Blue-grey eyes peered silently through the black metallic mask. The design was a simple one, light and thin, so not to slow the wearer at all, curved and pointed in the right places to easily conceal the identity hidden behind it. The man who the eyes belonged to was perched on the roof of a low building, surrounded by darkness, his dark clothes hiding him in the night as he clung to a chimney to keep himself from sliding down the sloped roof.

The eyes stared at a window about twenty metres away, only blinking when completely necessary, as though, if he were to blink he would miss something important. A little over an hour into his watching, what he had been waiting for came. The candle in the window, and the shadow that put it there. This was the fourth night he had observed the house, and the fourth night that the girl put the candle in that same window, at nearly the same time every night.

The Black Masked Man leaned forward slightly, readjusting his position. He counted silently in his head to one thousand, then let go of the chimney, sliding down the roof on his smooth-soled boots silently. He dropped to the ground, crouching on impact to lessen both the impulse from the ground, and the sound from the fall, before running from the alleyway he'd dropped into, across the street, towards the house with the candle in the window.

Silently, he followed the planned route he had checked every night since he began his watch, up some stacked barrels behind a house two doors down from the target's home, from there, he pulls himself onto the roof, and jumps to the next roof, then onto the target's roof, before lowering himself down to hang from the edge of the roof, next to her window. He hangs there for a few seconds in silence, looking into the room to ensure he can see no shapes moving, before he closes his eyes. The latch of the window raises, and the window opens a crack. The Masked Man opens his eyes, and gently pushes the window inward with his foot, hooking his heel over the windowsill and pulling himself in silently like a cat. He turns behind him as he enters the room, to push the window to, as to prevent the room becoming too cold. He is too slow however, and a chilled breeze rolls through the room, making the candle dance and flicker, before he closes the window quietly. He freezes, dropped into a crouch, dressed all in black, not breathing, not moving, not making a sound as he prays silently that the target does not stir...