Just as my personal little soap opera was getting interesting, little Jacky's phone just had to die.
I normally didn't pay much mind to the uninteresting lives that proxies and associates lead, though ever since the little vixen (Name) had come into the picture, I had more than enough reason to listen in once and a while.
The thought of fraternizing with a silly little human hadn't intrigued me half as much as it had entertained Tim, Jack, Jeff, and even Toby. What they saw in her I'd never know, but what they had said to her and about her I was more than in the loop on.
I hadn't possessed the skill set required to become a proxy, or even an associate, but a place was found for me nonetheless due to my unique abilities that the Operator was just not willing to pass up.
Even after my death all those years ago, the vengeance my soul sought after couldn't be drowned out as easily as I had been. Though, I suppose I had just been but a boy back then.
Malevolent spirit, vengeful in nature, manipulative and cunning. At least, that's what Wikipedia had to say about me. Though it was quite flattering to think that the internet thought so highly of me, I was much, much worse.
No thought spoken aloud was safe, no microphone ever really off, no camera ever not recording, even if by all appearances, it wasn't.
Not that the associates or proxies ever really remembered that; they weren't really a group of people that would ever think to hold their tongues, anyway.
But even I hadn't accounted for how far they'd let their little game with the girl go. Nothing had ever gone that far before, and I was nearly sure that nothing would go that far again.
There was no way that (Name) had become so close to a select few unless the Operator himself was directly allowing it, which raised even more questions than it silenced.
We weren't meant to question his motives, sure, but we also weren't meant to be indulging in harmful emotions.
Why train them to kill so heartlessly, just to allow them to revert back to their pre-conditioned states? Her ability to hold onto her humanity in the arms of someone like Jack was definitely resilient, but it was also dumb.
She didn't know what he knew. She knew he was smart, I could tell that much just by listening in through Jack's phone when the two would speak; she was cautious, meticulously planning her words in a way that wouldn't anger him, but in a way that would also get him to answer honestly. Granted, she may have been smart, but she just didn't know Jack long enough to really know Jack.
He rarely asked a question he didn't know the answer to, and he never made a move unless he had already planned it. He would make his thoughts and movements seem so unpredictable; it was a rather perfected art of manipulation.
He had learned a tactic or few from each and every one of the proxies and associates, slowly morphing what he had learned into his very own brand of twisted. Though, back when I had taught him to plan every detail, account for every syllable that left his mouth, and to never contradict himself, I would have never guessed how good he would eventually become at it.
(Name) was hoodwinked for sure. He spoke to her sweetly, encapsulating her in a false blanket of security, safety, and honesty.
Perhaps the most confusing part was that it wasn't due to his own gains, however. He lied to the girl to protect her. He made her feel safe because he knew she really wasn't; as long as she was beside him, she'd never truly be safe. I myself was a prime example of that; danger was lurking around every corner in these parts of the woods, even when you thought you were safe.
I knew that he had some sort of feelings for the girl; whether he had sorted them out or not however wasn't my problem.
I glanced over my shoulder, hair lightly caressing the side of my face as it fell in front of me from behind my ear.
I watched the monitor, the name of the camera in the corner reading "Tim's Phone" in bright white lettering, as it shook from left to right.
Had he finally attacked Brian?
"We have to do this Tim, stop being ignorant about this!"
Ah, of course he didn't really have the balls to attack his own brother.
They fought like bats out of hell, but at the end of the day, there was no separating them. I turned my head back around to face the dark wall, my mind swimming and circling with newfound thoughts.
The bickering of Tim and Brian blurred into nothing but white noise as I let my thoughts consume me.
How long I had been alone in this little room, having nowhere to go but deeper into my own insanity. Where would I go once I hit the bottom of it?
I had been forgotten by everyone. Not even the proxies or associates remembered my existence. I had always been some sort of background character; watching them live out their lives from their screens, listening to them fall in love from their phones.
When would it be my turn to be reckless? When would it be my turn to get swallowed up by some fleeting emotion I didn't understand? When would it be my turn to be plagued with the want to be alone rather than the want to be anything but?
A smirk crossed my face as excitement bubbled throughout my entire body. The maroon glow my eyes gave off reflected against the darkness that sat in front of me.
I was much too bored for my own good, and with all the juicy gossip and unrelenting chaos surrounding the girl as of late, I figured it was just about time to meet her for myself.
--Unknown POV--
They all were under the belief that any decision I had made always had a reasoning. They treated my word like gospel, and they obeyed my commands as if that's all they had ever knew. And it was. And it would forever be.
My children were skilled, intelligent, but more than anything, obedient. I had went to great lengths to ensure it.
I never needed to justify myself to them, and never would stoop that low as to offer an explanation anyway. Some had taken better to the conditioning than others, and in all honesty, I had grown annoyed with having to consistently correct the weakest links who not only tested me, but tested my paper-thin patience. I used to have quite a bit of it back in my youth, but now that I was entering my third century of existence in the dimension, I didn't have the time to fret about a few of my children misbehaving.
They grew too comfortable with monotonous orders and predictable missions, so I had no other choice than to give them something they'd never had experience with; humanity.
They had been trained to ignore it and, within themselves, to be devoid of it. But they had never been trained on how to handle a subject with enough of it to share. And as I had thought, it had already taken one of the arguably weakest children of the bunch.
Jeff was a decently skilled associate, I had even cherished him at one point. But allowing his mouth to disrespect me and my proxies along with allowing his trivial emotions to consume him had ended him. He left me how he had originally come to me; broken and resentful.
It was proving to be a very effective experiment, and (Name) was proving herself to be much more resilient than I had originally thought she was every day she still breathed.
If I wanted to truly see deep into the minds of my children, I'd have to strip them back layer by layer until the person they used to be reared their ugly head. Had they devoted themselves truly, they'd reject what they thought and knew and embrace what they were taught instead. They would respect me, respect their co-workers, and be humble while doing it.
I didn't need to force them to prove their devotions for once; they had the free will to choose.
Though, if they made the wrong choice, surely some of their more loyal co-workers would handle it on behalf of my name.
They knew how I felt about disrespect, especially after all I had done for them. Ungrateful mongrels were the ones who had taken advantage of my kindness. They had all been headed to their untimely deaths, but sensing a greater purpose in them, I tore them from the vice grip of the Grim Reaper himself and brought them somewhere safe. They'd have everything they needed, and more, if only they followed my rules and devoted themselves to upholding the 'family values'.
Never show weakness to an outsider. Never allow your emotions to take your rational thinking from under you. And then the most important, never forget where you came from and why you're still alive lest you find yourself on the very brim of life yet again.
(Name) had been quite the helper, and she hadn't even known it.
Maybe that would have to change. After all, my children would always believe my decisions held some sort of reason behind them, even if they never really did.
--OKAY SOOOO guess who these POVS are??
If you said the first one was BEN, you'd be right. If you said the second one was [REDACTED], you'd be [REDACTED; CLASSIFIED. TIER 4 INFORMATION].
It's about to get wicked yall, the story buildup has got us emotionally attached to enough of the characters to really get it going
hoenstly, i love masky so much, and i absolutely love BEN. It isn't directly mentioned in this story, but all the proxies and associates are between the ages of 19-26, BEN falling in the younger end of the spectrum at 20. Jack is meant to be upward at a 24, Tim being upper end of the spectrum at 25 and Brian a little younger at 23. I don't know if it's accurate, but I'm not writing no story with minors so that's their ages in this.
Jeff was the youngest at 19, and i kinda miss him tbh he was really fun to write, but it had to happen to show how dangerous it is to get into altercations with those types of people; toby is not to be messed with PERIOD.
And as always, if you're going to Meatball, do it Extravagantly.--