The Assassins' Siren

What is identity?

The tears you shed as a child while time rushes you toward becoming whole. To become better, wiser, more complete. And then, before you even understand who you’ve become, time begins rushing you toward old age and death.

Maybe that is simply the cycle of life. A constant attempt to become someone, followed by the slow disappearance of the person you spent your entire life becoming.

But is that identity?

Can identity still exist without a past? Without memories? Without even a purpose to move toward?

I don’t know.

I don’t remember mine.

It was so stupid of me to think about these things when I couldn’t even remember my own name or recognize my own face.

I wished I could escape my mind. Forever.

It was strange in here.

There is something unnerving about being trapped inside your own thoughts when you can no longer understand where they came from. I have fragments of something familiar, a distant perception of how the world is supposed to feel. It is still there somewhere, far away and impossible to touch from this basement.

There is a small window here that makes my days a little easier to get through. I don’t get to see much, but there is nature outside. It’s kind of dying, just like me. The only difference is that nature will be reborn when the sun regains its strength. But me? I don't think so. I wish I could be like nature, die with the winter and come back with the sun. But I don’t know if there is anything left in me to come back.

The strangest thing is that I’m not even scared.

The little man upstairs really tries to terrify me sometimes. He seems almost desperate to make me remember. He once read somewhere that strong emotions, especially fear and adrenaline, can bring back memories connected to similar emotions from the past. So he keeps trying different things.

He is so annoying.

One time, when he tried to frighten me again, I hit him hard enough to break his ugly nose. He called me a savage after that, and I didn’t like it.

So I bit his ear and ripped almost half of it off.

There was so much blood in my mouth. For some reason, I found it so funny that I couldn't stop laughing. I don't even know why. Maybe it was the taste of the blood, or maybe just the look on his face.

He punished me, of course, like he always did: no food, no water, no light. But at least he didn’t try to touch me anymore.

But honestly, his punishments didn’t really bother me. By then, I already knew how to open the basement door and had memorized his routine well enough to know when he was asleep or out of the house. I could go upstairs whenever I wanted.

I don’t know why, but I find locks fascinating. I like trying to open them.

I could easily leave this house.

But then what?

What would I do outside without my memory? Without knowing who I am? Without anyone who knows me?

Besides, he had good food.

And very good ice cream.

So I stayed.

Sometimes, when he was asleep or out of the house, I went upstairs. I watched television, explored the rooms, opened drawers, and looked through things without really knowing what I was looking for.

I even found an old MP3 player in one of the drawers. There were only a few songs on it. I knew them somehow. I just couldn’t remember where I had heard them before. I liked listening to them.

And sometimes I watched him sleep.

Sometimes I watched him sleep with a kitchen knife in my hand.

But I never used it.

Anyway, tonight I was craving ice cream, so I waited until he fell asleep on the sofa before going upstairs. The house where I was kept a prisoner was huge and ridiculously luxurious. This motherfucker had a lot of money, that was for sure. The kitchen was so far from the living room that I could barely hear anything from there.

Perfect.

I took the ice cream from the freezer and sat on the kitchen counter, putting the headphones on and starting the MP3 player. The music filled my ears, and the ice cream was so good that I started moving to the rhythm without even thinking about it.

I don’t remember learning how to dance either.

I just did.

I was still moving around the kitchen when I hit my little toe against one of the chairs. I stopped, pulling the headphones away from my ears and rubbing my foot, trying very hard not to curse.

That’s when I heard it.

A loud crash, like the sound of a glass table breaking, came from the living room. My heartbeat immediately raced. Nobody ever came here besides the little man - not since I woke up in this house.

I stood still for a moment, listening. Another sound followed. A man’s voice. Curiosity got the better of me, and I slowly walked out of the kitchen.

The kitchen and the living room were separated by a long corridor lined with paintings. At the end of it were large glass doors, the upper half almost completely transparent while the lower half was made of colored glass.

I walked closer, staying low enough behind the colored part of the glass that nobody inside could see me. Then I looked through the transparent section. There were three men in the room.

Massive men, all dressed in black, their faces covered by masks.

One of them was holding the little man against the broken glass table. Blood was running down the side of his face.

“Where is it?” one of the men asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The information.”

“It’s gone.”

The man holding him tightened his grip.

“Where is the drive?”

“You don’t understand,” the little man said, his voice shaking. “You have no idea what you’re looking for.”

One of the men searched through the desk while the other kept his gun pointed at him.

“Last chance.”

The little man looked at him, his face pale beneath the blood.

“It’s gone.”

For a moment, nobody moved. Then the man holding the gun lifted it and fired.

The sound exploded through the room, sharp enough that I felt it even through the glass. The little man’s body jerked before collapsing against the broken table, blood spreading across the floor beneath him.

“What the fuck did you do?” the other man snapped, turning toward the shooter. “Why did you shoot him?”

The man lowered the gun and looked at the body with complete indifference.

“I didn’t like his face.”

The other man stared at him.

“Are you fucking serious? Now we’ll never find the drive.”

“We didn’t come here for the drive.”

He wiped something from the side of his gun before looking back at the body.

“We came here to end him. That’s the job.”

Nobody answered.

The room fell strangely quiet after the gunshot, except for the faint ringing still trapped in my ears. One of the men finally reached up and pulled the mask away from his face. He dragged a hand through his hair and exhaled heavily.

“Fuck, it’s hot in here.”

The other man immediately turned toward him.

“What the fuck are you doing? There are cameras.”

“Relax. I already hacked his camera system. Nothing is recording.”

“Put the mask back on anyway.”

He gave him an annoyed look but didn’t answer.

I stayed behind the colored glass, watching them through the transparent upper half of the doors. I could still taste the sweetness of the ice cream on my tongue, completely out of place against the metallic smell that seemed to linger in the air.

Then one of them suddenly stopped.

His eyes moved toward the glass.

My body went completely still before I even understood why.

He was looking straight at me.

“We’re not alone.”

The man beside him turned toward the doors. “What do you mean?”

“Someone’s there.”

He stared toward the corridor, clearly trying to understand what he was seeing.

“That’s impossible. We’ve been watching him for weeks.”

“I know.”

“We followed his routine every day. We know when he leaves, when he comes back, who visits him. Nobody comes here.”

The other man looked toward the little man’s body and then back at the glass.

“Then who the fuck is that?”

My heartbeat climbed into my throat.

Fuck.

I didn’t know who they were. I didn’t know what they wanted. I didn’t even know where I could go.

But something inside me already knew.

Run.

I turned and ran.

My feet carried me down the corridor before my mind had even caught up with them. Behind me, I heard the glass doors open and the heavy sound of their footsteps following.

“It’s a girl!”

I didn’t stop.

“Stop!” one of them shouted. “Or I’ll shoot!”

My body reacted before my mind could decide what to do. I slowed down, my breathing suddenly loud in my ears, and stopped in the middle of the corridor.

For a moment, I just stood there with my back to them.

“Turn around. Slowly.”

I turned.

The three men stood several feet away, their guns pointed at me. The one in front took a cautious step toward me, his eyes moving over my face as if he was trying to understand what I was doing there.

I looked at the guns, then at their faces.

Strangely, I wasn’t afraid.

“Who are you?” he asked.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

Who was I?

I searched my mind for an answer. A name. A memory. Anything that belonged to me.

Nothing.

I looked back at him.

“I don’t know who I am.”