A/N: I wrote this for school, but I wanted to post it here anyway. Please tell me what you think!
(It's edited)
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Remember
I stood encircled by the bodies of the people I had been training against. They weren’t dead. When I fought, I never killed. Never. I only hurt my opponents enough to let them know not to mess with me. Ever. I was one of the best students at the academy. I could fight several opponents at a time with ease. Their moves had become slow and predictable.
“A good victory, Morana. Swift and clean. You are ready for the next level.” My tutor’s voice was free of emotion, just like everyone else’s here, including mine. Here, you showed no feelings. Feelings were scorned. They hindered you in battle. I knew what it meant to fight at the next level: I would be attacked by armed opponents while being unarmed myself. When do I start, I wondered. But of course, that question would never pass my lips. Asking would betray weakness, and the point of the exercise was to take me by surprise.
My honed intuitions reached out and tensed. My instincts screamed a warning, and already my tutor was in mid-air. I knew that he always kept a knife in his belt, and a pistol. As if in slow-motion, I saw his hand grasp the handle of his gun. Distantly, I heard people enter the room, and in a surge of adrenaline, I saw everything at once.
I moved forward at a run and quickly shoved the pistol out of the hand of my enemy. I sensed his other hand move in with his knife, but I swivelled around, caught his wrist, and used his momentum to twist his hand and take the knife off him as well.
I felt something in my stomach and whirled around. Two people jumped at me, bringing down glinting daggers. I twisted away, sensed more than saw one opponent cut the other with his knife. I wasn’t quite fast enough, though. The knife caught my hair, and I felt my braid come undone as I used my own newly acquired knife to put my last opponent out of action. Satisfied, I moved away from the bleeding mess and caught sight of my tutor’s wry smile. “And what about me?” he asked, straightening up from the wall he had been leaning against. “I'm still standing.”
I raised my right arm, the one that held his pistol, and aimed it at him. I said, “All I have to do is move my finger less than an inch and you won't be standing any more.”
He laughed a cold, heartless laugh. “I know you, Morana. You never make the last move, the finishing touch. You'd never pull the trigger on that pistol.”
I raised the knife in my left hand and threw it, aiming at the cloth of his shirt, just above his shoulder. It caught and pinned him against the wall. “Remove that knife, and I promise, I will pull the trigger,” I warned.
Now that the adrenaline rush had left, I felt strangely drained. The world seemed to be moving too fast, leaving me no time to appreciate anything. Something cold sliced through my shirt and cut the skin of my waist. I felt warm blood trickling down my right side, and I quickly turned to face my new enemy. I had never seen her before. She was tall and wore a black tank-top that revealed her muscular arms.
“I'm your new tutor,” she said. “You can call me Slasher. Say your good-byes and let's get you to the next training room, which is better equipped than this one.” She surveyed her surroundings, her nose wrinkled in disgust.
I dropped the pistol, threw a glance of farewell around the room and followed Slasher out the door.
“I've heard great things about you, Morana. It is Morana, right?”
I shrugged. “If you want, you can call me Mora. My father . . . — I mean, I prefer being called that outside training.” I tied my hair back into a braid so that it would stop falling into my eyes. “It seems a lot of people have heard of me,” I added.
“Mora,” she tested the name. “No. You should keep Morana, don't you think? Isn't she a Slavic goddess of death? Ironic, considering you never kill. But there’s always hope. Keep the name.” She looked at me pointedly. “And a lot of the tutors have heard of you. You are the best student here, after all. Why is that, then?”
“I train for a purpose?” I said with a shrug.
“And that would be...?”
“Revenge.”
“Ah.” She smiled. “Funny thing, revenge. In the end there's usually more to it than you think. And I wouldn't recommend it to you. I know this is a fighting school, but revenge is seldom the best route to take.”
“Thanks, I'll bear that in mind when the time comes,” I muttered, having no intention of paying the slightest heed to her words of wisdom.
“I know you will, despite what you’re thinking right now,” she replied, her smile widening. I glanced at her suspiciously. Could Slasher read minds?
“I'm the last tutor people ever see here.” Her manner had become brusque again. “Then they either become tutors themselves or return to the world. What will you do?”
I shrugged yet again. “Probably go back.”
“For the revenge.” It wasn't a question. “And what would that be, exactly?”
“Get rid of the person who made me want to come here.” My voice sounded tight. It always did when I was forced to remember that day. I was ten. Blood snaked along the tiled kitchen floor, from the head of my dead father to my socked feet. The man jumped out the window, his dark hair bristling out from beneath his hat. His eyes, so empty, so cold, so grey.
“Morana? Focus only on this moment.” There was no concern in her voice. It was as ever, expressionless, not betraying the slightest of emotions.
A year passed under Slice’s training. Neither she nor any one else could make me kill anybody. I knew how, I could do the moves, but I never actually followed through. I never pulled the trigger, never threw the knife so it would hit the heart, never drove it home, or delivered the final blow. Nevertheless, I passed my exams.
I bought a camper van and tracked down the man with cold, grey eyes... so empty, so cold, so grey as he jumped out the window, his dark hair bristling from beneath his hat. Blood snaked its way along the the tiled kitchen floor from the head of my dead father to my socked feet. I was going to make him sorry he had ever set foot in my house and hurt my father. He was going to pay with his life, and I wanted him to be my first and last kill. I had trained for this for the past 15 years.
Snap out of it! I told myself. I was 25 years old, I had time. I wasn't about to drop down dead, or anything.
I hunted him relentlessly and tracked him down at last, to a small wooden house near a stream. Noiselessly, I prowled through the woods, a knife in each of my boots, three hanging off my belt, along-side some arrows on my right, and a bow slung over my shoulder. I know, slightly old-fashioned, but I never had gotten used to holding a gun of any sort. They left your opponent no chance, and I thought that unfair.
What a nice place for such a horrible man, I thought idly as I walked through the forest, keeping my eyes peeled for the small wooden house and my ears open for the sound of flowing water.
There it was! I followed the sound and finally saw the small house. I walked boldly up to it, feeling my long braid bounce familiarly against my back. I prepared myself for whatever I would find. I reminded myself to keep all feelings from my face and voice. I was here to kill a murderer, for revenge. He was going to be my first human kill, and my last.
I pushed the door of the cottage open and peered inside. There was almost nothing to see. I walked a few steps further in and suddenly heard the door close behind me.
I swivelled around, a knife in each hand, and saw the man, one hand on the closed door, a pistol in the other, look at me through his eyes, those grey eyes... so empty, so cold, so grey.
I willed myself to see red, to get the rush of adrenaline that I always got in a fight. But it wouldn’t come.
“So, a pretty dark haired girl with a braid finds her way to my cottage, heavily armed, and walks in without even knocking. I don't appreciate that.” His voice was rough.
“Good. I never intended you to,” I replied.
“And why are you here?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“Look me in the eye and remember,” I said, keeping my voice carefully controlled.
He looked me deep in the eye, the coldness sending shivers up and down my spine. I willed myself not to show any emotion.
“You're that little girl,” he said at last. “You came in just as I was jumping out the window, am I right?”
“Yes. And so now you’ll know why I'm here.”
He shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I haven't agreed to that plan of yours yet, and I don't intend to.” He lifted his gun and pointed it at me.
Before he could take aim, I threw the knife in my left hand. It knocked the gun out of his grip. Swiftly I threw the next knife, pinning him against his wooden door. I grabbed the last knife from my belt and threw it, making sure he was properly attached to the door. I unslung my bow and notched an arrow to it. The knives in my boots were for emergencies only.
“I hate to tell you this, but I don't usually ask the approval of my victims. I doubt you did.”
“You have a point,” he said, “and if I may say so, it's aimed at my chest.”
So he thought he was witty. I had expected the emotions to be overwhelming, but there was a curious lack of them. I yelled expletives, trying to fill the emptiness. I could feel my hand shake as I pulled back the arrow and released it, turning the angle of the bow in the last moment, so that the arrow scraped his side, pinning him more securely to the door. I saw a red stain in his shirt, just where the arrow-head must have cut him.
I notched another arrow to my bow. “I'm going to move closer to your heart with each shot I take. I want you to feel your death,” I said, just loud enough for him to hear. Something was nagging at the back of my mind. You won't do it, the voice told me.
I loosed another arrow, but instead of it piercing his skin, as intended, I saw my hand move, and the arrow lodged itself on his other side.
But this is the revenge I've been longing for. Where was my name-sake when I need her? “Funny thing, revenge. In the end there's usually more to it than you thought. And I wouldn't recommend it to you ... revenge is seldom the best route to take.”
“You aren't really hurting me,” he observed. “Are you sure you really hate me that much?”
How could he stay so infuriatingly calm when he knew I was about to kill him? I let another arrow fly, and another, but it seemed impossible for me to hit him. The arrows only ever grazed him.
“Really, Mora. I'm disappointed in you.”
The fact that he called me Mora, not Morana, gave me the feeling that I was weak. Maybe I was.
“You never did love your father, did you? I mean, you didn't even cry when you saw him lying in a pool of his own blood, dead on your kitchen floor.”
Blood snaked along the tiled kitchen floor from the head of my dead father to my socked feet.
“But I'm crying now,” I pointed out.
“Not because you're sad about your father. It's because you'll have nothing left after you kill me.”
“Liar,” I whispered, not really wanting him to hear.
“It's written plainly in your eyes.”
“You're wrong!” But my heart wasn't in what I said. I closed my eyes for less than a heart beat, yet it was enough for him to yank himself free of my arrows and knives. He pulled a knife out of his door and walked slowly over to me. I dropped my bow and arrow, suddenly feeling drained.
“What do you want to do now?” I asked. My voice sounded as tired as I felt.
He hit me on the head with the flat of his blade and I dropped to my knees, too tired to keep myself standing. What was wrong with me? My hands crept to my boots, pulling the last of my knives free from their hiding place. But –
“I'm not like you. I won't kill you,” I said standing up. “And I forgive you.”
“What did you say?” he asked in disbelief.
“I forgive you,” I said again, turning around and heading for his door.
“Why?” he asked.
Blood snaked along the tiled kitchen floor from the head of my dead father to my socked feet. The man jumped out the window, his dark hair bristling from beneath his hat. His eyes, so empty, so cold, so grey. I will find him and kill him, though why, I don't know. My cheeks are dry, my heart hollow. Hollow as I walk away.
At the age of ten, I saw my father die on my kitchen floor. I swore to find his murderer. I swore to kill him. But I forgave him instead. Slasher was right. I did remember her words in the end. Revenge is a curious matter.
I now live in a nice apartment. I am single, 25 years old and training to become a doctor. I want to heal people. I am Morana, holding death at bay.