Assassin by D.A.Sanford - HTML preview

I was born chosen

This world that I was born on is not my first world. I had a past life that I remember every detail of my ultra passive life. There I was the person who, in school was not the book worm or the most handsome or the most popular. I was that kid that just wanted to be left alone but never was.

Always thought of the sheepish one so I became the target. To give you an idea. I grew tall but very uncoordinated. I was that kid who your team at PE baseball that you did not want. A pop fly in my direction would invariably miss my glove but not my nose.

I was standing in the lunch line and a girl told me to hold still. She took out a tissue and wiped the snot ball off my back that I did not even feel the boy spitting on me. That was the only act of kindness I could remember.

The last thing that I remember from that short life was that sharp pain. I felt it in the high school lunch line on the side of my head from behind. The class bully sucker punched me in the temple. He wanted to knock me out. He accomplished that beyond his wildest dream. He hit me with so much force that my body dropped and I stood there looking at myself lying there on the ground.

The kid was laughing at me and so were the crowd. That was until someone noticed, bent down and told someone to get someone. The girl said that she thought I was dead. No shit, I’m standing watching all of this thinking that at least I do not have to put up with all that bull shit aimed at me.

I turn and am drawn to a light.

“You are going to be reborn to an entirely new world.” The woman said to me.

I was in that room that those people that claimed died and saw heaven but came back but this is not heaven. This room has nothing that I can see that you could gage the dimensions. It was white and we were standing but there was no floor.

“Just like that life I had. Seeing nothing. Standing on nothing. Amounting to nothing. I knew that my life was not fair but this?” For the first time in my life I let the emotions that I suppressed all that life came out. I curled up in a ball and cried.

I felt her hand just stroking my head as I cried for what seemed like eternity.

When I finally stopped, I just say to her that I just want to not exist. “That will be the fitting end to that gangly mistaken useless thing called a life. I’m to be left in this nothing. That is what you are here to pronounce. I will at least thank you for that contact while I cried.”

Looking at her, she now appears as that girl who wiped the snot ball off my back.

I find myself both grateful but mad. She knew what I went through but, She completes my thought, “You are thinking, Why didn’t she do something about it. I could not change any aspect of that life. I caught hell from the other grand guild masters for just wiping the snot off of you. I was not to intervene. I have had to wait for this time to interact with you. Believe it or not, you are going to be reborn on another world. This time, you will be prepared with the knowledge of what happened in that life you lived. You will operate in the background, You will be born with two skills rather than the normal single skill.”

“Why do I have to be reborn? Didn’t I endure enough? Can’t you just erase me from existence?”

She tells me to keep those questions in mind when you awaken at the age of five. “I know that you are going to ask, why five? That is because I don’t want you to have to be totally aware of being in diapers. Having to learn how to do things all over again.”

“You say that I will remember my old life? Why not let me remember as I am being born. I will learn about that new life. I can become somebody. I would remember how to walk, talk and control those bodily functions. I could change my life from the beginning.”

She tells me that if that is what I want, she will grant it. She tells me that it will be with one precaution. “When you are born, that world has a seer that will hold a baby and see what its profession will be. Then she will announce it to the world. This time, I will be the one in that seers body. I will just announce that your skill is adjudicator.”

With that I’m fading out. I try to say wait but now I am in darkness and feeling pressure with the feeling of sliding out of some tube. Now I see light and am pulled out of the tunnel. I’m cold and cannot stop myself from crying. I stop when I am cleaned and wrapped in a blanket.

Then I see that woman. She looks at me, winks and pronounces “He will be an adjudicator. All gasp because that is a very rare skill. Most become well respected but feared.

She tells the gathered that I will be different. “He will be ultimately fair with the understanding of the ages. He will be well loved.”

When my mother is asleep, that woman comes back and tells me that my other two skills will be concealed by my good nature. I will be a spy and first and foremost, an assassin.

Now I drift off to sleep.

I started to walk very early and could talk well before the age of one. I made sure that I kept it to simple sentences but my parents attributed it to my skill. I made sure, in my years before the age of school, to observe. I was learning both the adjudicator skills but more important to me was the spy skills. I knew that I was going to be a righter of wrongs but the assassin also had to be explored.

I explained to my parents that because of my skill, I really needed to be able to defend myself. “There will be the ones that do not like what I decide. Guards show weakness. I need to show people that I can back my decisions with the ability to defend myself.

Now to throw my father with logic. “Father, could you take me to the assassin’s guild. In order to defend myself, I need to learn that skill. That is the profession that i need to be wary of so aren’t they the vary people to learn from.”

He does not like that so he counters me “How about I hire a person of that skill without getting the guild involved to educate you on ways of defending yourself?”

I understand where he is coming from and agree. I tell him, “Because I have been declared an adjudicator at my birth, assure that one that I will judge him honorable by educating me on his ways.”

With that, I now have an instructor. She finds that I am a quick learner. I have learned that the most used skill is using my mind. Observe, plan and make sure that this is not a grudge.

“Those ones are the only ones that will get a person caught.” She tells me. Then she actually winks and points to the sky. With that, I really am sure that she has been informed as to what my other skill is.

She proved to be a hard task master. I was shown the ways of her profession but she really stressed that thinking is the most important thing to learn

“Any dumbass can walk up to someone and kill them. It is thinking it through and finding the right way to accomplish the task in private. The most skilled will make it look like an accident or natural causes.”

I found learning her ways were exciting. She reached a point that she said that we needed to go to an area she had that was secluded. “You are going to show me what you have learned. You and I will separate. It is not a contest to win or lose. It is for you to show me what you have learned.

We go in different locations. After the agreed upon waiting time, the game starts but I sense her near. I expected that. No assassin plays by the rules. That is why I set some traps while I was waiting.

I knew that she would not fall for them but I also figured the she would sense them and avoid them. They were a distraction. I was trying to herd her in a direction I wanted her to go.

She made the first move with a throwing knife but I avoided it and countered it with my own knife. She disappeared. I went up into the leaf canopy using it as a highway of sorts.

This was like a chess match. She was able to graze me. I knew that it was a deliberate hit showing me that she could have made a kill. It hurt and I again retreated. Think, what have I seen?

It is not like she has shown a pattern other than not letting me think. I need to find somewhere here to be able to gather my thoughts. It hits me that I have always retreated to the canopy. That is my pattern. I now know what I need to do.

Her next strike I avoid. Again I make for the cover of the upper branches bit this time, the second I am ready, I dart down the tree and use the rocks near to hide and watch.

I see her looking to the canopy to see my movement. The rustling of the leaves. I had tied some floss to a branch and now gently pull it. Off she goes. Now is my only chance.

I make my way behind her as she stalked me in the tree ahead of her. She was concentrating ahead of her. I knew that I had only a split second. In a moment, she was truly startled to find my knife to her throat.

When that instant of surprise was over, “You win” she is smiling. “You are the only one to have gotten the best of me. I must be getting old.”

“No I just got lucky.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it. You obviously rigged something in the trees as to distract me. What did you do?”

I just show her the now empty floss container. She laughs and tells me that I am finished. Then she stuns me. “Most of the adjudicators don’t pick up the trade this quick. By that look on your face, you don’t know. All adjudicators are assassins. They need to be because some people are so evil that they just need not to exist. Even those who’s skill is just assassin can be coerced to the evil side. That is why you will be a hero of justice.

Adjudicator, hero, you are now ready. Do well and learn from the academy environment. I say, from the environment, because you already have the education. You need to observe people. Do not judge them at first. See their true nature. Start yourself on that road.

Never tell about your dual role. Present a true spirit of gratitude for the kindness of others. Try to remember that someday you too will want to retire.”

With that, she vanishes. She is not old by any means. Her movement is just that quick. I really think that she was my first crush.