was likely bracing for it.
He should have cared. Lux was his mentor, his confidant (though that's how Lux defined himself). A man he trusted above all others, his superiors be damned. If something tragic were to befall Lux...
Timor wasn't sure he'd even shed a single tear.
How utterly inhuman of him.
The sounds of rowdy squabbling roused Timor from his thoughts, and he lifted his head, raking his hair out of his face to better see the bar fight taking place a few tables away from the him. The drink he still nursed in his hand (barely touched) had warmed to room temperature while he'd let his mind wander, and he set it down on the table with a soft clink, the chipped wooden table swallowing up the noise of the glass' impact. He wouldn't be missing its contents any time soon.
Timor slide languidly from his seat, seemingly the only patron who wasn't ogling the brawl, and admittedly, it was an eye-catching affair. As Timor looked himself over, scrutinizing his somewhat rumpled appearance, one man - a blonde behemoth with a wicked scar wound tight around his neck like a noose - lifted a stool from the bar and brought it down with pin-point accuracy over his opponent's head; down he went, in a flurry of limbs and gargled curses. His head cracked against the grime-laden floor, but barely seconds had passed before he was on his feet again, bleeding red hands fisted around the legs of another stool.
Subtly rolling his eyes, Timor made a quick assessment of the situation. The crowd, drunk past their respective limits, wouldn't pose any sort of threat, though he did spot a few familiar faces among the plastered, red-faced bystanders. Their wanted posters made them out to be quite vicious pirates, not that he really spared them more than a flickering glance. They weren't his prey, not tonight.
He approached them silently, hands shoved into his pockets, expressionless. The brute noticed him first, just as his fist smacked into the brunet's cheek; the punch slammed him into the side of the bar with a sickening thwack, and the remaining stools cracked under the weight of his fall. Timor eyed him for a moment, deduced he wouldn't interfere for a few minutes while his eyes spun in their sockets, then slid his gaze to the blonde.
"What's with that look, asshole?"
Timor, unfazed, inclined his head, surreptitiously sweeping his gaze over the crowd again, gauging their reaction to his appearance. Good. None of them looked sober enough to land a hit on him, let alone make things difficult for him. The blonde, though drunk, held himself like a trained fighter, muscles coiled, stance loose but attentive, eyes bright with adrenaline.
"I'd answer, if I were you," the man growled. He reached for the splintered remains of a stool, tightening his grip and twisting off a leg with a flick of his wrist. Its jagged point made a crude but effective weapon - if he could make it connect with Timor, anyway. "I'm not in the mood for forgivin' fools like you."
With a calculated brow raise, Timor said, "That's fair."
It wasn't particularly condescending by Timor's standards, but he felt it was enough for this man.
As he'd predicted, the blonde man - who Timor dimly recalled went by Vikky the Viking - stiffened, cheeks flushed red with the influx of his sudden rage. Veins bulged along his thickly corded arms, throbbed at his temple. His makeshift weapon creaked at the intensity of his grip.
"I'll slit your damn throat!"
Timor stepped back, just out of range of the severed stool leg; the tattered end just barely nicked his nose, a dewdrop of blood welling up at the contact. He backed away, again and again, his footsteps quick and precise, and Vikky stumbled after him, swinging and hacking away with his blunt instrument. The moment Timor had cleared the threshold of the bar, though, he vanished.
Vikky turned in a panicked circle, both hands tight around the stool leg now. His blue eyes searched the street, passing over the crowd of drunken patrons now occupying the doorway without consequence; none of them put a toe beyond the door, as if held back by an invisible force-field. Or fear. That was equally as likely.
"A coward, are ya?" Vikky taunted to the empty air, still turning, still latched onto his weapon. "When I find you, I'm gonna--"
Vikky choked on his own blood. A gargled scream rose in his throat but could pass no further, blocked by his newly-earned grim smile. Timor was back, poised just behind Vikky, a silver dagger positioned at the tail-end of its journey across Vikky's neck. Crimson blood flowed thick and fast from the sickly wound, dripped monotonously from the serrated edge of Timor's knife. Seconds stretched into an eternity of silence, permeated only by the ragged breaths Vikky tried vainly to draw in.
Then, he collapsed, and Timor calmly cleaned his blade with a cloth he fetched from one of the many compartments lining his tactical belt.
Over in an instant. The fight, Vikky's life. The hushed crowd stood, stupefied, by the efficiency and merciless nature of Timor's kill. By how inhuman he seemed. Several hardy men flinched back when Timor looked up from his mechanical cleaning, eyes narrowed, face passive. But he only turned away, stowing his dagger in the sheath at his hip as he worked his way past the bystanders that had been drawn by the promise of an all-out brawl. They, too, seemed to rear back from him as he walked by, leaving a path clear for him to tread down, all the way to the docks.
Sixty-seven.
That had been his sixty-seventh target. His sixty-seventh victim. And tomorrow, he would meet sixty-eight.
On and on it would go, the count climbing ever-higher, until Timor was as black as the soil watered in Vikky's blood.
If only he cared.
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Soundless Imaginings | One-Shots
Random|| another space for my groundless writings ||
