The bits of bread I gnawed on where like warm chunks of sawdust in my mouth. An appetite was far from anything I had or wanted right now.
I tossed the contents of the dinner tray out my open window like I did every night, hearing the familiar ringing shatter of the clay bowl on the ground never ceased to aggravate my sensitive ears. Yet I’d been doing it every evening for the last week.
Considering my state of mind I would have thought my rented room to be a disheveled sty, but instead I almost felt my skin itch at the compulsion to wreak havoc and yet maintain perfection. No wonder half breeds were so rare…just trying to live normally during this “maturity” was a torturous agony of body and mind.
I drug my nails down my upper arm, feeling again the cool brown blood rain down my skin. I could already sense the tissue begin to weave back together, slowly but surely. Even the old ones I still felt, stitch stitch stitch… like a rhythm that droned on in my skull.
I grabbed some rolled bandages on a dresser against the wall.
The sun was just about down completely so I slipped off my shoes and tied on the fabric strip covering my eyes. I had to hunt once more tonight.
The second day after my arrival a murder occurred in one of the larger neighboring towns. I hadn’t thought it would be a big deal in this place but every whispered piece of gossip I caught was about not only the latest murder but several dozen more that had been going on for the last 10 years. My spine tingled with curiosity at the idea of actually doing something other than waiting for a possible and likely minute notice of my friends. I decided to take it upon myself to figure out what was going on. Probably just another human with blood lust…
I slipped out of the window and crawled up the brick siding until I came to the roof’s lip and flipped myself over it, to land my bare feet quietly on the flat surface. The air was far less stale up high; off the dirty, human infested ground.
There was a sudden, disturbingly fresh scent dancing around the town. It tickled at my nose.
I leapt from my perch and continued to jump from the rooftops, following the scent. I all of a sudden inhaled sharply and had to stop my speed before I fell. My hands reached out to catch my fall but the aroma’s shock and the fast, almost straight down, descent had ruined any balance I had and my arms gave way beneath me. I skidded across the rough top and just barely managed to stop myself before the edge came up to try and drop me.
A heavy sigh escaped my lungs as I took a brief glance at my hands; the skin was ripped to pieces and painted red. I could sense the same lovely image all along my side. As I brushed the clotting blood out-of-the-way as best as I could I already noticed the skin weaving together ever so delicately. I crawled up using my elbows and began leaping yet again until the abrupt scent turned into a wall.
I slowed my pace and lightly dropped onto a window ledge as quiet as possible. The night had already settled in and through the sickly sweet fragrance I could taste the tang of blood on my tongue. I was a little too late.
“Damn”, I muttered under my breath.
I pulled off my blindfold and tucked it into the bosom of my clothes; as fast as I could I grasped onto the window siding, pushed off from the ledge and swung into the glass, shattering a hole just large enough for myself to glide through. Although the whole panel cracked at the force, causing high pitched shearing fractures that rung deeply in my ears.
I caught myself in a small tumble and stood up. The room was just as black as the outside world, with only the fragmented moon to highlight the masses and cast their shadows. My illuminated eyes added a disturbing green depth to everything I looked upon, it was a bizarre thing to be the color that you were seeing…almost like have tinted film over my eyes, but not.
I was just about to smack myself to shut up my brain when a soft female voice broke the silence of the room.
“Why hello.” A small, grinning giggle followed her greeting.
I sensed her steps head toward me and the scent ran me over like an ocean’s wave. It seemed as though I could lose my balance to an unseen force.
I breathed deeply, trying to keep as calm and cool as possible and then nonchalantly turned in place, setting my hand on my hip. I kept my eyes nearly shut in order to remain in the dark for the moment, with my face downcast as best as I was able to without looking like a moron.
“I must say, I wasn’t expecting to find a young woman.” I grinned at her in return, attempting to match her cynical humor.
She shrugged at my comment. “You should have expected the unexpected then.”
I was a bit taken a back at her comment. She was rather composed for someone who just committed murder. My brow furrowed.
“Might I inquire something?”
She seemed shocked by my own copy cat of herself, but nodded with a white smile glittering in the shadows. As she did so I saw the slight glint of a bloody weapon glide through a dirty cloth in her hands.
“Are you the one who’s been responsible for the murders over the last decade?”
The fabric against her blade stopped short, then continued through after which she placed the object back into its hidden sheath.
“Clever. Most wouldn’t have noticed the pattern as belonging to one person.” Her voice had become a bit more serious; however I could still hear her patronizing grin.
I continued to study her demeanor. She was just too average and shielded in her actions.
I opened my mouth to reply but instead voiced my sudden thought, making sure to mirror her condescending attitude. “A feat, I suppose, would not be too difficult…for a seasoned and professional assassin.”
Her eyes widened but then slipped back to normal.
“Pity.”
“And why’s that?”
“I was really getting to like you, but now…I’m afraid I’ll have to kill you as well.”
She ran at me with the stained dagger brandished in her left hand. I easily stopped her thrust.
“You’re pretty fast…and strong…” I added as I held back her still forceful arm; it was then I chose to fully open my eyes bathing her surprised face in green light. “…for a human.”
I pushed her away from me, expecting her to slam into the wall but she flipped over and landed in a crouch. A small gasp slipped past my lips. But I barely had the time to wonder at how she did that because again she lunged at me.
Left, right, up, down, spinning in circles. I had a hard time keeping myself at her pace; she wasn’t necessarily super fast but merely incredibly agile. Every time I knocked her away, whether it be a punch or kick or block she came rushing back at me, full speed.
Her face was severely distraught. It was like she had never come across anyone who could best her before. Despite my difficulty at matching her ever changing positions I was still very much the stronger opponent and being so I chose to end the fight right there.
I was already beginning to sense her own exhaustion as well as the several cuts and bruises that riddled her body…the two types of blood mixed with her overwhelming scent were beginning to give me a headache.
I took hold of her weapon wielding arm, squeezing so tightly I thought for a moment I crushed her bone. I pulled her up to my face so that we could each get a good look of the other. She was a fairly pretty woman, with short, blood red hair and two bits that went down past her shoulders in the front, a strange heart-shaped looking mole on her upper left cheek, and a straight old scar that scratched both lips on the left side. The scar was strange for one so young and skilled, but what disturbed me the most was her eyes.
I felt that her life was written on every bit of pigment; she was screaming inside them. We both stared at each other my green eyes pushing into her silver-brown ones. I don’t think I had ever come across such a unique looking human before.
She seemed completely enthralled by my appearance. Not surprising, although I wasn’t very used to being stared at. All the humans I lived with were more comfortable with my looks.
“What are you?” She whispered.
I lowered my eyes in guilt. “I’m sorry.” All my strength coiled and then released. I threw her from my hold; she flew from me so quickly and burst through two walls before stopping.
Past the first hole I could see the nearly cold body of her most recent victim, lying on an old rug in a pool of his own sticky, thick blood. I ran my eyes from him to the young assassin slouched against the farthest wall. I sighed and walked over to her.
She looked so helpless and tortured; like a broken child.
The sympathetic tug at my heart got the better of me. I picked her up and left the destroyed home, leaping from rooftops until I returned back to my own rented dwelling.
I slowly put her down onto my bed and proceeded to sit on the floorboards breathing heavily. I had never had to carry a full grown person while also running and jumping at my normal speed…it was much harder than I first thought.
“I really…need to train more.”
Once my heart had slowed again I turned my face back to the sleeping woman. She looked pained even in unconsciousness.
Exhausted muscles moved me to the opened window where I happily stopped to rest and watched the small town sleep. I had barely been there more than an hour before I dropped my head and drifted away as well.
When I finally came too, I reluctantly opened my eyes to find two silver- brown ones starring straight at me. I jerked back and smacked into the wood of the window I had been once peacefully latent on.
“Ow….” I held my head and mumbled with slight irritation.
“Why am I still alive?”
The woman seemed to be in utter disbelief.
My eyes blinked in shock of my own, I didn’t really know how to respond to her. “I-I honestly can’t answer that.”
She cocked her brow at me then sat back, with one leg dangling out the window.
I blew air out my closed lips, wafting my bangs up as I sighed. For a moment I starred at my hands then moved off the window to stand further in the as of yet unlighted room.
I could feel her eyes on me, like a hawk eyeing its rival rather than prey. The feeling was…unnerving.
Her feet touched the flooring, lighter than most humans could step.
“Seriously though. Who are you? What are you? Why am I here?”
Her questions felt so difficult to understand for some reason. I found I couldn’t quite function properly. My hands cupped my face as I breathed as calmly as possible.
A fluttering touch reached my shoulder. “UGH!” I screamed grabbing the hand and whirling around to face her. “I don’t know alright! I just don’t know!” She looked far more placid that I would have expected but in her eyes I saw fear.
I released her bruised hand and walked to sit on the bed; it was soft. I grinned to myself.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry. I uhh…I-I think you should leave.”
She was holding her injured hand close to her chest, the fear wavering back and forth from her face.
“No.”
“What!?” I jerked up to look at her. She had dropped her already purple right hand and her eyes were stern.
“I’m not leaving. You owe me explanations and I want them. Now.”
I blinked at her in shock, my mouth agape.
She sat down beside me and looked straight into my eyes. “Alright, spill.”
My surprise changed to confusion and I tilted my head slightly to the side at her phrasing. “Spill?”
“You know, tell me everything. All I want to know.”
“Oh uhh…al-alright.”
She was strangely persuasive.
I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. No words passed across my mind’s eye.
I saw her eyes glance at me while I kept my own glued to the wood floorboards. “Here, I’ll start then.” She stated beside me.
I nodded instinctually.
“Okay, what are you?”
I shook at the cobwebs in my head and proceeded to answer.
“I’m a…I’m a hybrid.”
The girl on the bed jerked at the word. “Hybrid? What kind of hybrid? What do you mean?”
I sighed. “I am an elf-human hybrid. However…” I paused. “…both my parents have passed on.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Though she apologized with intended sympathy her voice seemed tense and slightly indignant to the idea. I tried to ignore it.
“Um, I am currently the only one in existence and I’m also…rather lost.” I giggled at the idea that something supposedly as powerful as I could be lost, but power wasn’t in me…not really.
“Lost? How could you be lost?”
I laughed again.
“It’s uhh...a very long story. But essentially I ended up here with no one I know and no idea how to get to the ones I do.” I stretched up and looked out the window at the morning. “Pretty pathetic, huh?”
The girl was quiet for a change. I looked over to her; she was just staring at nothing.
“I’m sorry if I upset you?”
“Huh!? Oh no no, I was just thinking about something.”
She was methodically tapping her fingers against her lips.
“Alright!” She pounded her fist onto her thigh and then jumped up off the bed.
I slanted away from her as she leaped; the girl was being so enormously bizarre. Her firm silver-brown eyes looked down at me as she grinned almost manically.
“I am going to help you find the people you lost!”
My face was terribly dumbfounded. My mouth was wide open, my entire brow furrowed, and my eyes couldn’t move from her obnoxiously excited stance.
“WH-WHAT!?”
“In thanks for sparing my life and taking me from the scene to your own apartment.” She briefly glanced around “well, room.”
She smiled happily at me, although, my face had yet to change at all other than in minor twitches.
She glanced out the window then fell from her proud stand. “Oh SHIT! I have to go; another job later on.” She grinned at the latter.
Before she went from the open window she lightly placed a full kiss on my cheek. “You shouldn’t smile like that, you’ll get wrinkles.” She winked at me.
She ran to the window and placed her foot on the old ledge. “Bye bye for now!”
My face had softened since the impromptu kiss and quick farewell. I had resigned myself to the fact that I would hopefully never see her again until suddenly her face popped back into view.
“Oh, I completely forgot to ask you your name!”
I sighed in annoyance…it seemed I had a stray following me home now. “Noir. My name is noir.”
“Noir. That’s a pretty name.” She gave me a sincere smile for once. “I’m Kisneyla.”
“Pleased to meet you…Ney.”
She gasped in surprise then returned to her previous visage.
“Is it alright if I call you Ney?”
“Yes…I-I would prefer it actually.” Her head turned away to leave, but just as she did I thought I caught the scent of salty tears in the wind.
