The Reckless Assassin

It was way past dusk, darkness and smog surrounded Romyn Knight, just as it usually did. The severe visual pollution covering the city made it that way. Only disturbed neon lighting cast over Romyns’ features, making him unrecognisable to any passers by as he keeps his head lowered. On his way back from his latest job, he is trying to remain undetected, dodging the small mud and rain puddles as he ducks quickly through the back-alleys of Perditus' slums, the damp smell from the rain shower earlier in the day following him through the streets. He still has another half-mile left to run; he always counts the seconds, the minutes until he knows he is safe. Until he knows he won't be caught. Five minutes… "I'm getting too old for this..." Romyn mutters to himself, shaking his head. He - just a week ago just passed his thirty-fifth birthday, and now realises – trying to catch his breath – that he can't keep this up forever, he needs to find a new way to make money. It is no longer practical to kill people for money, he can’t keep up his assassin lifestyle for much longer. He won't be fit enough to continue for too many more years. It is a shame. He loves his job – no shift work, flexible hours and he gets paid three hundred times the minimum wage for any average job on the street. He's also not much of a people person, preferring to keep to himself. It's one of the reasons Romyn doesn't have his own family – women are too much to bear. Four minutes… Romyn doesn't even have any legal qualifications and with the city's over-population, it's almost impossible to get a proper, decent job anyway, with or without relevant qualifications. He would end up a bartender in a little hole in the wall, smelling of alcohol and sweat from the cramped conditions of such a place. It is somewhere that he would have to be social. Definitely not his cup of tea. He’d end up sacked by the end of the week, maybe even the day for picking fights with reckless drunkards. Three minutes… Checking his surroundings, Romyn is still in the clear; no sirens, no apparent followers. The only sounds on the street – the faint bass thudding beneath his feet from the club just round down the next alley. He'll be home free in a few short minutes, just the thought has him picking up his speed, though still dodging the mud puddles, excited to get back and crack open the new bottle of whiskey he picked up a couple of days ago. It's become a tradition of his to have a couple of halves after a job, helping to calm down his recent adrenaline rushes. Two minutes… He's a block away now, not far to go now. "s**t!" he whisper-shouts. He stops in his tracks. Two dark-clothed strangers are lurking around outside of his apartment building; it looks like they're looking for someone. As he notices their heads whipping around the street, looking for any sign of movement. It’s probably him that they are looking for, his job didn’t go as smoothly as he hoped, as they normally do. It’s rare that he ever makes a mistake. He'll have to go in through the window of his apartment to gather his things – he'll have to find somewhere new to stay, it's not safe here. He stops counting now, ducking down past the neon open/closed signs of the adjacent street, hoping he won't be seen as he dives past. He heads round to the alley behind his apartment building, the stench of the back-alley strong, like stale piss and rotten food. Jumping the gate into the industrial bin area. He starts the long climb up the stairs, to the twentieth floor, as he hears a cry. Sounds like a baby, he thinks to himself. He whips his head around, checking the immediate area. He can't see anything, the darkness and the smog in the alley constricting his sight. He starts up the stairs, thinking it must be nothing; he hears the cry again. However, with a little height advantage now, he can make out movement in one of the large bins. He quietly shuffles over, peering inside the large industrial bin, shying away at the smell before looking again and sure enough, there is a little baby, swaddled inside a fluffy pink blanket. As he looks closer, ignoring the eye-watering smell of rotten food, he finds himself gazing into the most beautiful pair of eyes he has ever seen. One icy blue and the other, the colour of the greenest grass. They sparkle as they settle on his own eyes. Immediately entranced, Romyn reaches in to pick the little tyke up as she giggles loudly at him, gleefully, clearly very happy to be rescued. Looking down; Romyn can't help but feel like this was fate... He can have a family without dealing with a womans’ antics. Being raised by him, this baby girl surely wouldn’t pick up those traits. Maybe he could even train the baby up as she gets older, then he'd be able to give his work up. He won't have to go looking elsewhere – with her; the baby, he could have an early retirement. Of course that's selfish, but it wouldn’t matter. Much. Noticing some embroidery on the blanket she's wrapped in, he pulls it closer to get a better look. Valora. A beautiful, strong name. Romyn is now only spurred on further to take care of her, to make her the greatest assassin of all time. His only legacy.