| Home Just In Communities Forums Beta Readers Dictionary Search | Login Register Extras |
Just a note before you read this story:
-The characters, places, etc are made up. This is a completely fictional story and does not have anything to do with any existing persons, places, organizations, etc.
-There are many bloody parts in this story. There also may be phrases that may be considered "discriminating". Please read at your own risk, I am not responsible for anything.
Special thanks to my classmates, especially A.A and J.B, for liking this story and helping me translate it (it was originally in Japanese).
So here goes...Please review!
I was abandoned soon after I was born. So I don’t know who my parents are, or my birthday, or my real name. Perhaps I never had one, because I could have been abandoned before they gave me one. I do not even know where I am from. Somehow, I was born with white hair. Normal people should be able to judge their origin from hair and eye color, but even that was impossible for me. And another thing…my left cheek was branded with a “seal”.
In this town, murder and robbery are daily events that are of no special significance. The authorities are of no help…to be honest, I do not actually know if there are any organizations like that. Most probably not, and even if there were they would be meaningless. If you wanted to lessen the crime rate, the best and fastest thing to do is to annihilate the whole town. In any case, I have not seen any police or the like in my fifteen years of life. Which is a good thing for me. Here, you should not trust anyone. Only you can protect yourself. Especially if you have white hair like me and is easily seen as a target.
It’s not like I’ve been living alone for my whole life. To begin with, any baby left alone in this town would be killed in a few minutes. Two of the few who actually had some conscience found me and brought me in.
They were called Kousuke and Sana. They gave a name and brought me up. These two taught me so much. The usual things that normal parents teach their children, and the wits to live in a town like this. The things I should value, the things I should protect. They gave love to me, a child not knowing the warmth of her real parents. It is because of them that I am alive right now.
They also told me to hide the “seal” whatever happens. They never told me the reason, but they were a little overreacting about it. I felt a little suspicious, but since I was young, I was just honestly happy that they were concerned about me. We weren’t rich, but we lived happily.
But such happiness was more fragile than I thought.
I think it was when I had just turned eight. When I came back from an errand for Sana, the people who meant the world to me was killed.
As I approached the house, I noticed a small difference in the air. I opened the door roughly as if to erase the uneasy feeling that I had.
“Sana-san? Kousuke-san?”
I still remember the horror vividly. The house dead silent. The floor covered with blood. Three men sitting on the sofa.
They were dividing all the valuable things in the house. Not that there were much. Then one of them noticed that I was back home, and said to the other two.
“It’s her, right? The kid with weird hair?”
“Yeah. We can sell for a lot.”
“If these people just gave her up, we wouldn’t have taken their lives.”
At that moment, fear turned into anger and hatred.
I don’t actually really remember what happened.
“Why did you…!”
I shouted, and the next moment I saw them dead on the floor. I really don’t know what happened. But I noticed enough to understand I was the one who did it.
I stayed there for…probably three days? Eventually I started to understand.
I was probably stronger and faster than other people. Even adults. Yes, a freakishly strong eight-year-old who can easily kill a full grown man if she puts her mind to it. I think I was born like that. And when I have a sudden burst of unwanted emotion, I lose control of it. I had the power to kill someone since I was born. A cursed child. Maybe my parents knew that. Maybe that’s why they abandoned me. A murder weapon… A phrase came to my mind.
Soon the smell of rotting flesh became unbearable, and I had to get out of the house. The first thing I did was to dye my hair black.
It’s not like I had anywhere to go, but it was just too hard looking at all the dead bodies. The only thing I brought with me was a locket I had when they found me.
I did anything to survive.
Now that I think of it, it might have been a lot easier if I just died at that time. Then, I would not have had to go through such a bloody life. I wouldn’t have had to see or do all the things I saw or did. But I guess I was too young to think of death as a choice.
Threat, theft. Crime was the only way I could keep myself alive.
By the time I was ten, I was starting to feel the limit of living like this.
If I had a normal, proper job, it wouldn’t have mattered. But if you are like me and live on the darker side of this already shady town, you have to choose your “specialty”. I had these thought in my mind when one person approached me.
“Hey, I’m looking for an assassin…”
This town is divided into two. One is the inner part of town, the residential area of the “common class”. Where people like me, with no power over the things that happen here, life. At least I am fortunate enough not to be wandering in the streets, but many people don’t have much money, and as a result crime flourish.
The other part is the ring surrounding the common residential area, cutting it off from any outside contact. The residential are of the rich people with enormous mansions and many servants, usually called the “upper class” Them, who so cruelly lock us in by using human slave who lost the ability to think or reason.
The man who approached me was obviously the latter.
That was the first day I killed for money.
The first day I started my life as a killer.
And the day I stopped dying my hair black.
But even if I stopped dying my hair, I still hid the “seal”.
At first, I hated killing people.
Listening to their death cry, to be covered in their blood…it was terrifying. I felt like being crushed by the fact that I was the one who took their lives. I always wanted to run away. But I couldn’t, in order to live.
After killing so much people, I stopped feeling scared or guilty. I got used to killing people. At first I was scared of myself for getting used to such a horrible thing. But eventually even that disappeared.
I stopped taking part in anyone else’s lives, and I stopped feeling any emotions. Those only stood in my way as a killer.
I couldn’t even get out of town after that.
I earned the second-name White Witch without knowing, and became one of the best killers in town. There are many who rely on us, and most of them are from the upper class. They actually have a higher killing desire and lethality, but I guess they have to take care of their “appearances”. They just end up hiring people like me to do all the dirty jobs.
I am just considered as a convenient tool. But even if I am considered as a thing, it is a thing that they need. I also know too much about the upper class. For that reason, I am locked up in this cursed town. More securely than most people.
People who are worse because they don’t even bother to act on their own.
People who can kill me...or anyone if they want to.
People who capture anyone who oppose them and torture them until they lose their minds. And then free them and watch them devour each other.
I have seen too many people who tried to get out of town and ended up like that.