A Clockwork Killer (Stand Alone Short Story)
Mar 21, 2013 19:47:13 GMT -5
Post by Verbal, Lord of The Dreadfort on Mar 21, 2013 19:47:13 GMT -5
"One, two, three, four..." the numbers sounded off in my head as I punched the bag fifty times in rapid succession. The salty, familiar feeling of sweat raced down my face and onto my tongue. It reminded me of the taste of the sea. I sat at a nearby bench and unwrapped my knuckles, giving the training center a quick look over while I caught my breath.
The training center was technically a gymnasium, but that fooled no one. All the kids my age were here for the same reason I was, to train. They were careers.
Just like me.
One bronze haired boy was bench pressing impressively, another was circuit training. One girl was throwing knives at some targets on the wall.
Yeah, that's a gymnasium for you...
When my breath began to slow, I got up and began to stretch, taking a refreshing blast from my water bottle, washing away the pleasing taste of salt and replacing it with cool, fresh water.
But sharks didn't need fresh water, they needed salt water. Well. most did anyway...
And with that thought I began train with renewed vigor. I had never wanted to be a career, but to be fair, given the choice, I may very well have chosen to be one, seeing as how I found this life quite agreeable. The time seemed to fly by while I trained, and every time I gave a dummy target a few thrusts of my trident, the smile on my face grew. But maybe that's just because this was a familiar feeling, more familiar a feeling than my parents hugging me, or a tear creeping out of my eye. I had no one to cry for, no one to feel for.
But I sure did have a lot of dummies to skewer.
And this was my life. All there was to it. And that made me feel one of the few emotions I was familiar with. Rage. Not anger, rage.
But I quickly crushed it out through shear willpower. Rage made you stupid, rage made you sloppy. Rage got you killed.
And even if I had never wanted to be a career, I wanted to be dead even less.
The training center was technically a gymnasium, but that fooled no one. All the kids my age were here for the same reason I was, to train. They were careers.
Just like me.
One bronze haired boy was bench pressing impressively, another was circuit training. One girl was throwing knives at some targets on the wall.
Yeah, that's a gymnasium for you...
When my breath began to slow, I got up and began to stretch, taking a refreshing blast from my water bottle, washing away the pleasing taste of salt and replacing it with cool, fresh water.
But sharks didn't need fresh water, they needed salt water. Well. most did anyway...
And with that thought I began train with renewed vigor. I had never wanted to be a career, but to be fair, given the choice, I may very well have chosen to be one, seeing as how I found this life quite agreeable. The time seemed to fly by while I trained, and every time I gave a dummy target a few thrusts of my trident, the smile on my face grew. But maybe that's just because this was a familiar feeling, more familiar a feeling than my parents hugging me, or a tear creeping out of my eye. I had no one to cry for, no one to feel for.
But I sure did have a lot of dummies to skewer.
And this was my life. All there was to it. And that made me feel one of the few emotions I was familiar with. Rage. Not anger, rage.
But I quickly crushed it out through shear willpower. Rage made you stupid, rage made you sloppy. Rage got you killed.
And even if I had never wanted to be a career, I wanted to be dead even less.
