Strategy

FALL ASLEEP

Tears rolling down my cheeks, I fell to the ground. My trainer, he kept hitting me.. his boxing gloves, had sharp stones stitched onto them. Every punch he took at me, pierced my skin. But it wasn't what hurt me. His words.. "You are weak." "Look at you. PATHETIC!!" kept echoing inside my brain as I fell to the ground, clutching my stomach where he punched last. Pain isn't something you can choose not to feel. I wasn't weak.. but the voice inside my brain told me otherwise. 

He picked me by my hair and threw me over the ring. My back hitting the hard and cold floor; I thought he would kill me that day, because I was useless.. according to him at least.

He pulled me by my ear and took me to the 'head' or so we called him. He was the boss, the very top of the agents there. Whenever he took me there, it did not end in a good way. It was either starve for a week, or spend time in the isolation prison until I got my priorities straight. It was their way of giving me 'detention' which obviously all the children in school got. But I doubt it was half the cruelty.

He pushed me on the boss's table. My chin hit the edge of the glass. The blood from my mouth, staining it. But I wonder if it was a big deal for him because there was a dead guy in the centre of the room and his blood splattered all over the wall and floor. Did that bother me though? No. It would bother any normal 7 year old, but it did not bother me, not one bit. I wasn't normal was I? Hmph. So darn further away from normal.

The boss? He just sat there smirking. Clad in a tight black suit, hair black as the raven, the tip of a long black tattoo that was inked onto his arm, partly showing on the back of his palm. The rest hidden by the sleeve of this coat. Fingers intertwined together, he kept moving in his turning chair. 

The second he laid eyes on me and my trainer, his eyes becoming soft, losing the original piercing stare they had.

"What is it this time project 709?"

If you were wondering, yeah that was me. I was a project. The 709th project. A killer project.

"This girl is becoming weaker by the day Sir. I need you to give her more of that detention." 

This time, his eyes retained their original soul piercing character as he stared at my trainer. 

"Trainer 26, are you the boss here?"

"Sir I.."

"I asked, are you the boss here?"

"No sir."

"Then who makes the decisions?"

"You sir."

"Then stay quiet while I do that."

Maybe he had a soft spot for me? Maybe he saw that I was stronger than I seemed to be? 

"Project 709, you do deserve a detention, but I'm not handing it over to you. You are not weak. Not weak by yourself. Something makes you weak. Or may I dare say.. someone?" 

He said, painfully stretching each and every word. What was more painful was that I knew who exactly he meant. My mom. My mom who worked for some gang in Korea, my mom who practically sold my soul to the devil. Who gave me away to the Agency to save herself and her younger son, my brother. She who chose her son over her daughter.

"But Sir you can't.." 

Gunshot. 

I watched in fear as my trainer dropped to the ground dead. His blood splashed across the floor, it looked like almost like a white canvas with red paint splattered all over it. But I didn't flinch at the sound of the gunshot, because you just get used to it you see..

The Boss just looked at me with his eyes saying, this is what happens if you interrupt me, or cross me, understood?

I gulped down the heavy block in my throat. 

"Would you want me to do that?"

I stood there. Refusing to speak, refusing to breath.

"Would you want me to do that?"

I wish I had said yes that day. I wish I had said yes so that he would have killed her himself.. I wish every day... But

"No. Don't."

"Don't."