Summary: As an agent you must remain anonymous. No names, no pseudonyms, nothing that can identify you as an individual rather than a cog in the machine called Epoch. When the violence starts to get to you, the reputation of a good agent slips through your fingers. You burn through handler after handler, until you're given one last opportunity to live up to the agency's expectations. What should be a simple task becomes near impossible when you are met by the deep voice of your new handler. You find yourselves divulging detail after detail, until unknowing becomes impossible and living becomes an inconvenience to the agency that built you.
Tags and Warnings (To Be Updated): Spy AU, Angst, Slow Burn, Potential Smut, Yearning, Major and Minor Character Death, Violence, Descriptions of PTSD and PTSD Episodes, Depersonalization, Derealization, Forced Anonymity, Crisis of Identity, Memory Distrust, Sociopolitical Conflicts, Systemic Control
Chapter Specific Warnings: Blood and Gore, Violence, Gun Violence, Minor Character Death, Life or Death Situations, Child Death, Derealization, Dissociation, Descriptions of a PTSD Episode, Hallucinations, Breaks From Reality, Suicidal Ideation
Author's Note: Ok welcome to the first fic I have ever posted, be nice to me pls and thank u!! This chapter functions as the prologue so you will not meet Yoongi in this one, but I promise he will be introduced in chapter 2. This is giving you a look at our main character and the events that lead her to getting assigned to Yoongi as her handler. And please look at the warnings, this chapter is very violent and quite a heavy read. I had to give a look at the reality these agents face and how uncaring their handlers typically are. I'll be holding your hand through the screen during the rough parts. Enjoy!
You had done this job long enough to know when a mission was about to go to shit.
You woke up that morning to the buzzing of your ear piece on the bedside table. Its bright red glow pulsing, scattering crimson hues across the back of your eyeballs. You groaned, turning to bury your face into the pillow beneath you. Shielding your sleeping self from the constant flash of light. It wasn't the first time you were woken up like this, and in your sleep-addled mind you still knew exactly what it meant. A mission given to you directly from your handler. No job boards, no scrambling to get good pay with a low risk to your personal well-being. A mission picked out specifically for you. Orders coming straight from the top.
And that had a tendency to never go well.
You sigh into your pillow, vision still obscured by your face plant into the cushion. One deep breath. In and out. You could do this. You had to do this.
Bracing your palms flat against the mattress you rise slowly. Squinting and blinking rapidly as your eyes try to adjust to the darkness and the constant strobe at your side. You just barely make out the digits on the clock by your bed. 0200.
Too fucking early. That's points off the "mission go well" counter.
You swing your legs off the side of the bed, already reaching down to move loose floorboards out of the way. To those who wouldn't know what to look for, the sight underneath the wood would be largely underwhelming. A dusty book, an old tea tin and a biscuit package that was starting to grow mildew.
You slide down to the floor and swipe the ear piece from the table on your way down. Arranging yourself to sit criss-cross you grab the items out of the floorboards and hook the blinking device into your right ear. Your fingers fumble with the dial, turning until the feedback goes from a high pitched screech to a dull hum. When you find it, you flick a small notch at the top of the device.
"Agent reporting", you say and begin to open the filthy items.
A crackly voice echoes in your ear. Old and creaky, making the feedback of your earpiece sound that much worse.
"Extraction. 44 degrees North, 26 degrees West".
You furrow your brows and hook a finger into the dusty old book. Flipping to a practiced location, halfway into it, a hollowed out section holding an old 9mm. "The old boarding schools? What's the target?".
"Female, Straad. Civilian".
You freeze, halting in your twisting of a silencer onto the end of your gun. "A person? Am I transporting, what's my time line?".
"no transportation, other agents will handle that. Deliver the target to the west bay of the complex, there is an old loading dock. Transfer of goods will occur there. You have an hour".
You fly through assembling your weapon and pocket extra magazines from the old tea tin. You swear, clumsily knocking the containers back into the floor and kicking the wood back into place. "Shit, you could have led with that you know? It's going to take 20 minutes to get there! Target description", you bark out. Flinging clothes off of your body and throwing on tactical gear with frantic urgency.
You are midway through lacing your boots when the crackling voice returns. "You have your description".
You halt in your task once more, laces hooked around your thumbs. "Oh, you're fucking kidding".
"Female, Straad, Civilian", the handler repeats.
Delightful, what a clear statement. Like that gives you a lick of sense. You are in Lekestraad for gods sake. It would take you all of 5 minutes to bump into "female, straad, civilian".
"What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? Did you feel like narrowing it down to a city, rather than the entire country?".
"I'm sorry, but further information is classified".
"Classified?", you let out a shocked laugh and finish lacing up your boots. You reach for your bullet proof vest, pulling it over your head and then strapping a knife to the side of your thigh. "Did the council want me to succeed in this mission, or is this some incredibly late hazing?".
"The target will be the only civilian, no further information is necessary".
"The only civilian?", you repeat. "just who exactly is in the building?", but you already knew the answer before it came.
Said in that crackly voice you were beginning to fear would lead you into a very painful and arduous mission. You look to your pistol hanging at your side, the knife on the other. The standard weapons issued to all agents. The only weapons they were allowed to keep on their person. It was built for stealth, simple in and out missions. Anything requiring combat was to be issued on a mission by mission basis.
"Do I need a different weapon?", you ask incredulously.
"No time for a supply center, pistol only. You will be fine agent".
You fume to yourself, not quite ready to get into with the old man when you just woke up 5 minutes ago. If the issuers didn't move, you would just ignore him and go get properly supplied yourself. But you needed direction, guidance. The only one who knew where supply would be is in your ear telling you to figure it out. Do with what you have. And with your recent history with Epoch, you could not afford to risk a mission. Especially not by disobeying direct orders.
So with a slow, creeping sense of dread, you watch the mental "mission go well" counter spin triple digits into a casino jack-pot. But instead of money, you know you are awarded an absolute fucking shit show.
"Fine, ok", you whisper to yourself. It was just extraction, those were relatively easy missions. No blood, no violence just… get the target and move her somewhere else. You could do that.
You take one deep steadying breath, pulling your mask over your face, letting the fabric mold to the contours and curves of it. The one barrier between you and the person the agency molded you into. All you had to do was survive.
At any other point in the year, you would have to put far more energy into stealthing. Any other location even. As it was, your objective put you right in the middle of the old boarding schools. A remnant from the time of unification. Cultural erasure under the guise of education and peace. It was like misery rolled off from the concrete in waves. The towering prison architecture sloping over you, casting you in shadow as the snowfall quieted your footsteps. It felt every bit as oppressive as you were sure it did when the schools were open. And you could taste it in the air, the syllables mothers spoke that their children forgot.
Histories of the old war, the current war. Memories from a time many would like to ignore, boarded up and abandoned. A new city built over the scars, so nobody else could see them.
In short, no one was just walking around the neighborhood. The few that were here were ah- indisposed. So to speak.
Thus, instead of darting around back alleys and taking quadruple the time it would take to reach your assignment, today you were able to waltz right up the sidewalk.
"Status?", the handler asks in your ear.
"I can see it up ahead, 5 minutes", you say low and slow. Voice hushed to match the quiet serenity of the snowfall around you.
"Good, enter in from the northeastern corner. There is an old service door which should be left unguarded. Observations of the location indicate that the target is being held on the 5th floor. There will be a stairwell in the same hall that the basement leads you out of".
You hum your affirmation. Ducking around foliage to keep in shadow for your journey up to the building. The streetlights were old, and mostly defunct. Many flickered in and out, long bursts of darkness before sputtering into life again. It offered you a convenient path right up to the service door, dark combat gear matching the shadows perfectly.
The door itself is just a well in the ground. The entrance to an old cellar or basement. You slink down the stairs with practiced movements, minimizing your risk of potential sighting. You reach the iron door, rusted and red with age. Chains are piled up in the corners of the cellar, broken with an even split. A cut, and there is an old keypad which is so aged that the oils of previous fingers have melted through the plastic.
"The chains have been cut", you say in a hushed voice.
"By us", says your handler. "Observations indicate that the service door has remained unused".
"And you left the chains out for them to find?", you ask, trying to shake off the odd feeling this assignment keeps giving you. The whole thing just felt too… rushed. Not to mention sloppy, but that was a whole separate issue. It wasn't exactly uncommon either, for a handler to get a slapdash poorly put together mission. Then, instead of tying up loose ends themselves just leaving it to the agent to pick up the slack.
"Not by me", he responds.
You huff, rolling your eyes and turning to rest against the door. "The recon team then".
"Yeah? Then file a formal complaint, I don't intend to get shot today because someone else did their job shitty. What's the code?", you bark.
"0-8-4-7", the handler says, voice starting to have a twinge of annoyance to it.
Turning to the keypad you punch in the numbers, as best you can with the buttons nearly melted away. "How did you even figure this out?", you mutter to yourself as you slide open the door. "Have some poor greenie punch in all possible combos until they found the right one?".
"Agent, focus on the mission".
You roll your eyes and reach into one of your pouches to pull out a flashlight. "You are absolutely exhausting, you know that?". You give the end of the flashlight a couple of good whacks. The force of it flickering the light to life as you scan the dark room the door puts you in.
It seemed to be just an old storage room. An old water heater, furnace. Old desks and chairs stacked precariously on top of each other, turned grey with years worth of dust settling over them. You move slowly around the room, pistol held out in front of you. Spending a couple of moments, you do a slow perimeter and catalogue the lack of footsteps in the dirt on the floor. "Basement is clear, proceeding". You move forward slowly, coming upon a large stairway. The steps were wooden, beat up. A few odd nails sticking up from the wood bent at an angle, like whoever built it just slapped random wood together and called it good. Gently, you press down on the step, not allowing your full weight to settle onto it. Testing the dips and bends, seeing which sections would cause any creaks and groans. You traverse them quickly, but cautiously.
"I've reached the main floor entrance", you say, pausing to test the door handle. It moves a couple inches before reaching an invisible barrier, which prevents you from fully twisting it. "It's locked".
"Tools, agent", the old man grunts in your ear impatiently.
You scoff quietly to yourself, pulling out a lock pick kit. "Thought you had recon run this path", you say, inserting needles into the lock and begin to feel around the inner mechanisms.
"Current occupants must have locked it".
"Righhhht", you drawl and mutter to yourself. "These mysterious non-civilian occupants". Your brows furrow as you concentrate on moving the pieces inside the lock. You just catch on a small sliding piece when your thoughts are interrupted by the far away sound of something sharp. Something launched with velocity, repeated, a loud and aggressive sound. Bullets. You drop the needles, and turn to press your ear to the door. Counting to yourself there's 1, 2… 3? Alternating shots, hard to discern with them layering over each other. Several gun men, a full fire fight by the sounds of it. But the sounds are softened, not as loud as a typical shot would be. Silencers, they were using silencers.
"Gunfire, lots of it", you whisper. "transportation team?". It is silent for a couple of moments.
"No, transportation was directed specifically to only transfer goods. They should be armed no more than you. They shouldn't even be here yet. Pick up is at 0300".
You swallow. "Friendly fire?"
The handler makes a noise of disagreement. "the only non-civilians in location should be hirelings. Protection for the target".
"then who the hell is firing?".
The question bears down on you both, implications heavy and dread growing.
"Updated objective agent. The end goal remains extraction but now… for now it's extermination".
The word dawns on you slowly, fuzzy like the static in your ears. When it processes you feel your breath pick up speed, and you flex your fingers against your gun, the tips of them starting to go a little numb. You gasp quietly to yourself, system shocked like you had just been plunged into ice cold water.
"This is not up for negotiation, you have your new objective", the words come out steely.
"You can't-", and you gulp down the shouts that want to come screaming from your vocal chords. He can't ask you to do this, you won't do this. Not this many people, not all at once. Not by your gun. "What do you expect me to do? I have one pistol, I can tell-", you pause to listen to the gunfire again. "These have to at least be semi-automatic, if not fully. My Kevlar is not built to withstand those shots. I only have 41 bullets, I would have to get a one shot kill for everybody and I'm fucked if there's anymore targets than that!".
"Then take down a target and use their weapon".
You imagine operating a militarized weapon and shudder to yourself. You had seen what they could do to bodies. Turn them unrecognizable, vaporize them into nothing but a bloody heap. The thought of it turns you a little sick. "No", you repeat firmly. "Call for back-up, this is not a one agent mission".
"I was specifically instructed to minimize agent contact with the target. I will call for no one else. Your objective is extermination".
"You were given instructions with old information. This is the new information, the parameters need changed-".
You are interrupted by a snarling, angry voice in your ear. "I am your superior, you do not give me orders, I give them to you. That is an order, agent".
You flinch, head drooping into your hands. You feel the cold harsh lines of the pistol digging into your cheek. So much blood… it was going to be so much blood. You saw different outcomes spastically rushing through your mind. All ending with a violent and bloody death. But the ones where you succeed- you knew it was going to be up close and personal. You were going to have to get past those weapons, look them in the eye as you…
"Please don't make me do this", you whisper to the uncaring voice in your ear.
"You've killed before", says the handler, pausing to wait for your answer. It's a prompt that unlocks some part of you. The old uncaring agent that you used to be. Who was able to wash blood from her fingernails without thinking of the face it came from. Some part of you leaves itself as you are once again faced with the choices Epoch makes for you.
"And I will do so again", you breathe. Finally, you wrench yourself from the floor, finish the picking of the lock and push past the door that will lead you to gods' know where.
"All of them agent, no extraction until not a single one is left".
In other words, figure it out.
"Understood", you say, leaning into the hallway. You do a brief check of the area, no targets visible. Shots still sounding far away. You would have to delve deeper to find the fight.
Darting out into the hallway you lead with your gun, prepared to fire at the slightest sign of movement. It's how you were going to get through. To survive what you were beginning to believe was just an elaborate scheme to kill you off. You knew your handler didn't care for you. Not that any handler ever cared for the agents they threw into missions. Your last 4 certainly didn't. But this one, you swore this guy hated your guts. Possibly even more than you hated him. Did he choose an impossible mission just to get rid of you? So he didn't have to take the reputation hit of requesting a transfer? I mean, none of this made any sense. A target you had to capture, to identify on sight, but any knowledge of her was classified. That meant she was someone important, key to protecting the creed. That should result in more agents, not less. Which means logically, there was something being hidden from you. Information so important that if you were to learn more… well. It would be easier to handle a couple agents rather than a whole squadron who knew too much. And these orders given to you, not getting proper supply, and choosing to exterminate an entire building of people.
Your handler was going rogue, you knew it. No sane person would make these orders, no leadership would risk a target on the slim chance one agent could accomplish this task. He was desperate, and you had no idea why.
You turn a corner, hallway widening into what looked to be a play room. There were decaying plushies everywhere, old circular rugs and toys scattered about the area. Small kitchens and other things for young girls to play grown-up. Set out and left in their spots like every kid who used to go here all got up and left at the same time. The sounds of bullets spraying were steadily getting louder and louder. There was a second entrance on the other side of the room, opposite of where you entered. Whoever was in here, the sounds were coming from that direction. They would have to walk right through here to make it to the stairs that led to other floors. The area you came from. You quickly scan the room, locating a desk in the southwest corner. It was the perfect spot to sit and wait. There was a wooden board in the front so they wouldn't see you as they entered, and it provided cover for whatever weapons they had on them. You snatch a toy compact mirror off one of the faux vanity desks, the mirror is small and warped. But it was reflective enough to allow you to see behind the desk. You slide underneath it, pushing an old office chair out of the way and place the old compact on its surface. Pointed so you could watch the back entrance, and prepare for whatever was coming to you.
It took several minutes for them to reach the play room. Their scuffle slows their pace significantly. You see two vague figures on the mirror's surface, armored but in clothing similar to you. Not military then, maybe mercenaries. They were shuffling back slowly, shooting in front of them and occasionally looking around the room.
"Cover!", one of them shouts. "Get cover!".
"On it!", the other one shouts back, turning and sprinting through the room. You watch as his path leads straight towards the desk, your muscles tensing and preparing to launch from your hiding spot. Before you can take a full breath, the man has traversed the room and launched himself over it. You hear the sounds of him skidding along the surface as he knocks your mirror to the side. He collapses down to the floor in front of you, weapon held at an awkward angle, tip of the barrel brushing against the floor. As he falls, he makes eye contact with you, eyes widening slightly as he tries to adjust his weapon that is too big for the space. Too late, too slow. Your gun is pointed and with a sharp, quiet bang, you paint the walls with a fresh coat it has not seen in decades.
You rush forward, trying to untangle the weapon from the body before his partner turns and starts shooting at you. Your eyes pointedly look away from his face, away from the walls. The only type of thought in your head is mission objectives. Target down, several approaching. Fire imminent behind you. Retrieve the weapon, take down the second target. Cold clinical analysis. You didn't have time to feel afraid.
As you wrench the strap of the rifle off of the body, you hear the sound of thundering footsteps in the distance. The man in the room takes another volley of shots in their direction. He's yelling, shouting for his partner. The pitch of it growing more frantic the longer he and the approaching group trade shots.
"I said get cover! I need back-up Cas-".
No. Don't think about it. You don't want to know.
You continue patting down the uniform of the body in front of you. Finding extra rounds and pocketing them. You press against the drawers of the desk, turning slightly while you wait for the other team to arrive. Rifle pressed into your chest, hands on the trigger, prepared to launch an assault.
You hear it when it happens, all the violent bloody details of it. The panicked sounds of the man. The brief fight he puts up, the sounds he makes as he chokes on his own blood. And you sit there the whole time, pressed up against the body he called his partner, and let them hurt each other before you finish the job.
Quiet, unnervingly quiet. Your breath shakes, your fingers slip against the trigger as the sweat of your own hands turns the metal slick.
"Wasn't there another one?", the new target asks. And in that brief moment where they realize there is a danger they have not accounted for, you are roaring up from the desk to place a bullet between their eyes.
You crouch, head barely visible above the surface of the desk and brace the rifle onto it. Eyes cataloguing the number of targets in a second, 3. 3 who have all seen you and are preparing to take shots. You take several before their fingers can even twitch along a trigger. The first, a one shot kill, right in the head, between the only space his helmet did not cover. The outcome is repulsive, an explosion of-
Don't think. Don't think. Don't think. Don't think. Don't think.
It distracts the second target long enough for you to down him, shot fired into a shoulder, and then another in his Kevlar padded abdomen. The force of the shots wind him, the velocity stumbling as he trips over dusty old toys. You duck behind the desk once more, preparing for the incoming shots from the 3rd target who remains standing.
You barely have enough time to tuck behind the drawers of the desk rather than the thin padded front, when bullets are ripping holes in the old particle board. Embedding themselves into the wall and body in front of you. The heat of them brushes by your side, a pressure uncomfortably close to the vulnerable tissue of your ribs. They whizz by, just narrowly missing your own Kevlar padded side.
Crouching, you start to turn and come around the edge of the desk, rather than poking your head over. You expected their guns to be trained right at the spot you popped up and you were not going to give them a 2nd chance to try to shoot faster than you.
As you just peak out from the edge, you see the uninjured one pulling a walkie-talkie affixed to his shoulder close to his mouth. Buttons pressed down he shouts into the device "new assailant!, female to the north. It's gotta be Ep-". You hold down the trigger, gun ripping a trail of carnage across him. He falls, body going limp and twitching in a growing pool around him. The other flinches, trying to operate the large rifle one handed, as you rendered the other one useless with a shot to the shoulder. Too slow, almost laughably so. In a pitying way. The third is quiet before he even gets the chance to properly point his gun.
Your eyes flick across the room once more, making sure there are no other targets hiding in the corners. When you see nothing but empty space you sprint forward, snatching the walkie-talkie off of the body and pocketing it.
Breathless and panting you turn tail and run straight back the way you came. To the old stairwell that will lead you to other floors. Pushing yourself to go faster, trying to get there before any squadrons could meet you head on in an open hallway. There is chatter coming from the walkie.
"Alek, status? We will send a group down to your area".
You fly past old tattered posters, sliding your way through corners and barreling forward. "Target alerted other squadrons of my presence. It sounded like-", you gasp. The pace turns your words into a stuttered mess. "They know I'm with Epoch!".
"Objective remains the same, exterminate all targets-".
You interrupt him, yelling into the receiver. "God dammit, if you're not going to say anything helpful I would rather you just shut the hell up!". You turn on your heel, boots screeching as the plastic slides across the linoleum floor. You skid in front of the stairwell, launching yourself up the first flight of stairs without pause. You can feel the stairs vibrate as dozens of feet pound down them to meet you.
It was not a good location to fight in at all. Tight, close quarters, nowhere to take cover and it wasn't easy to run away if you had to. The way stairwells are built, turning corner after corner, it significantly reduces your speed and running up an incline expends far more energy. You were going to be packed like rats, crunched up in the staircase together. However, at the same time, whoever was coming down the stairs was going to be limited by the same factors you were.
You are just about to crest the platform to the 3rd level when you encounter your first target on the stairs. Taking the steps two at a time he traverses them quickly, a second hireling just behind him. Their weapons are raised, one shouts "assailant spotted!", up the stairs.
You hold down the rifle trigger, one long press and let the bullets spray haphazardly in the stairwell. The bodies fall and roll down the stairs, limbs twisted at odd angles. You leave bloody footprints along the stairs as you continue your path of violence. Trigger held down, letting the bullets catch wherever. Not conserving ammo, just concerned about getting targets down before they could get you.
In the attention you could manage to give them, you saw that not every target had the same weapon. The same armor even. Some were strapped with Kevlar, rifles held at the ready like the targets you killed downstairs. Others… others just had pistols, hand guns. Small weapons that couldn't hold a candle to this massacre dressed in metal clothing.
Your weapon clicks repeatedly, interrupting your thoughts. You press down on the trigger harder click click click. No bullets leave the barrel.
"Fuck!", you swear. Hands fumbling in panic, trying to reach the place you pocketed those extra mags. The target in front of you takes the opportunity to strike. Shooting a couple times he places a few bullets in your chest. The pistol ammo is crunched against your vest and the pain of the shots stumbles you a little. You reach for your pistol, the one strapped to your belt, but he is shockingly fast for a man of his size. Huge and lumbering, arms the size of tree trunks. You scramble backwards as you see massive hands reaching for you. Hand to hand combat with this guy was sure to end in disaster. But he catches you around your belt, heaving you into the air as your rifle goes clattering down the stairs. You feel your heart launch itself into your throat as he throws you down the stairs. Butterflies scream around your stomach as you enter free-fall.
You attempt to twist yourself in the air, optimize your landing as best you can. All you can really do is tuck your arms around your head, protect your skull from the painful landing you were about to take down concrete stairs.
You connect with the edge of the steps on your left shoulder. You let out a choked noise, yelping in pain as the sensation fires down your nerves. The impact of the blow is felt throughout your entire arm. You careen down the stairs, tumbling and rolling. Body taking a beating even through the padded vest you have on. Your descent is stopped only by your back slamming into the railing of the stairwell. The force of it rips the air from your lungs, gasping and heaving as you try to shake off the pain.
There is no time to gather yourself before the man is upon you again. Gripping your forearm in one hand he wrenches you up, shoulder screaming in protest as your arm is forced straight in the air. Blinking through the dark spots in your vision you rip a knife from the strap near your thigh. You thrust upward, towards the arm that held you aloft, and stab right into the underside of his elbow. He screams as you meet resistance, but you lean up with your body weight, serrated edges designed to slice through ligaments and bone. With a pop, you cut through the resistance and you pull backwards on the knife until you feel the joint dislocate from its socket.
The man is screaming in agony, as you are instantly released from his grasp. You rush forward, knife gripped in your palm, and you strike right at his throat. The fabric of his shirt sliced in an instant, and a long gash of red opening in the tissue. You are doused in blood. Hands slipping and sliding on the grip of the knife from the gap you cut in his arm, and mask uncomfortably wet from the slash in his throat.
You gasp for breath as you kick him away from you, let him tumble down the stairs. Adrenaline pumping from the encounter, sending your muscles twitchy. Prepared to spring and run, tensed for survival. You turn and scramble up the stairs, pulling your mask tighter to your face as you work to get up from your knees. Turn away from him, from the target. So you didn't have to look him in the eyes as he bled out alone among the bodies of his comrades. You run, boots slipping on the gore. Fleeing up the steps until you reach the 5th floor.
You pause to catch your breath, and listen to the shots fired on the other side of the door. Groups of people mowing each other down for who knows what. An endless scene of violence, of carnage. Your eye twitches at the slick feeling of your blood soaked mask.
"The target", you gasp. "Where is she?".
"Have you exterminated all others?".
"No, I'm on the 5th floor-".
"Extraction will not occur until you have eliminated-".
"The target will die!", you shout. "The target might already be dead! There are two groups here all fighting and taking shots at each other. If the other isn't here to take her, then she might get caught in the crossfire. There is too much fighting, I need to locate her and pull her out!".
"Your job as an agent is to make sure the objective is completed despite all obstacles-".
"I am doing that!", you seethe. "My objective is to deliver goods to the extraction team! I can sweep after they're out. If they're armed with pistols, they're going to die before they can get her out of here!".
"With the updated parameters-", you nearly slam your head into a wall as you hear him start ranting about the updated objective again.
"God dammit, if you don't know where the target is just say that!"
There is a brief silence, before he is back in your ear spouting bullshit once more.
"The observations of the complex did occur several days-".
You nearly scream out loud. "Holy shit, so you actually have no idea what you're doing. I have a fucking moron in my ear hellbent on making sure I reach my demise tonight!". The statement is emphasized by you sending a kick into the 5th floor door. It swings open, hinges swiveling as you send it flying into the other side of the wall.
The sight you are met with, is nothing less than a blood bath. Dozens of bodies, scattered in the hallways. All of them in different uniforms. New hirelings make it into the hallway, but they are dropped as fast as they arrive. People dressed in all black, various clothing that didn't exactly match their counterparts. Others dressed in militarized uniforms. Armored and padded, expensive weapons in their hands and at their hips. Armbands are tied around them, with a symbol stitched into it. Whoever these groups were, one of them was clearly organized. Not to mention well funded.
You dart forward, sliding onto your knees to search one of the bodies. You grab at his arm, ripping at the band tied around his bicep. Four circles, all intertwined with each other, S curves leaving one and forming the other. It looked like some sort of complex knot. You stuff the cloth into your boot. If your handler didn't have any idea what was going on here, you were going to make damn sure you could see these guys coming in the future.
You continue on, opening old doors, checking classrooms for a woman. Someone who would supposedly look distinctly civilian. You trade shots with targets you encounter, ammo dwindling and energy waning. You feel your moves get more and more sluggish as the number of fights you find yourself in keeps increasing.
"Shit", you mutter to yourself. "There's no way I'm not past extraction time". You swing open another classroom door, leading with your gun and checking for any active targets. All you are met with is an, admittedly, alarming amount of bodies. From what you can tell they look to be the hirelings, dark mismatched clothing, no arm bands to be seen. You close the door, barring it with a chair propped up underneath the handle. A quick break, that's all you needed. Time to rest your limbs, search these guys for any extra ammo and continue with the mission.
You press your back to the wall, slowly sliding down as you face the pile of bodies. The exhaustion takes you straight to the floor, legs spread out in front of you, head resting back on the brick work. You pant quietly, listening for any targets who might be creeping close to the classroom door.
At first it seems like a good idea, taking a rest. Allowing your body to adjust before you launch yourself back into the fray. But as you sit there, your heart stops pounding, your breath returns to normal and your adrenaline… it flat-lines.
You feel nothing as you sit there, other than the dull throb of your shoulder. Then all at once there is a searing white hot pain in your side as your body allows you to feel it in full once more. It was burning, but aching like someone had cracked the side of your ribs with a bat. All the unbearable lingering sensitive ache of blunt force trauma. If you didn't know any better, if you weren't familiar with how adrenaline could mask the severity of injuries, maybe you could have been fooled into thinking that's all this is. You had been tossed around a couple of times in the mission, you could've easily broken some bones. But that burn… you are violently familiar with it. This kind of pain. A sneaking sensation. Dull at first, and then all at once hitting you like a freight train. It's a slow enough feeling that it often convinces plenty of green agents to just ignore it. To just finish their mission. Press on until they notice their gear is damp with their own blood, bleeding out for the money. For the cause that chewed them up and spit them out as fast as it put a gun in their hands.
You hiss, and suck in air through your teeth. A pained whistled breath. You press the butt of your heel into the bullet wound, applying pressure that makes stars burst across your vision. As you pant through the pain, the intake of air presses the damp cloth of your mask to your nose. Each breath pastes it to your skin and blood restricts the flow of air through cotton. Impatiently you set your gun on your thigh, and rip the wet fabric from your face. It falls to the ground with a sickening wet smack, staining the concrete a deep red.
You begin to unbuckle your tactical gear with practiced movements. Fingers working quickly to snap off the individual pieces of your armor. Pouches and outer layers are removed, until you're left in just your undershirt. Gently, you peel it back and unstick the fabric from the bullet hole. Your fingers reach blindly into the pack that you know has emergency gauze, rummaging around blindly as you focus on the gaping hole sat in your ribs.
"Extraction", you say. The word shatters the silence. A disruption to the unsettling peace of the bodies around you.
"Come again?", comes a crackling voice in your ear. You wince at the fizzing and popping.
"I need extraction", you repeat. "I've been shot". Your fingers finally snag on the familiar texture of gauze. Grabbing it you produce a very small roll, well used in the past. It was just enough to properly wrap the wound, but not enough to reapply.
You hear a snort in your ear. "We don't extract for bullet wounds, you are trained in first aid for a reason, agent".
"Yes, and I'm also trained with enough medical knowledge to tell you when I need extraction. I was shot in the ribs, send a team to secure the area and get me out of here", you bark at the handler.
"I will search for the nearest hospital to your location and guide you-"
You interrupt him, fuming and swearing. "I'm sorry are you a fucking moron? What makes you think I can walk anywhere with a god damn hole in my ribs? Who knows what the hell the bullet nicked, I'd bleed out before I could even get to the damn lobby!".
"You cannot afford extraction, we cannot afford extraction. The target is essential. If we wait for a team, enforcements will come and we will lose the opportunity to take her today. You and I both know that you are walking on thin ice as it is. Anything less than absolute success is unacceptable, agent".
You snarl at him, absolutely infuriated by his idiocy, and fueled by a fierce refusal to die at the inept direction of this fucking handler. A person who sits in their chair and listens to the violence you inflict without having even a drop of blood stain them. Scott free of the consequences they throw you in daily.
"I refuse to die because a coward behind a microphone commanded me to."
His reply is cold and steely. Every bit the reflection of the organization you now find yourself trapped under. "You signed up because you were willing to die and kill for the creed".
"No", you sneer. Just as cold, just as fierce. "I signed up to protect the creed, what good am I to it dead?".
"That is for the agency to decide".
You nearly rip out your earpiece in your instinct to shout down the line. Almost jump to yell so loud in his ear that the vibrato would make his ears bleed. Maybe then he'd understand the toll and expectations of an agent. Instead your eyes narrow into slits, words hissed at him. This faceless man who demands you bleed and break because he decides it's necessary. A man who wouldn't so much as sneeze over your absence from the world. "The agency can decide after I'm out, for now, I choose to live".
In a tense moment of anger between you, the atmosphere is punctured by the sound of a click. Something intimately familiar to you. The sound of a rotating chamber, a bullet spinning slowly, until it locks into place. Primed to take a shot. One well aimed on a distracted target and it could be lights out. Permanently.
It is instinct that moves your hand. It is survival. Something deeply seeded in the recesses of your mind, a command that sounds like "eat or be eaten".
You don't even have time to properly direct the muscles to grab your gun. To face the threat before it can get you, you are moving with the propensity of a trained killer.
Not a chance in hell. Before anybody can move a finger along a trigger, a gun is in your hand and you are once more the architect of someone's end.
The kickback barely moves your hand, the sharp sound of the bullet fleeing its chamber. A sharp crack, reverberating across your eardrums. When the body slumps, when you return to yourself once more, it is with a deep sense of horror. The cold plunge of anxiety as if your head had been dunked underwater.
A girl, younger than you. Certainly no older than 18, and the unfurling of a crimson flower. Petals blooming and spreading across her chest. Growing larger and larger until it stains the entirety of her white shirt. The clattering of a gun as it fell from limp fingers, sliding across the concrete away from her. And eyes…. eyes that were looking directly at you.
Your hand trembles, fingers shake as they gently touch your cheek. You flinch when you feel the confirmation. No mask, face bare and fingers touching skin.
The sounds of the world around you fizzle out as you and she look at each other. As she drifts further and further away from you. The sounds of pounding footsteps in the hallway all fall on deaf ears, as slowly the only thing you can hear in them; a high pitched ringing. Breaths come in sharp and fast. Vision hazy and arms suddenly feel as if they weigh 20 pounds.
As you sit in your haze, shaking, unable to tear your eyes away from her, you process that the ringing in your ears isn't that… rather it was screaming. Someone is screaming. An angry voice is yelling right against your ear drum, it's a familiar frustration. You parse the sounds together, syllabus repeated to yourself individually.
You take the buzzing thing from your ear, and slowly place it on the concrete by your boot. You rise slowly, braced along the wall for support. Numb, all numb. Can't feel your feet, can't tell where they are in relation to your body. If you have a body. Fingers fumble with the weapon, nearly dropping it in your trembling.
The small object is still buzzing, still vibrating next to you as you catch your breath. Get a somewhat normal pace, less gasping and wheezing.
You cock your head slightly. Ear tilted down towards the offending device.
"My name is not agent", and the statement is punctured by the crack of something being crushed beneath steel-toed boots.
There is a droning sound in your ears, a long buzz. Something, someone is trying to get your attention. You absently trail your hand up to your ear, looking for something to turn off. To quiet the buzz.
You slide along nothing. Just empty space. There's nothing to stop the drone.
There is no device in your ear.
As the thought processes, you slowly return to yourself. Vision becomes less hazy, a little less dark. You feel lighter, thin fabric rustles across your shoulders as warm air disturbs it. A mechanical sound, a whirring above you. A counter. There is gum, lighters… cigarettes in the back. In front of them? A person… a boy. His brows are furrowed, pinched together. Eyes dart over you, they bounce from your eyes, to your face and back again. Concerned, you decide. He's concerned. You squint your eyes as you take him in, trying to reduce the strain his- quite frankly, visually assaulting red t-shirt puts on them.
"Miss", he says tentatively.
You blink at him. "I'm sorry?".
"It's-", his eyes dart down to your hand. "for 2 bags of ice it's… 6 keping".
Your thumb rubs across your palm, coming into contact with something thin and papery. It crinkles as your hand moves. You try to parse together your own thoughts and memories, as old knowledge struggles to rise through the murky surface that is your current level of functioning. Your mouth feels dry as you peel your tongue from the roof of it.
"It's always 5 keping", you manage to spit out.
The cashier shuffles around nervously. You see sweat start to form on his brow. "The owner- he changed the prices recently. It's 3 keping a bag now". He looks at you a little pleadingly, like he's begging for you to just drop it. How long had he been trying to get your attention?
You nod slowly, wincing a little as you reach back to look for your wallet. You test various pockets, each pat down compounding the nervous energy of the service worker in front of you. Finally, you locate it in the pocket by your calf. Pulling it out you fumble around until you find the proper change and drop one keping coin into his hand along with the bill.
He visibly deflates as you hand him the change. Letting out a long and audible breath. "You should… uh-", his eyes flicker to your face again. "You should ah… drink some water when you get back to your room".
You quirk a brow at him. He jumps in response, rushing to bag up your ice. "Straad liquor you know its- strong! Always puts tourists on their ass".
Your spine straightens in response, a chill running the length of it. "Do I look like a tourist to you?", it comes out harsher than you like. Syllables jumping wildly as you try to emphasize those trained neutral tones. It doesn't hit the right marks, makes you sound more out of place than you already did.
He smiles kindly, and perhaps a little pityingly. He looks pointedly down at your clothes, "only someone who is used to cold sea air could stand to walk around in short sleeves during a straad winter".
You gnash your teeth in response, his comment sending a wanting tremble through you. You lean forward and snatch the bag from his hands. "I have not smelled the sea in decades", you grind out and turn to stalk angrily towards the door. The bell above dings harshly as you push it open with more force than necessary. When you take the first step out he calls out to you again.
"Miss!", he shouts. "Are you… are you alright?".
You freeze, foot suspended in the air. You see flashes of red, crimson on a bright white background. A face that looked…
You turn towards him, trying to smile but end up just grimacing.
"I'm alright, kid", and how you wished that statement was true.
When you next come to, you are watching yourself dump ice into a bathtub. There is a comically small amount of it when compared to the volume of water.
You brush a hand along your side, coming into contact with rough and raised scars. You run your thumb across skin you know holds a wound. You feel it there, delicate little threads are holding you together. You look down to see your skin clear of blood, but it is painted with fresh bruises. You examine the gap in your flesh closely. Clean, and definitely staunched before being stitched up. Whoever did it was trained, knew what they were doing.
You take a deep steadying breath and shake your head to get it clear. Leaning down you grip the edge of the tub and stretch your leg to get over the side. You wince as your muscles scream in protest, not wanting to be used after-
You lower yourself into the water and fuck- it's freezing. But the ice feels good on your bruises, on your inflamed shoulder. You press your fingers into the joint, rubbing deep circles as you whimper through the pain.
Ok think, think. You turn to take in your environment, looking at the cracked and checkered tile. The old water damaged and peeling wallpaper. This is familiar. This is your bathroom. That means you're safe, home. Your wound is stitched up. You aren't bleeding and there are bandages sprawled across your sink. There is a bucket in the corner of the room, empty bottles of peroxide are scattered around it. That's used to clean-
You flinch. Clasping your hands underneath your knees, you pull them close to your chest and press your forehead into the bone. "Please stop", you mutter. Eyes squeezed tight. "Please stop, please stop, please stop", repeated over and over to yourself like a mantra.
You squeeze your eyes tighter, willing the thoughts away, but it is banging on your cerebral walls. A crimson flower on a bright white background. A face that you can't escape, that you just want to stop looking at it. But here it is, with such clarity. Floating around like a virus in your mind, making you look at her. At the expression when you-
Does she remind you of anything?
The smell of sea air. Laughter drenched in sunlight. Hands smaller than yours, feet trailing after you. Pressed together under the covers during a storm. A name whispered in your ears, the sound of raindrops pattering on the ground.
"Stop it!", you shout, voice cracking at the end.
Knobbly knees pressed together, trembling hands held in your own. Eyes wide and frightened. A card in your hand, nameless with just a number. "We could change the world", said with absolute wonder. Pinkies held up and tied to each other with a seaweed rope. "Together".
Your heart is thundering in your chest. The pace of it shaking your collarbone. You launch yourself out of the tub, feet slipping as you almost send yourself careening into the ground. Just focus on the wounds. The wound, they still need bandaged. You left them on the sink.
You watch your hands tremble along the basin, trying to pick up the gauze but you drop it repeatedly. You shake, wheeze, try to catch your breath. Try to just be normal.
You tilt your head up, eyes catching the reflective surface of your bathroom mirror. And she is right there. Fingers gripping the edge, peaking out from it. Face leaned forward, teeth bared and looking at you with absolute disdain. Your heart stops in your chest before kicking itself into a higher gear. The velocity of it is painful, and your knees feel weak as you start to droop to the ground.
The specter opens her mouth, blood running out of the corners of it. "Maybe you should just die". It sneers and tosses you a gun. A 9mm, with its rounds still loaded. The contours of it are memorized as you find your fingers naturally sliding into place. Your index finger flicks the safety off without thinking, without conscious movement. The click of it is enough to shock you back into yourself.
You punch the mirror with the butt of your gun in fear. Shattering the glass and the creature before you. Shards spraying outward and catching on your hand.
You were going to survive.
But the want isn't enough. Burying it underneath old floor boards isn't enough. The tempting call of gun metal between your fingers. Whispering to you. The sounds of ocean waves and the smell of sea air.
Your hands are shaking, they can barely hold the gun straight as you turn to run into the living room. You bump into walls and knock down pinned up papers as you focus on unloading the magazine from the gun. It unlocks with a distinct click and you let the pistol plummet to the floor.
Trembling, you reach the only window in your shoebox apartment. The paint on the sills splitting and peeling, wood aged and grey. You unlock the latch, destroying the cobwebs that had been built around it, and start to press up on frame to open it. It slides up slowly, with a screechy groan. The wood grains rub together and make a grating noise. The cool winter air floods your lungs as you wrench it open. Small pinpricks of cold needles across your lungs and goosebumps rise on your wet skin.
You push the bullets out of the magazine one by one. Your thumb presses down as you slide them out individually. Your hands shake so bad that you drop a few and have to go scrambling onto the ground to retrieve them. You get each one popped out of the magazine, palm overloaded with the amount of rounds, and you stare at the lead resting in the center of it. The breeze from the window rustles your hair. You turn gasping, chest heaving, bracing your opposite arm along the frame of your window. You lean forward, fling your hand out and let the bullets scatter in the air. The sleek shape of the casings catch the streetlamps. Brief flickers of light that quickly vanish as they tumble one by one to the ground. Clattering across the bricks, making a musical note out of each bounce and roll.
Your breaths even out slightly, eyelids droop in relief as you watch them roll away. You close the window gently, rolling it shut with far more grace than you did when you were wrenching it open. The danger is reduced, but not enough to feel safe. You catch the reflection of your abandoned gun on the surface of the window.
You needed to get rid of it.
You could find somewhere to get more bullets. If you looked long enough, hard enough. If you were pushed hard enough. You flinch as you catch the broken shards scattered across the bathroom floor out of the corner of your eye.
Somewhere you wouldn't be able to find it.
You have enough wherewithal to at least pull on a shirt before you are sprinting out of your apartment. Sprinting out into the moonlight with an empty gun clutched tight in-between your fingers and the bottom of your feet stinging and numb from the snow. You dash behind apartment complexes, running through the icy grass, shuddering as the cold seeps itself into your bones. You dart through underbrush, the branches of dormant trees scrape against your exposed skin. Tripping your way through the flora until you arrive at the edge of a bank. You gasp, breaths heaving from the effort it took you to run here. You pad your way closer to the edge of the bank, watching the rushing of the river before you. It was wide, deep. Water turned brown and muddy from the rush of melting snow. The winter precipitation increased its volume drastically. The current is strong and it tears loose roots from the banks, ripping branches as it drags them deep beneath the surface of the water.
You look at the gun held in your hand. Eyes trace its lines, a shape you are intimately familiar with. Memories you wish would just drown. It would be carried a mile away before you could even think about jumping in after it.
With as much strength as you can muster in your overworked limbs, you cock your arm back and chuck the gun into the air. It whirls across the sky, spinning across stars, and lands with a deeply satisfying plunk. Sinking down into the murky water, never to be seen again.
As you watch it disappear you feel all the strength- all the fight leave you. Collapsing onto the ground, you clench reed grass between your fists, nearly crying out in relief. You shake, teeth chattering, knees stinging as you rest in the snow and ice.
"There's no need to cry, my love". Hands pull you deeper into the water, small footprints dissolve with the push and pull of the tide. "Let the ocean take those memories, let the water wash them away".
And you want to follow it. Deep underneath the waves.
