I laid the bloody scalpel down on the table, the screams had ceased a while ago and sadly another failure. Inconsequential but still disappointing of course. I turned to the man stood by the doorway, "call in Alfred for clean-up," I uttered. I shivered saying that and even now I still do. Alfred wasn't powerful nor scary, very nice guy to be honest but my word the amount of money I've spent on his services.... It has to be a perk of the name, name a child Alfred and they become a good cleaner.
"You're all dismissed" I said as I walked up to my office. It was very tidy; all the paperwork being demolished due to my sudden free time. I lived in the office, a 5-room apartment to the back of it. Rooms for my son and I, a bathroom a kitchen and a living room. I wasn't a fan of lavish living although I guess that's a kind of entitled way of thinking but the point isn't lost I'm sure. It was enough for me and my son liked it as well, it also allowed me to spend my money on other endeavours.
My son, Liam; after the death of my husband he was what stopped me from losing it. I loved him, I really did. Yet these are just empty words.
No matter how many times I say such a thing I damn well didn't do a good job at showing it. Now I'm just left with regret. A burning sorrow in my chest, knowing that I should've been there at that moment. Oh, how easy it would've been to stop it. A situation I'd been in more times than I care to remember and yet the one time it mattered was the one time I couldn't stop it.
As I stared at the plain box that lay atop the windowsill of my room, I felt empty. It's a wonder how a woman like me managed to even fall in love in the first place but when I did, I fell face first into an erupting volcano. It was great, the best time of my life. Everything I've done has been my own choice and yet for the first time it felt as if some sort of shackles had been lifted. Not once while he was around did I kill, not even a single drop of blood.
Despite that the past still caught up. They found him, like they always do. No matter what they are always there, always watching. Even after they found him though I still had a chance and yet just like the experiments I fucked that up too. The premise of it is so funny and yet I find myself incapable of seeing the humour, ironic considering I'm the one who thinks it's funny in the first place. All I had to do was do the thing I'm best at, that I've been doing for years to get him back but I couldn't. The dagger in my hand slipped at the crucial moment, the man whipped around with unnatural flexibility and kicked out at my legs. My body stood stiff, unprepared for the sudden strike and I was knocked down swiftly. Not letting go of his advantage the man lunged forward, flinging my body towards the wall. My back nearly caved in at the force of the impact and blood spewed out of my mouth, staining the floor in a revolting red.
Surprised I actually manged to stay conscious after the deadly kick the man bent down and picked up my dagger. The metal shone like a star in the darkness of the bedroom, heading straight towards my chest and as I struggled to move my body a crash sounded. Glass shards whizzed around the room, able to pierce anything in sight. A boom sounded and a golden object darted forward too fast for my eyes to see. Lodging itself straight in the man's cranium.
He fell backwards and a blue colour poured out of his skull, much more beautiful than the red but it's just comparing a cardboard house to a stick one.
"You have failed Adriana. The mission is successful but you have become sloppy. That will not do. Say your goodbyes"
BANG!!!
Tears rushed out my eyes as I knelt there sobbing. Perhaps my biggest regret about this moment is not the failure. Of that I have had many. No, it is the fact that I never said goodbye. I never tried to plead, beg, bargain even yell. Not a single word uttered. How pathetic. A volcano erupts under pressure, I crumble. Thats the difference between a part and a whole.
********
The box was a callback to a bad memory but also one of the last remnants of one's I couldn't bear to forget. Resolution flashed in my eyes. Not again, never again. NEVER!!!!
********
The grotesque red dripped down my forehead again, that and failure seeming to be the most prevalent themes in my life. Two men looked over me one plump and dressed in a tuxedo, the other tall and dressed in obnoxiously bright armour, plated by fish scales.
The plump one flashed his usual smug grin, laughing at my pathetic self.
"Did our Adriana think herself to be powerful now with her little bubbles. Losing to a mere general. Hoho. Although you put up a better fight than expected, that much credit I can give you"
I didn't respond to his taunts just staring back at him with hate filled eyes.
"Where is Liam," I spat.
"Dead," he responded flatly, "dead ever since that little stunt you pulled on the exhibition"
It's pathetic, some may not think it is but I strongly believe so. Here I am confronting my husbands killer, on my knees, not even the strength left to lift a finger. The only other person I care about also dead, presumably to the same murderer and yet I find myself again unable to utter words. Only able to shed tears, apparently the only emotion I am ever able to show outwardly anymore. I find myself again covered in the thing I hate most and I find myself again a failure. Even the thing I was most proud of not even a true conjecture. An unwitting slave, a mother and lover and one who died with nothing but hate left.
Adriana Diamond died that day.