Chapter 11

Twenty five million to go.

It won't be much longer.

I can't be too much longer.

I need to kill and make more.

It doesn't matter who.

It shouldn't matter who.

Right?

Even if it's my old family.

"Wow, so that was death? I'm underwhelmed"

I looked behind me. It was Mel. the woman I'd just killed.

"Of course."

"Heya Sam, I have a question. Why'd you kill me?"

I told her about my predicament. I told her about the ruin she was spreading. And I told her about my thoughts.

"Well I suppose that's fair. I always was a greedy person, but I suppose one can't have everything."

"You aren't angry? Why is no one ever angry?"

"Because we know you, Sammy, we know it takes a lot for you to kill. And we know that we all changed."

"For me dying was a redemption, a chance for me to go back to the life I loved, the life at your side."

Behind Mel was Shaun and Kane grinning at me. That warmth was so familiar. The feeling of being surrounded by friends. It's so odd, and distant but also so familiar and nostalgic. It reminds me of the warmth of our first night in the guild hall. Me, Kane and Shaun it was the night we met Mel.

It was cold so we all huddled around the fire drinking. We were waiting for our first request. We talked through the night until it was early in the morning, Shaun fell asleep on Kane's shoulder. That's when I heard a noise. A rustling or clatter. I walked into the room. Swinging the door open. In the library covered in books was Mel. She was sitting in a pile of books and food reading and munching. She was much younger then, maybe fifteen. I never found out why she was there but she joined us as the librarian, we promised to give her all the books and scrolls and in return she would give us information on quests.

I still remember her introduction.

"Hi my name is Melusine and I am a demon who devours knowledge, give me books and I won't devour you."

Seventy percent of us were convinced she was a real demon.

But I guess this proves otherwise.

I've killed three of my family now. All for money. All for my brother.

Am I ok with that?

Am I good?

Does my good cause justify the bloodshed?

Who is the real villain, the people I kill?

Or me?

I dropped her body onto the floor and sat down on some bricks. They were weakly arranged as a wall and crumbling, fading into the dirty floor.

"Still having trouble with killing dumbass?"

It was arachnid, she stood over me, her purple hair shining in the moonlight.

"Something like that."

She sat next to me, her body slumping onto the bricks.

"We're friends right?"

"I don't know"

"Let me put it this way….

Would you die for me?"

The words echoed through my head, burrowing into my skull.

Would I what?

She just stared straight ahead at the moon, the white light filling her eyes as she stared up into the night sky. Her expression blank, like the question was normal, like it was nothing, a simple favour.

"Probably, if I'd paid off my brother's bills."

"Does that make us friends?"

"I don't know, what does this have to do with murder?"

"Well if I paid off your brother's bills and asked you right here and right now to die. You'd do it. is that murder?"

"Sure, I guess. It depends on your reasoning"

"But you'd be fine with that? Just dying from my requests?"

"Yeah"

"So then to you a life is nothing more than a favour?"

"Well I guess. My life anyway."

"What differentiates you from say the people you kill. If in your opinion a life can be given from a simple request then what's the problem, if to you taking a life is no more than borrowing a pencil what's the problem?"

"Well it's wrong."

"Why?"

"Because I'm taking their life and robbing them from the people they love."

"They'll die anyway."

"So?"

"So who cares if someone is killed when they'll die anyway? If after sixty years you die? Then who cares?"

"Well then what's the point in anything?"

"Nothing….. If you want to save your brother or you want to give your life to me then what's the point?…. There is none, there is no point to anything so we should all do what we want, and for people like me what we want to do is to kill."

"But I don't think I want to kill"

"But that's your problem, you think of it as some bad sin. Let's say for a second that heaven exists that a god judges us all, if they are truly good people aren't you sending them to a better place? If you see yourself as bad and think you need some kind of repentance won't that come later? Or is nothing important? not money, not life, not even death? In which case killing is nothing, it is meaningless. Because we are all just smudges, you don't feel bad about wiping away a smudge."

"That's twisted."

"Fine. but if you don't do this by logic aren't you killing your brother by not getting this money? and aren't you making all the deaths you've caused already pointless if you stop now?"

"Maybe."

"So you see there really isn't much choice you've got to become like me. Evil and twisted"

And with that she left dusting herself off and moving into the darkness of the night. I was as shocked as ever.

Why did that help?

What was that twisted logic?

What was that argument?

Nothing matters so do what you want. That's bullshit, right? It has to be. It needs to be.

I need it to be.

Otherwise what has my life been? Am I really some child chasing an ideal?

I stood up, thrusting my hands into my pockets and turning the hood up, I put my back to the moon encasing my face in darkness as I walked. I flipped a card in my hand and stared forward.

I guess I have no choice

Not anymore

£75,000,000