"When an angel loses his wings."
Lucifer's Atonement.
They say that once you take your first life, there's no coming back. Your soul is tainted forever, and there's very little you can do to absolve that kind of sin.
Some people get used to it, they decide to make a career out of it; some even claim "it gets easier with time" as your body count increases, and you slowly lose your humanity. I was hoping it would be the same for me, But it wasn't.
I was a computer science professor; I had just married the woman of my dreams, just got our place, and I was living a relatively ordinary life.
It was a winter night, snowing and cold as hell. I was driving home after a long day at work, excited to spend the weekend with my lady. It was our first anniversary.
As I stopped at the last red light found at the corner of our house, two cars passed me at an insane speed. The first one took my side mirror with him.
It seemed like the second guy was following the first, i had never seen such an aggressive pursuit. As I tried to recover from the shock, not even thirty seconds later, I heard a loud bang. "Was that a gunshot?" i asked myself. No, that sounded more like a crash. "Did one of those two cars crash?" i kept thinking.
It was starting to snow more and more. I gathered my courage and decided to head home quick, as the noise had come from that direction. I got increasingly worried. As I approached my house, i saw both of the cars almost completely destroyed. One of them had hit the side of our house, with what seemed to be several gunshots on the side and windows. The other was in the middle of the road, smoking coming out of its engine. I swiftly grabbed my phone, i had to call my wife, tell her to stay inside and call the cops.
As I dialed her number, shaking, the door opened. My wife stepped outside, likely to see what had happened and possibly help with the crash.
Before i could even think of doing anything, a man in a white suit peaked from his window and yelled at my wife: "GO BACK INSIDE, NOW!".
Then it happened. The guy in the other car stepped out of the vehicle with some sort of odd looking silenced SMG, guns blazing and walking towards the other car. Before I could even think about what i was about to do, I hit the gas as hard as i could, ducked under the wheel, and started praying as i approached the man firing. As i got closer he turned around and sprayed my car aswell in a panic, breaking my front glass and hitting one of my shoulders, but before long i managed to ram him. One thump, and then there was silence. A few seconds passed. I got out of my car, holding my shoulder in pain.
The guy i ran over wasn't moving, he had hit his head on the concrete and was now gushing blood on the snow. I took the gun off the floor and approached my front door. I had never gotten shot before that day. I thought that was the worst pain I had ever felt. What i didn't know, is that i was about to feel a pain that was much, much worse than that.
"Leave." mumbled the man in the white suit. He sounded hurt. "What do you mean leave?! This is my house! I must check on my wife!" i shouted in response.
As I limped close to the front yard, i took a good look at the guy in white. He was wearing a white suit, top to bottom, with a white tie. Most of his clothes were covered in blood, from several gun wounds. "Don't..look" he mumbles to me again.
Once I circled the car, horror struck me.
My wife was on the ground, on the front porch. She was hit by that man's fire. One single gun wound, straight through the head.
It was the most horrific thing i had ever seen. I couldn't believe it. "This must be a nightmare" i kept telling myself, as i fell on my knees.
The man in white left his car, slowly made his way to our porch, and sat next to me on the stairs. He had multiple wounds and he was shaking terribly, but he still proceeded to light up a cigarette. "Take this" he said to me, as he handed me a business card. "Don't call the cops. They can't help." he proceeded to say. "Get inside your house, i'll take care of what happened here. Call this number but only when you're ready." he continues. "Ready..for what?" i sobbed in response. "Ready for Salvation." he said.
Some time had passed, weeks, possibly months, since that cursed day. I wasn't leaving my house, i wasn't going to work, i wasn't doing anything. My life had come to an halt and i didn't know what to do, up until something happened. Whatever organization that guy I had ran over belonged to, they found me.
They likely thought they'd get the jump on me, visiting me late at night. Sleep however, was replaced by paranoia since that day. As i saw the headlights approach my driveway, I got my handgun out of the safe, calmly sat down on the couch and waited. I no longer feared death, for that part of me died long ago.
Shortly after, my door was kicked open and five men entered my living room with handguns. They saw the weapon in my hands and started yelling at me, I couldn't really understand them, they didn't speak English. I complied and put the gun on the table in front of me, and sat back with my hands up as one the men approached and snatched the gun off the table, while another made a call. "We're in his house, we found him" he said in a broken English. "Ok we're waiting for you here" he continued. I bided my time, waiting for them to relax and put down their guns. My moment came as they all peered out the front of my house for whoever was to join us. Once the time was right, I quietly reached below my seat, slipping free the same machine gun that had taken my wife. It only took a single sweep, the gun whispering through the entire mag and all five of them were on the ground. I made sure there were no survivors, I grabbed the suitcase I had prepared, and was gone before anyone else arrived.
While sitting on a taxi, heading to the airport, I took out that business card the man in white had left me, and I called the number on it.
Someone picked up.
"I need atoning. Please, save me." I said.
To be continued..
