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You are not a person.
You are not a person. You are a bundle of nerves, a collection of instincts, synapses firing after the other telling you what to do to ensure you wake up tomorrow morning. The General tells you what needs to be done so you get to eat tonight and the synapses say, go. And that’s how it’s always been. That’s how you always thought it would be. You are not in control. You are not a person.
You are not a person. You blink. Where are you? You’re in your bedroom. It’s barren. Quiet. The setting sun pours through your window, casting odd shadows on the floor. Like he’s here. Like he’s watching your every move. His words crawl up your spine, creep into your mind, murmuring, mocking, begging. You can be more. You can be more. You blink again, taking a breath.
You draw the curtains.
Ears ring. Someone’s calling. The General? You decipher your name from all of the static. Your feet move on their own. Synapses fire. Doing what’s been bred into you. Not to think, but to obey.
The feeling that brews in your gut when he comes into your sight is something you’ve never felt before. It’s something you didn’t even know you were capable. Is it hatred? Anger? He speaks, but you hear nothing. All there is is the heat in your stomach. And, as heat does, it rises.
“Talon,” says the General. “Are you listening?” Eyes like knives.
It’s not the first time you meet his gaze, but it’s the first time you meet him in hardness.
“No.”
You feel the sting as soon as you see the hand. The strike knocks you off balance, but you were expecting this; your foot was poised behind you, bracing for the impact. The General is angry. You were expecting that, too. You cradle your burning cheek with one hand, slowly looking up to once again meet his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” you say. You don’t think you mean it.
That night you look at your knives like you never had before. They look completely different; new, fresh from the blacksmith. Almost foreign. Fingers trace the edge of one blade as you think forbidden thoughts. Thoughts you would have punished yourself for had you thought them just yesterday.
“If there’s a man in your way,” the General had once told you, long ago. “Get rid of him.”
The sun has set. Your room is completely dark. He is everywhere, now. Even your mind. Especially your mind. You clutch the blade’s hilt, white-knuckled.
You can be more. You can be more.
Hours pass. You bide your time by sharpening a knife, just one, a singular blade with which you will use to commit an atrocity that was previously unfathomable. Your mind blanks as you work, deft finger operating on autopilot; sharpening the blade, the polishing it. Inspect. Sharpen it again. Polish. If you think too much about the thing you’re about to do, you’ll start to feel guilt. So you don’t.
You’re about to set the knife to the whetstone one last time before you really attune your ears to your surroundings. Silence. Utter silence. You don’t know the hour, but it is well past since the General is of habit to retire. You rise from your curled position on the floor, staring at your door. If there are any second thoughts, you must think them now.
There are. Of course there are. There are thousands upon thousands of doubts and paranoid impulses dashing all through your mind. But in the midst of all of those, you can hear his words ring clear, crystal clear: You can be more. You can be more.
I can be more, you think, and grip the hilt tightly. I can be more.
You know where he sleeps. Carefully maneuvering the halls to dodge the eyes of anyone who may by chance still be awake at this hour, you reach the General’s bedroom door in no time at all. You press your palm flat against the dark wood, and take one breath, two. Three. You put your hand on the doorknob. Four. You press. Five.
And there he is. Still, in his bed.
For a moment you think he may already be dead, how motionless he is. You shut the door behind you, and take quiet, practiced steps until you are at his bedside, mere inches from his body. The rise and fall of the sheets reveal that he is, indeed, alive. It’s odd, you think. How peaceful he looks when not awake. He looks like he could almost be kind. Like he could almost love.
You raise the blade, clench the hilt, and bring it centimeters from his throat. Your heart pounds. You’ve killed hundreds, thousands, countless times before, and yet– this is different, somehow. This is punishable. This is wrong.
Is it?
What is truly the difference between the bodies of everyone else you have slain, and the General’s?
You slit his throat. A practiced motion. Blood gushes from the wound, pouring over the edge of the bed and soaking the sheets. The General sputters, chokes, turns in his last moments to see that his own son is the face of his own demise– and dies.
And that’s it.
That’s it? Of course that’s it. That’s always it. Assassinations are always quick. But it’s not…
You pull the sheets away to reveal his body.
It’s not enough.
You flip the knife, and stab the body in between his fourth and fifth ribs. Where his heart is. The body is fresh enough that it bleeds, and you do it again, on the other side of his chest. You do it again on his stomach. You do it again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again.
By the time you’re done, he’s not the only one covered in blood. Your messiest work in years. The man before you would have you whipped for coming back from an assignment so unclean.
But he can’t, now, can he?
For the first time in recent memory, you smile.
Time passes.
The static in your head makes in impossible to gauge how much. Long enough for the blood on your knife to begin to turn dark and brown. Long enough for the body to pale, his skin seeming to glow in the darkness of his bedroom. Long enough for you to realize what you’ve done.
I’ve killed him, you think.
And you’d be right. You’ve killed him. Driven that knife of yours so deeply into his chest he will never feel again. There’s a surge of something like panic in your gut, but not quite. It is much more like… excitement. That’s not what I’m supposed to feel, you think, after killing the man who gave you your life. But you do. You can’t find it in you to regret.
You don’t want to.
You can’t stay here. Not anymore. You don’t know when the sun will rise, but when it does, the investigation will begin, and the gallows will await your naked neck with bated breath. The survival instinct you’ve nurtured all your life emerges, synapses fire, tell you to run. Run. Leave Noxus forever. And should you ever return, you may as well be knocking on Death’s door.
Too high up to go out the window, so you’re forced to run through the halls. You’ve been around the estate; it’s specifically designed to, lightly put, discourage outsiders from entering. The architects never anticipated the General’s demise to come from the inside.
“Talon!”
Panic grips, and you skid to a halt a few yards in front of your sister. Why is she up so late? Where has she been? She can’t see you like this. She can’t see you ever again.
“What on Earth have you been doing?” She comes closer to inspect, and you resist the urge to back away. “Your next assignment isn’t until tomorrow. And you’re usually cleaner than this.” There’s something in her expression. Concern? No. It can’t be concern. It’s never concern. Her voice lowers. “Have you been spending time with the hemomancer?”
Oh, you wish you had.
You don’t answer her question. You don’t say anything at all. Instead your bloodstained hands rise, seemingly on their own, to hold her face still. You stand there, analyzing her features; how long the scar is over her left eye, the exact shade of green her eyes are. The bright red of her hair and the way it frames her face. The way her brow furrows when she’s confused. How thin her nose is. The beauty mark at the corner of her mouth. She’s self-conscious about that. She uses makeup to cover it for parties.
“Talon,” she says, “what the hell are you doing?”
“I’m not sorry,” you reply. And it’s not entirely true. You’re not sorry you killed the General. You’re not sorry you have to flee Noxus. But to abandon your sister? To burden her in such a horrid way? To sever the bond you had or could have had forever? She was never the most compassionate or caring. But she is– was– your sister. And now you have nothing.
“I’m not sorry,” you repeat. “I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry.”
Dread dawns. She pushes past you, sprinting int he direction you don’t want her to go. You watch her, for only a moment, before beginning your own escape.
You don’t look back. You can’t.