Chapter 8:

When Karma Came Uninvited

Last Wish


As far as I remember, I always had a family. I just never realized how twisted everything was because I had never seen the normal. But now that I think about it, it was just hell with mirages of heaven in it.

We lived on a ship that travelled around the sea. We were captives of the underground organization, Lemah. It was not like a secret organization, just not that well known.

I was brought up by an old couple, Gramps Taro and Granny Toyoko. They were the closest thing I had to parents. They were also the ones that gave me my name ‘Myra’ but apparently I already had the family name.

There were a lot of other people with us, but the ones I was closest to were the twins.

The arrogant older brother Benjamin or Ben. He always looked annoyed by me and talked to me rudely but I knew he had a softer side. And the younger brother Alexander or Alex. He has always been kind to me. They were like big brothers to me.

As long as I remember, I had been with those two more than any other person. Probably because we were of the same race and had light-colored hair. Though theirs were Auburn and mine were Blonde. Despite them being identical twins I could always tell them apart due to the freckles on Alex’s face. I always wondered why nobody noticed such an obvious difference.

That was the ideal family I had. Gramps and Granny being the parents, Alex and Ben being the big brothers that worked and me being the daughter.

All of them had signed a contract with the boss of Lemah for employment but instead they were tricked and made to work for the organization. Gramps and Granny could obviously not do much and were told to take care of things on the ship. While Alex and Benjamin followed the orders given to us by our warden, Aiden, who was responsible for running the ship. A real devious person with a thin face and features so sharp, they practically felt drawn by a pencil. He played the lead role in maintaining our hell over us. Apparently he was a higher up who answered directly to he boss, who went by the name 'Agurashi.'

And in all of this my role was to learn, get educated and take special lessons for physical build up by Aiden’s men. But I never did any good at them. I would always get scolded by Aiden and run crying to Granny. I did not understand the purpose of that exercise until I was eight; I received my first job. My first mission.

Alex and Ben were sent on a mission to assassinate the boss of the Siritsa Family, Mokov Siritsa. He was in his mansion on his small private island. But he somehow got word of the attack and caved in his mansion with heavy security. Alex and Ben did not know that and seeing themselves greatly outnumbered, they had no choice but to drop the main mission and try to complete at least the side missions.

That is where I was called to do my first job. Kill Mokov Sirista by reaching him through a secret passage.

•◇•

I was taken to the location on a speedboat. We went to a tunnel on the back of the mansion. It was small enough to fit only me.

“(Listen up. You will go through this tunnel and launch a surprise attack,)” Aiden commanded me through the headset I was wearing.

I entered the tunnel on all fours and immediately, I felt something sharp poking through my limbs.

“Ouch,” the whole tunnel was lined with similar sharp rocks and even glass pieces. “I can’t do this.”

“(I don’t care if you are cut in half, you are going to do it. Now go!)” Aiden ordered me heartlessly.

Intimidated by his voice alone, I started rushing through the tunnel. By the time I reached the end, my sleeves and pants had been dyed red. The tunnel exited into a hallway through a manhole. And there was only one room at the end.

“(This is it. Go in there finish him.)” I ran towards the door without thinking and opened it. There was a man with a lit cigar in his mouth relaxing on a couch.

“Who’re you? And how the hell did you get in here?” he took a good whiff and observed me keenly before figuring out himself, “I’ll be damned. To think that they would send a kid like you. Those people at Lemah surely don’t have any ethics at all.” I did not say anything and just took out the handgun given to me and aimed it at him.

“Well, I can’t really do anything if they play this card. Besides, you remind me too much of my own daughter,” despite me aiming a gun at him, he just sat there and did nothing. It was the perfect chance, all I had to do was pull the trigger. But all of a sudden, my body started fidgeting. If I pressed the trigger, he would die. Then what about his daughter? But if I don’t, then the mission would fail. (But is it so bad that the mission failed?)

“(What the hell are you waiting for? Shoot!)” And amidst this psychological tantrum, Aiden's damned voice rang in my ears.

“Shut up!” impulsively, I took the headset and threw it as hard as I could.

“Calm down, young lady. Take deep breaths. You may be young, but life has put you on the stage where you have no choice but to mature. So, think carefully and make your decisions wisely. No one’s stopping you.”

I looked at him. He had a weird smile on his face. As he had no fear at all. In fact, he looked more concerned about me than himself.

(And this is the man I have to kill?) I thought to myself. And mustering up the courage in my heart, I made a choice. “I’ve made my decision,” I declared.

“That was fast. Looks like you have a long life ahead of you. Anyway, let's hear it.”

•◇•

Alex and Ben had successfully escaped and now were at the rendezvous point, right outside the mansion. I opened a window and jumped outside. Good thing I did not have to go through the tunnel again.

“Huh? She was our backup,” Ben was surprised and irritated at the same time to see me.

“Now, now, Ben. She did save our asses. All in all, the mission was a success. We got our targets.” Alex, like always, looked at the positive.

“There were other targets in the mission?” I asked. All I was told about was the owner. I never knew any other person.

“Well, the whole Siritsa family was the target so obviously we had to eliminate everyone. We took care of the mother and daughter while you did an exemplary job of taking the leader out.”

Alex’s words came on me like a hammer. My expression instantly turned grim. Alex noticed it, “Sorry, I guess killing is still killing in the end. I can’t say you did a good job killing at your age,” he was truly sorry for his wrong choice of words. But it was Ben that actually caught me,

“Wait a minute. Did you really kill him?” I had no answer to his question, “Don’t tell me.” his face started to turn red with anger before taking it out on the floor of the boat.

“Damn it,” he punched it as hard as he could, “what the hell was Aiden thinking, sending her when she is clearly too young for the job.”

“No use crying now. We have to come up with an explanation for why the mission failed,” Alex said the last words before silence of overthinking spread among us.

•◇•

Of course it was not something that could be hidden. By the time we reached back to report, Aiden had already known. We could tell by the expression on his face that he was angry.

“Tell me,” he looked straight at me, “I gave you one job. All the training, all the education we gave you were for this. And what did you do? You panic and blow it up!” his shouts caused me to shiver while squeezing tears out of my eyes.

“Can I add something?” Ben intervened.

“What?”

“It is not her fault. It was mine. I did not want anyone, especially a pipsqueak like her, to hog all the glory. That is why I abandoned my own mission to go for him. But as a result we both messed up. Thankfully, Alex managed to dispose of both of the other targets.” I could not believe what my ears were hearing.

“Is that true?” Aiden asked and I immediately opened my mouth to deny.

But before I could say anything, Ben said, “Yes, it is all my fault.”

“Then I hope you are prepared for the circumstances. You are all dismissed.”

“Why did you lie?!” as we went outside I burst out on Ben.

“It is thoughts like those that got us here in this position in the first place. Lying is bad. Killing is bad. Well this is not your ideal world, this is life. So grow up kid, if you want to live,” without even looking at me he left his words hanging with me. My conversation with Siritsa played in my head and one thing was clear, I had failed to mature.

•◇•

It had been 24 hours since we returned. By now Ben’s punishment must have been decided. And yet, here I was sobbing in the corner of my room.

“What are you doing?” I heard Gramps' kind voice and looked up with my teary eyes, “Oh my, you’re crying again.” He took me in his arms before sitting down with me in his lap, “Now tell me. What is bothering you?”

“Is it related to the mission yesterday?” I nodded.

“What happened,” it was clear that Gramps did not know the details about the mission. I hesitated at first to tell him. But he was the one that had always been there to support me in all my troubles and this was no exception.

“I was told to kill a man,” as soon as I told him a sigh left his mouth.

“Good Lord.”

“But he had a wife and a daughter. So, I placed myself in place of the daughter. If you were killed then how would I feel? So, I couldn’t kill him.”

“You did the right thing.”

“But on the way home, they told me that the other part of the mission was to kill the mother and the daughter,” once again tears started rolling down, “and then *sob* Ben took the blame for me. *sob* And now, *sob* I don’t know how to feel.”

If I had killed him, I am sure I would have not recovered from the guilt but now that I had spared him, it just felt like I left him in a hell without his family; worse than death.

“There there,” he pushed me against his chest to comfort me. “Look, Myra. This world is not fair. At times you will find yourself making choices that benefit no one. At that time you have to peek into your heart and make the choice that you feel is closer to the correct one. You have to listen to your purpose of living.”

“But I don’t have any purpose to live. I just want to live.”

“Haha, that is because you are small. But once you grow older, you will need one. So, how about I give you one now,” Gramps said smiling at my childish thoughts.

“Really?”

“Yes, it is in fact my own way and purpose of life. You see, I used to live in a church in my homeland. It was in a place called Hoshi no machi. Not much population but still many people came to the church to confess their sins and pray for forgiveness. Living there I decided to help people with their lives. Because I understood that after death if you want to go to heaven, you need a pure soul and a slate clear of sins. So, whenever I found anyone in need of help I did. Both physically and spiritually. Because you see that does not only help them but also me to have a good afterlife,” I was listening to Gramps’ story with great interest and at some point had stopped crying. “So. what do you say?”

“Please stop saying that you are going to the afterlife. I feel sad.”

“Is that all you got from my story? Haha guess you are too young to understand,” he scratched his head. His words were too difficult for me to understand at that time. That is why I forgot most of it.

“Taro! Taro!” Suddenly a loud voice calling Gramps came from outside the room. We both head towards the door.

“What is it?” Gramps addressed the person calling him.

“Come quick. They have decided what to do with Alex and Ben.”

“And what did they decide?”

“Well Alex is being sent to the headquarters because of his success. But for Ben…… he is being executed.”

All of a sudden, I felt weightless. A weightlessness that roams over me till this day, I don’t remember any other thing about that day except for what I saw next.

Gramps told me to stay in my room but I did not listen to him at all and made my way to the execution ground. Since we were on a ship, our normal way of execution was to just throw someone in the sea. But for Ben, they had made sure that he was dead before throwing him into the sea.

The scene I saw that day still haunts me today and will probably go to grave with me. The sight of the rude, arrogant yet caring Ben, hanged from the beam. And the sight of the kind and always cheerful Alex crying his eyes out before the limp body of his brother. That day, something was taken from me. I had spared Mokov Siritsa but his family was taken from him. And now I was spared but my family was taken from me. That day something began.

“Gramps,” clinging to him with trembling hands I asked him, “you won’t leave me, right.”

Gramps could have just told me that he won’t but he and I both knew that we were way past the ideal peaceful world logic.

“I can’t say I won’t,” he said with a serious tone, “but remember just because you are not with-”

“I will make sure that happens,” I cut him off, “I will protect you and Granny. I will make that my life’s purpose. I will make sure this won’t happen again. Is that ok, gramps? To have such a purpose in life?”

Gramps just looked at me. I don’t know what he saw in me but just replied, “Yes.”

That day I matured.

•◇•◇•◇•