Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm

(Warning… this might start getting bloody, probably for a few chapters. Our girl is taking the next step in her life.)

I whimpered, I frigging, goddammit, whimpered in distress and the man sitting in front of me heard it.  A smile appeared on his destroyed face reminding me of the cartoon version of Quasimodo that I had once watched. Except, you know, Quasi had a heart of gold and should have gotten the girl in the end.

But I digress, this fucker heard my whimper and now knew that I was having second, third, and even fourth thoughts about this. It was a well-kept secret that I always wanted to be a killer. I would let the darkness whisper to me in the dead of night about what I wanted to do to the people that upset me, that hurt me.

I loved dark romances where the female mc thought nothing about stringing up someone and executing them slowly, either for a perceived wrong or legitimate wrong.

I wanted to be her.

But I wasn't. I wasn't her when I was tortured, assaulted, or debased. I wasn't her when I had the chance for revenge and didn't take it.

And by my very whimper, I just proved that I wasn't her now.

But oh, I so desperately wanted to be her. I wanted to give that part of me its freedom. I could use it when it came to zombies, and let's face it, I had no issues with killing people that annoyed me.

But murder and torture were two very different things.

I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the man's smug smile like he thought that he and his friends will be getting out of here alive. They wouldn't be. I have no problem putting a bullet in their brain, but they didn't deserve a fast, clean death like that.

And I had to be free.

Lost deep in my thoughts, I never noticed Chen Zi Han coming up behind me and gripping my right hand, the same hand that was still holding his knife. His touch was so familiar, so… everything, that I wasn't even startled at the contact.

Instead, it was Liu Yu Zeng's voice coming up on my other side that jerked me out of my thoughts. "There are many different types of people in a syndicate like the Red Dragons," he said as he came to a stop shoulder to shoulder with Chen Zi Han. "Not everyone is capable of murder or is comfortable with torture, and that is fine," he continued as I started to tremble in Chen Zi Han's arms.

Was this his way of telling me that he didn't want me to take this step? Did he think that I was too weak or soft to take my revenge into my own hands? I dreamed of doing everything to the Reavers that they had done to me, but even I understood that it would take baby steps to work up to that level of depravity.

"There is a famous book that my grandfather forced me to read over and over again until I had it memorized by the paragraph and page numbers. But there is a single line in chapter 64 that states 'the journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one's feet,'. Now, many have taken this line to mean that in order to start a journey, you have to be willing to take the first step forward, but in actuality, that was not what the author was saying.  What he was trying to express was that simply by standing still, by wanting to take on the journey, you have already begun."

Liu Yu Zeng didn't spare me a single glance as he spoke to me, just continued to look at the smirking man. "For example, we can change this saying to include 'the journey of a thousand cuts, begins with a single intention'."  As soon as he spoke his last word, Chen Zi Han raised our right hand and quickly sliced into the cheek of the man in front of us.

He no longer had the same smirk on his face as he did before, instead his gaze made threats that he had no way of following through on.

With a backhanded stroke, Chen Zi Han guided me through our second strike. I watched as a thin line of blood blossomed on his cheek; teardrop shapes of red liquid exiting the line that couldn't be bigger than a paper cut. Fuck the knife had to be sharp to be able to do that.I think you should take a look at

I was lost, captivated by the sight of blood on his cheeks from a cut that I myself made. Well, I had help, but I was claiming all the credit for it. 

I felt the darkness unfurling, wanting more blood, pushing me to lick it off the knife in my hand, but I refused to give in. I wanted to do this as me, to prove to myself that I was strong enough to take this on. And I was not going to let anyone or anything take that from me. Not even my own darkness.

I closed my eyes and thought about Liu Yu Zeng's words… that the beginning of a long journey was, in fact, the intention of taking it, not necessarily the first step. I had the desire to change, I had the drive, and so, the first step was done. Now, with the help of my two men, I managed to take steps two and three.

Tapping Chen Zi Han's left thigh, he let go of my hand and took a step back, and just watched me. Taking a deep breath in, I went up to the man that was glaring at me and just stared at him. I wanted to gouge out his eyes for the way that he looked at me; like he was superior, even though he was the one tied down in a chair. He was beaten, bloodied and yet, the fire in his eyes still burned bright with hatred.

I broke eye contact with the man and looked down at the knife in my hand, turning it over and over again, mesmerized at its gleaming reflection. But the knife didn't feel like me; like it belonged in my hand. Turning around, I handed the knife back to Chen Zi Han, ignoring the questioning look in his eyes.

My right hand now empty, I turned back around to my first victim, the one that I would always remember. I gently called on my pink flame, and let it dance on my hand, absorbing itself into my fingers. I could barely make out the pink glow, but that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was getting the results that I wanted.

It might take some experimenting, but there were also four of them and a whole lot of free time on my hands. I raised my hand to his left eye, the one that wasn't swollen shut with a giant goose egg forming on his brow line, and gently glided my finger from his eyebrow all the way down to his cheek.

For a second, it didn't look like anything happened. And then he started screaming.

A pink line started at his eyebrow and followed my finger line exactly, sealing his eyelid shut. The pink line took a second before it glowed bright red and turned brown, looking like a scar that he had had for years instead of only seconds.

I might not feel overly comfortable with a knife, but that was not the case with my fine.  "You fucking bitch!" he screamed and I could only assume that the pain had intensified in some way, but it didn't bother me in the least.

Next, I drew my blue flame and drew a line down the side of his neck and watched as this time, the blue line followed my finger exactly, as if I was drawing on paper. It was much faster than the pink flame at inflicting the type of damage I wanted, but I should use my pink fire more so that it does not become too weak. After all, it was the one that followed me through two lifetimes.

I didn't bother with my purple flame. I had seen what it was capable of doing to zombies and I didn't need my lab rat dying too fast before I could figure out this whole torture thing.

I took a step back and looked at the man in front of me for a few minutes. I wanted to take a second to figure out how I was feeling about this whole thing, you know, being new to torturing and all that.

Cataloging my emotions, I realized that I was more detached than normal. Like I couldn't really read my emotions because they were all pushed over to the side. The only one that I could tell easily was the feeling of disgust as if I knew I had to do it, but I was almost… resentful… that he was putting me in this situation.

Which is funny, because he really didn't ask for this at all.

However, it really felt more like a job, something that was required because of what he did, and I was the one that was supposed to punish him. But that didn't make sense… I was the one that wanted to try torturing someone and these four just landed in my lap. He wasn't sent to me; he wasn't anything to me. So why did it feel like a part of me was forced into it? Like it had the same appeal as cleaning a toilet after a party. Gross, disgusting, and vomit-inducing… but necessary.