This is a picture I took of my friend Melodie back in April at her birthday party. Not only is she stunning in the picture, but I also found it quite inspiring. So I wrote a little story. I'm not much of a prose writer, but I thought the easiest way to share this with people was to write it as prose. If you don't want to read a bunch of text you should stop reading now. If you like a little fiction, please read on.
Melodie
By Jonathan Tsuei
I have worked alongside many Congregation Assassins and of them all, she was the only one that intimidated me. We only had one mission together. A mission that, I theorize, was meant to be a suicide mission. We survived, but just barely. That was the last of my involvement with the Congregation. No matter what year you decide to hide in, the Congregation always gets what it wants. The only way to kill a great assassin is to send the perfect assassin. They want me and they sent Melodie to do the job.
My door is locked. There is no silent way to enter. I grab my sidearm from the nightstand and crouch down next to my dresser. I look down the barrel of my weapon and keep it aimed at the door. If she steps through she’ll get one bullet ripping through her throat and another through the forehead, shattering the backside of her skull as it exits. We assassins are thrilled by the hunt, even if we are the hunted. It’s not the survival instinct; it’s the feeling of dominance over your prey. Outsmarting the target, predicting their next move and ultimately holding their fate in your hands, that’s what gets us off.
The door is broken wide open. I fire off two shots. Melodie is parallel to the ground, coming in feet first and my bullets fly too high. She fucking dropkicked the door down! I duck back behind the dresser just in time for her bullets to miss their mark. Bullets shred through the dresser. As wood splinters into the air, cutting through gunpowder smoke, I realize I’m still alive. I feel a brief pause in the rapid gunfire. I know she’s already dropped one weapon and is reaching for another that has ammunition. This is my opportunity.
I peek out left of my dresser, aiming my weapon at where I believe her to be. All I see is an empty space. Where did she go? I feel a jolt across the side of my face as the sole of Melodie’s boot comes crashing into me. Being low to the ground I maintain my balance and grab her by the ankle, attempting to break it with a swift twist. She turns with my motion and brings her knee crashing down on my skull. I feel dizzy and my vision begins to tunnel. Don’t blackout! I manage to stand and just as I do, I see the bottom of her palm come straight for my nose. I manage to deflect the shot only to be hit by two more strikes on either side of my head. Where’s my gun? Where’s hers? I should be dead by now. Why is she stalling?
I step backwards until I can feel the wall behind me. I hear a high pitched hum and I can’t tell if it’s my ears ringing or something else. My vision is still handicapped, but Melodie is walking toward me. There’s something in her hand. It’s silver. Shit, it’s her blade. This is going to be a lot more painful than I thought, messier too. She raises the blade to my throat and applies pressure. The tendrils of blood coming from my skull touch the blood that now begins to fall from my neck.
“Hello again,” Melodie says to me in a soft, raspy voice.
Her scent fills my senses again and I manage to smile. “Melodie,” I manage as I fight off unconsciousness.
“You know this isn’t personal, I have orders,” she says in a voice much more commanding than before.
“I know. Listen, let’s not prolong this, but I have to ask you one thing before you kill me.”
“Ask.”
“When the Congregation found us unconscious after our mission, you told them that it was me who carried you two miles to safety and signaled for the extraction. You carried me, not the other way around.”
My vision maintains well enough for me to see the discomfort in Melodie’s face. I never did understand why she lied about the mission to our superiors. I slowly raise my hand and place it on her gloved hand and say, “Look…” I stop midsentence as I feel the blade press harder against my throat.
“Take your hand from mine,” she says with a surprisingly gentle tone. I lift my hand away from hers slowly. The reflex of my mind runs through all the possible ways to kill her from this position. When the personification of your every desire comes to kill you, what do you do? Which instinct do you submit to?
Melodie clears her throat, “My mission, like yours, was to infiltrate and destroy the Saturn Compound. We did that. My secondary objective was to make sure you didn’t leave the Compound alive. I wasn’t given a reason and I didn’t ask for one.”
“Why didn’t you follow your objective?” I ask her.
Melodie’s eyes change ever so subtly and I know she’s done talking. She kicks down on the side of my knee with her heel and nearly snaps my leg in half. I fall to the ground and do my damndest not to show her how much pain I’m in. I feel the pressure of her knee on my spine as she grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls my head back. I feel warmth on my cheek as she leans in and places hers against mine.
“Goodbye,” she says, once again in that gentle tone of voice. She releases her grasp on my hair and squeezes a spot on my shoulder. My body goes completely numb and I don’t feel the blade pierce the back of my neck, exiting through my throat. I try one last time to breathe in so that I can smell her again, but nothing fills my lungs. I try to turn my head to look back at her one last time. I can’t move. I can’t feel. My vision goes black. I say in my mind, hoping she can hear me, "Goodbye."
