prologue.
I had been slipping in and out of consciousness for a while. A sharp pain in my forehead got me to finally rise from that dark sea. How long had I been there?
I looked down, a pistol in my hand. I guess they erased them again.
My mind goes back to when they first altered my memories… it was a feeling, not a memory. A terrible feeling.
My life began in a test tube.
I was the average size for my age, or at least they thought so. I would grow to my full size within a few years, after some training. I was born with white hair and red eyes. They both darkened by the time I was a year old.
My arrival was delayed by two weeks. They had thought for sure that I was holding on by a thread. That attempt number 117 had failed. That’s what I’ve always been. Not alive, not dead. Somewhere in between.
I was a tool. A weapon with no thoughts or feelings to manipulate. A puppet. They could change my memories whenever they wanted to. They could make me feel whatever they wanted to. They could make me love whoever they wanted. Kill whoever they wanted. At least, this is what I’ve learned. What anyone has told me.
I try to clear my head, try to think back. I remember… helping… someone.
I stand up, pressing a hand to my forehead, wet with blood. The air was damp and heavy, and I could hear rain on the roof. I was in somebody’s home. I take my foot off of a broken picture frame, the glass crunching beneath my feet. My eyes catch a body on the floor, a fresh bullet wound between his eyes, blood pooling beside his head.
Yes, this is who I am. This is what I do.
Thudding footsteps come near me, and I drop my pistol almost instinctively. Three men walk into the room, each holding a rifle, but my head is still cloudy, and I can’t make out their faces. Someone takes my arm and leads me outside to a truck. “Welcome back, Garnet,” he says in German. I savor the feeling of rain on my skin.
