[center][h1]The Inner Workings of a Killer Part 1: Darkness[/h1]

“There is an idea of me. A tangible feeling that one feels when I’m around. People trust in their instinct that I exist. I do not. Instinct is a lie. Feeling is a lie. I can tell you unequivocally that although you can see me, feel me, I am simply not there.

My time here began five years ago. I accepted a contract for what I thought would be a simple job. Kill a girl. Allison McKenna…she wanted to be a nurse, not that it mattered. Her father was the Mayor of this wretched city and also its biggest detriment; a career criminal in the guise of a politician…I mean most are like that anyway, am I right? I didn’t care who her father was…I was here on a job and that was it. So there I found myself, staring down the scope of my rifle and firing one bullet straight through her innocent heart. Her death led to more, they called it the Gang War of the Century. Bodies falling everywhere from every faction, criminal, cop, civilian. No one was safe. There was a type of satisfaction knowing that my bullet created history.

This town appealed to me so I stayed and well, let’s save those stories for later shall we?

What is it? This darkness that befalls this city? This intangible something that turns good men cruel and good women poisonous? Children leave their homes in the morning, not to go to school nor to go play with their friends but to learn to survive. Their young hearts are corrupted by avarice and jealousy, by lust and by pride. We release our children into this world like we send people to war, their futures hidden in fog, their safety uncertain. Is it something beneath the ground? Something that lies beneath the very crust of the world, like roots from an ancient tree, always there, always growing. Is it in the water? The crushing black from the bottom of the Earth bubbling to the surface and bringing all of our deepest fears and desires with it?  What is it? Is it chaos? Is it clarity?  Is it stealing into our lives like a thief in the night or are we letting it in? Embracing it like an old friend? 

What is this darkness?

Is it Justice?”[/center]