The Rose Sagas: Crimson Guns, Red Roses, Scarlet Tears

CH 1: Between The Lines

A skeleton with bones as pale as snow that chill the spine on a glance, a large scythe that could cut through air, a hooded cloak in all black. No, I may be the Grim Reaper, but I sure as hell don’t look like this. I, Aka Shouten, am a sixteen year old kid, or at least was. After a strange “altercation” dealing with life and death, in a nutshell, I became the Grim Reaper as many call me, but I prefer a new, more modern name. You can just straight out call me Death or Reaper, whichever you prefer.

Aka Shouten is really my otherworldly name. I was born as Nero Torrence, born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Growing up, I was the kid at school that nobody ever really noticed. I got great grades, as a matter of fact if I didn’t die, I could’ve went to Harvard if I kept my grades up for the next three or four years. Basically, I wasn’t that popular. I had a couple of friends, but they were never really… how should I say it, they were never really… there for me. No one ever really cared. Except her. Her sweet and gentle embrace would make you melt. Her body would even make a priest get hard. Her ebony skin was smooth and glistened in the light. Her smile was enough to make the sun’s glow seem dull. She was one thing and one thing only: angelic. But I lost her. Long story short, I got caught up with the wrong people, and she almost died. Almost.

The thunderous roar of the winds, and the rain that was as heavy as my heart, ruled the weather. The thunder sounded like shattering glass, mixed with gunshots, which sounded all too familiar. My red coat weighed down on my back more and more with each passing second because of the rain. The rooftop I stood on top of made a creaking noise with even the slightest movement. My target still didn’t show up yet. This was one of the five things I hated about my job: waiting. Suddenly, my phone rang the familiar tone, “Trynna get to youuu and dat booty, trynnna get to youuuu and dat booty, Girl I been…” What could I say, rap music was the shit. I slipped out a skinny, Red Sprint Phone, flipped it open and looked at the caller ID. Damnit, not him again, I thought. It was my manager of sorts. I answered the call, and greeted him in a humorous tone.

“Sup byyyyyaaaaaaaattttcccchh!! I’m surprised you hadn’t called earlier. What’s the deal with your target; he hasn’t showed up like you said he would.” I still looked out of the corner of my eye for any sign of him.

“I know. That’s why I called you. Either one of the other Factions beat you to it or the weather slowed him down. Oh yes, and there may be an accomplice. Would you mind killing him or her?”

“Sure, as long as you put in your part of the deal.”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I.” He talked in a slithery tone that would make hair stand on end.

I couldn’t believe someone from another Faction took my work. That was the second thing I hated about my job. It made me have a sense of worthlessness. The Factions were the different sets in the mercenary underworld. All the top-notch mercenaries were in one. If you weren’t in one, then you would never be taken seriously as a Class A mercenary. There were dozens of different groups but among the ones that could have taken my guy out, it would probably be one of the top three, not including ours which was number two: Demos Faction, Corpse Faction, and Phobos Faction. I was in the Reaper Faction and was the number one killer for about a year now. I had literally killed dozens amounts of people in one year, approximately one-hundred and forty seven in the past six months, but who’s counting. This is one of the reasons why I held the title of Grim Reaper.

“Damn! I bet it was the Demos, they’re always on to-.” I suddenly looked up. A glare of light was passing through the damp trees ahead of me. It was him.

“Gotta go, I think I just spotted the guy.”

The car pulled up towards the smoky bar below me slowly. Mud splashed everywhere from beneath the tires of the car, a limo to be exact. As the car came to a gradual halt, the door slowly opened and a dark, shadowy figure stepped out of the vehicle. As dark as it was, I could still see him after a minute of focusing. Night vision was one of the many skills that I had obtained through my “deal”. The man was very skinny. He wore dark shades over his eyes and had two ear rings in each ear that had a familiar looking star on it. His skin was the color of the bark on oak trees. The man’s head was crowned with jet black hair that mimicked the night sky. He wore an all green suit, that’s color grew darker as the rain fell on his coat. His face seemed annoyed with the rain and such but somehow, like a seventh sense, I knew that the rain was not the problem. I held my knife in hand, steadily aiming towards the figure, when another person stepped out of the car. It was a female. She also wore a green suit, like the man next to her. They looked like a pair of black leprechauns.

I stared towards the feminine silhouette in the pouring rain and after a quick flash of lightning, I saw the girls face. I was taken back in awe over what I was witnessing. Were my eyes tricking me? They had never done so before. The girl I saw was her. But how could it be? I was all the way across the world, how could she have been here. It had to have been pure coincidence. The pair walked into the bar, not noticing my tall shadow above them on the roof. After they were out of sight, the driver went back into the car apparently waiting for them. I noticed that he was wearing a pair of ear rings that did looked exactly like the fathers. I instantly whipped out my phone and dialed my manager’s number.

The phone made a ringing noise two times until he finally answered. “Hey, did you kill the target yet?”

Angered by his audacity to ask me to kill my best friend’s father I answered his question. “No!!! I didn’t kill them yet! Why didn’t you tell me it was her father? I can’t kill my best friends father, are you crazy!” I knew he was actually crazy, it was rhetorical.

“Look, you little bitch, you are an elite killer; this should be no problem for a pro like you.”

“The whole reason I took this damned job was so I could see her again.”

“And you have seen her again, now you have to kill her father. It’s all in the “contract” that you signed. Would you like me to show you?”

I nodded my head and said a solemn “yes”. There has got to be a mistake. I never saw anything that said I had to kill her father and her.

Suddenly, I recessed into my mind, and found a huge paper with the words “The Devil’s Contract” at the top formed. It showed a long list of do’s, don’ts, and must do’s.

“Here it is right here, it says that it is mandatory that I get to have my body back and see her after my last mission is through. You told that this was my last mission for y’all!”

“And you will, but just, not alive. Also, you should take a glance further down the list for the stipulations. They will be highlighted in blood red, literally.” He made a chuckle. His laugh echoed throughout my mental walls.

I mentally looked further down the list and then I saw it. In fine print the paper said, “Due to certain reasons, we may not guarantee that you will see your loved one for at least over thirty seconds due to death by you, a mercenary of another faction, or health problems. When you sign this form you will agree that you will humbly accept this fact when, or if, this fact is presented to you.” That’s what I get for hiring a shit-piece demon lawyer to take a look at the contract.

The eerie voice resounded through my mind. “You see, you have signed the contract, therefore, will abide by all of the rules and regulations of it. If you do not kill her father and her, then you will be severely reprimanded in painful ways.” For some reason, I was never told what the consequences of not fulfilling my tasks were, and I never asked, for it was never really important because all I cared about was seeing her again.

After what felt like hours of arguing with him, I decided to at least attempt to make a compromise. “I didn’t want it to come down to this but, how about you let me kill just the father, and not her. Why do both of them have to die anyway?”

His voice rose in anger. “They both have to die because her father is the leader of a new and upcoming faction, the Emerald Dragons. If you just kill him, he will appoint her to be the leader. They are also number five on the Hit List and are steadily rising up and beating the competition. If they keep this up, they can probably surpass us.” All the factions were given ranks, based on the respect and power their targets had. We were number two, right under the Demos Faction. The only other way you go up a rank is if you killed the faction’s number one killer and its leader.

She doesn’t seem like the type to be able to control a whole set of killers. Shit, if I remember correctly, she could barely keep up with her homework.

“I doubt a sixteen year old girl from Georgia can keep track of a dozen killers AND kill somebody.”

‘Well, Reaper, you’d better believe it because I’ve been checking on her for the past couple of months.”

I roared in outrage. “Whaddaya mean checking on her?! If you do anything to her I swear I’ll-.” I ceded from my meditative state for I sensed a presence. As I searched around, I figured that it was them. The two were walking out of the bar casually towards the car. As they did so, I wiped the rain from my eyes, which clouded my vision a bit, and got my knife ready. The butler left from the car to open the passengers’ doors when I noticed something different. His earrings were gone. I also noticed something else slightly different about him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The lightning quickly flashed in the sky and I saw it. His eyes were different. They were as red as the coat that covered my back from the hard pouring rain. This was the third thing I hated about my job: sorrow, which was the very same thing I felt at this moment. I focused back on my mission, gripped my weapon tightly and muttered under my breath, I’m sorry. So very, very sorry for what I am about to do. A tear rolled down my cheek and rolled onto my upper lip. I licked it and then, with my knife in head, jumped from the roof, preparing to pounce on my target with regret filling my emotions.

I dropped down from the creaky and rusty roof of the empty bar, and landed on top of the butler. I rose my knife up in the air and stroked it clean across his throat. Blood spattered out from the incision in his neck faster by the second. I heard a scream behind me. I flipped my hood over my face, so I wouldn’t be seen and leapt off the corpse of the driver and turned to face my target. He pulled out a gun, a SIG SAUER P220R, which was one of the most accurate 45’s out. I leapt backwards in the air and kick-flipped the firearm out of his grasp, kicking his hand in the process.

“Ahhhhh, damnit you thieving son of a bitch!”

As I landed on my two feet, while he was still holding his right hand in pain, I lifted my hand up and the gun fell into my palm with ease. I pointed the gun towards his head and with great hesitation, put my finger on the trigger. I still heard screams from the background. As I heard her desperate peas for help I decided to do something nice. I wouldn’t kill her father. At least, not with a gun. I put the gun in my coat pocket and pulled the man closer to me by his collar, and took my left glove off. I wrapped my hand around his long neck and squeezed it firmly. Slowly, the tone in his skin left his body, second by second. His skin grew paler by the moment and then, his skin started disappearing. It left into the air as smoke. I kept him in my grasp until his whole body turned to nothing but bones. His clothing covered the skeleton of the man even after his death. The fourth thing I hated about my dreadful job: my power.

I faced the girl, my hood shielding my face from exposure. The first thing I saw was tears. They were streaming from her face. I almost broke out into tears myself but kept my composure. I had so much to say to her and so much to ask but I struggled and ended up telling her one thing only.

“Words can’t describe how sorry I am for what I’ve done.” Her head was facing the ground.

“I guess all I can say is I’m sor-“

“Leave.”

I stumbled over my words. “Wait, I still want to say that I’m so-“

“Leave or kill me while you can!!”

I reached in my coat pocket for the gun I stole from Mr. Leprechaun and aimed the gun towards her head.

Damn, I thought. She’s greatly distraught and I still have to kill. Now was the time that I had to make one of the biggest choices in my life. This choice would curse me either way I chose. Nightmares would be plentiful either way I went.

“I can’t kill you.” I couldn’t tell if tears were running down her face or if it was rain, but I knew that she was pissed. I dropped the gun and disappeared into the darkness of the night, all the while watching her stand in the rain, with nothing to comfort her but the soft and wet warmth of her tears.

I hopped on to my metallic red KLE500 Kawasaki motorcycle and drove onto the highway through the trees, while reflecting on what I just did. I just got my ass into tons of trouble with my manager. I was told that my contract reported what would happen to me if I ever disobeyed him but I never read it. All I could do was wait.

Suddenly, my phone rang a new tune this time. “Ya know we trap all day, we play all night, this is the life of a, the life of a… Go Gettah, ayyyy, Go Gettah, ayyyy, Go Gettahhhh…” I answered the phone with hesitation and looked at the ID. It said PRIVATE. I answered it anyway.

“Hello.”

“You son of a bitch, I should kill you right about now.” It was him.

“Look, you knew I couldn’t kill her, so why even put me up to the job?”

“Because, I wanted to see if you even deserved your freedom from this damned body that your soul dwells in. I guess not though. I should kill you but I wouln’t. I’m going to let the curse take its place.”

My eyes swelled with surprise at the statement. “Curse. Damn!!! I am sick of all these damn surprises about my contract. You never told me about a curse!”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. You obviously aren’t good at reading are you? The Reapers Curse that I placed on you will take its toll gradually.”

“What does the fuckin’ curse do!! You gotta tell me.”

“You will find out soon enough, my friend.” His tone was sarcastic and dark as always. And with that he hung up. I instantly knew that this was going to be the hardest time of my life.

In front of me on the road, a light came towards me from a car. It was on the wrong side. I honked my horn but to no avail. Get out the way dumbass. The car kept coming towards my bike until it finally made a gesture to move to the other side. As it did so, I relaxed my hand on the handle. But at the last second, right before the car passed me, it swerved towards my bike. The last thing I remember was the sound of a tremendous explosion.