It all started the day I turned six years old. On the twenty-sixth day of the third month, I began walking down this dark path. It was a road I didn’t want to travel, yet I still did. There’s nothing a six-year-old can do when told her life was going to change. That day was the beginning of a nightmare. It has haunted me, chased me, for my entire life. It’s something that I wish I had long escaped from.

  Growing up in Atharia, I had never been too attached to the feeling of home. No one in this country really was. The land was lawless, each doing as they thought they should. There were no real police, only corrupt law makers and their minions. That, combined with the flat countryside and the drab brown houses that always drove my sister, Eliza, insane, had never allowed this place to feel like a home.

  Atharia began to feel even less like home after I began my training. My parents saw me as a disappointment and sent me to one of the lower ranked members in their organization. After all, the leaders of the biggest assassination organizations can’t waste time training a disappointment. It was times like these that I wished I was more like my sister and could make my parents proud. So, I grew accustomed to the lonely darkness, the stench of death, and the bleakness of a blood stain. All in an attempt to win their love. Now I wish I had stayed innocent. Every time I looked at my hands, I could only see the stains from the blood of those I killed. I could only see the countless lives I had taken away.

  The first time I killed a man, I remember cowering in the shadows like a scared rabbit. My trainer had yelled, “If you don’t fight back, you’ll die in this war.”

  Of course, I had tried to fight back. I had just never felt the true rush of fear that comes when someone looks at you with murderous intent. The spark of adrenaline when someone is rushing at you with a dagger, or you’re staring down the barrel of a gun. It is as though you have become a cockroach they are intent upon squishing, a hideous creature that belongs only to death.

  Yet if someone asked me if I regretted my actions, I would have to tell them no. I grew up in this life. It was all I ever knew. Every part of me was a reflection of my life. I was wearing my mother’s cloak, my father’s gloves, which I yanked off and shoved into the pockets of the pants my sister lent me. My sister was the reason why I didn’t regret my actions. I loved my sister. She was all I had ever wanted to be. Strong, courageous, powerful, but more importantly, just.

  Eliza never wanted me to be like her. Her eyes were always glazed with regret whenever she heard me say, “I want to be just like you.”

  “I know you do.”

  Her voice had always been sad when she said those words. I hadn’t understood why that was a problem. I hadn’t known the things she had done. The things I wouldn’t do.

  My sister never ignored me like my parents did, only paying attention to me when I was of use to them. My parents had tried to use me like a shiny new tool, destined to be forgotten as it began rusting. I hated them for it. After all, I was their child; I deserved my parent’s love.

  I firmly believe that my parent’s decision to throw me into our family business was not my fault. Eliza always seems to blame herself for everything our parents had forced her to do. They had made her do unspeakable things, to incredible, kind people. She had hurt those who didn’t deserve to be hurt. She had killed those who didn’t deserve to be killed. That was why her voice was tinged with sadness when I told her that I wanted to be like her. She hadn’t wanted me to be burdened with the guilt she carried draped around her shoulders. It weighed her down, stopping her from living her life.

  It wouldn’t stop me. Our family killed primarily through poisons. Poisons were our family’s signature. It was the sick little calling card, the poison that laced the daggers we struck with. But poison killed slowly. Poison could be countered.

  My parents hated that fact. They spent their days cursing the cures, but it was those same cures that brought me hope. I loved the antidotes the doctors created to combat my poisons. Often, I would help them with their efforts. Perhaps one day, the poison I was forced to use would be completely useless because of the quality and quantity of the antidote

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  I hoped that, although the blood I had spilled would taint me for the rest of my days, things could begin to change. I hoped that the dark clouds that damped my sky would blow away, and I would once more see the sun.

  I knew I couldn’t change who I was at my core. From the age of six, my parents had turned me into a killing machine. From the age of six, my parents had stolen my right to choose where my life would go. From the age of six, I would be forever stained. But perhaps, I could stop future generations from going through what I did. Some days, that feeble thought was all that kept me going.

  Fifteen years had passed since the first time my parents sent me out on a mission. A mission that my trainer begged them not to send me on. A mission that had almost taken my life. Instead, it now marked fifteen years of taking lives. Fifteen years of hating myself and my place in the word. Fifteen years of wishing I could change the past.

  Today was another mission. I could feel the tension in my body as my heart slowly walled itself off from the world. It was a trick I had learned years ago. A trick to make taking a life easier. I could feel my mind growing colder and more calculated the more I considered my mission.

  The one solace I could find in this job was that my targets were always cruel people. I prided myself on the fact that I had never spilled the blood of an innocent. It was a fact that had forced me to stay among the lower ranks of the organization, which was fine by me. I had never wanted to climb the rungs of a blood-stained ladder. Some of those among my ranks could not say the same. Many enjoyed spilling blood. They loved the thrill of danger that came from taking a life. It revolted me, so even though I could not escape this life, I would do what I could to keep my hands as clean as possible.

  Footsteps alerted me to my target approaching my location, and I couldn’t help my moment of hesitation. I could still see the face of the first man I ever killed. I can still see the look of terror on the bystanders as they watched a six-year-old, with a knife larger than their head, stab a grown man to death.

  “She’s a born and bred killing machine,” my trainer had told my mother when she brought me home after that day.

  My mother had been so proud. That was probably the only time in my life she had been proud of me. She had certainly never told me again after that day. That day had been the first time that I had ever seen her smile at me. The first time I hadn’t felt worthless. Perhaps that was a reason why I continued working for them. Every child wishes to see their parents happy with them

  A shudder slid through my body. I didn’t want to commit this deed, but the punishment if I didn’t would be far worse than just committing murder. Where I worked, failure was worse than dying on the job. Those who didn’t comply, or tried to escape, suffered immeasurable horrors. I had only tried to escape once. Never again.

  Leaping down from the rooftops, my boots made the softest thump upon the floor behind my target. They had already gotten twenty feet ahead of me, so I silently ran to catch up.

  “I am truly very sorry about this,” I whisper.

  The man whipped around, his mouth opening in fear, ready to cry out for help. Before a scream could escape his lips, I dragged him into a nearby alleyway. He struggled, as all my victims did. They never realized the futility of attempting to escape the inevitable.

  The night was dark, clouds smothering any light that tried to escape from the moon and stars. I was grateful for it. The lack of light meant that I didn’t have to look into the eyes of the man I was about to kill. With a smooth motion, my poison-laced-knife ended his life, shattering another part of my soul in the process. Maybe soon I would have nothing left to break. Maybe then the pain that racked my heart as I dug through the man’s pockets for proof of identification, would all go away. I could only hope. Then I would truly be like Eliza. It was what I had dearly wanted, after all.

  The wind whipped around my hair as I slid the man’s identification into my bag. An idea was slowly forming into my mind, one that was reckless, and dangerous, but would change the course of my life. This man had already died, yes, and so had countless others, but what if, instead of taking lives, I worked from the inside to save them? What if I began taking the jobs were good people, those who did not deserve the pain, were sentenced to death? What if when sent on a mission to kill, I helped them escape, and then brought back their identification as proof of their death? If I was caught, I would surely die a horrible and long death. Was saving a life worth losing my own in such a way? Yes, I believe it is. At least this way I could repay the debt of souls I had already stolen from this world.