If only I could’ve killed that bastard before he...


    The goblet was filled to the brim with wine, tainting the hollow silver vessel in a bloody shade from the dying embers of sunlight. The darkness lengthened, swirling with the liquid, sucked into a bottomless abyss.


    “Oh Juke, forgive me.” Lilith tightened her hold around the vessel, tipping trickles of the gore-stained liquid over the edge, wetting her fingers. She held on. Tightly.


    The liquid dribbled over her nails and oozed down her knuckles, slowly caressing her skin, like fat tears drawn from blood. She lifted the goblet off the table, touching the rim to her lips. Swirling the liquid, she took a sip. A lone tear traced the curves of her face, the darkness in her heart outpacing the clutches of the night sky, arborizing the horizon.


    “Right. Back to work.”


    Turning a dial, steaming water smothered the crimson haired male, wetting his body. His form flickered in the heat like a mirage in the desert, exhaling a sigh heavier than the weight of a hefty sin.


    The tiled flooring around the walls, paved way for a shadow of a figure. It mimicked every move he had made, reflecting a blurry portrait, bound by more imperfections than he’d had in the past. A figure devoid of blemishes. Not of red welts. Nor of patched up twine running through puckered flesh. Even the slivering reminders of his past had faded. Nothing more than a waning memory, cleansed with the march of time.


    The body usually kept count. But his miasma stood in the way.


    Running a hand over his chest, he could feel the steady thud of his heart beating beneath his lean muscles. Gripping the taut skin, he clawed at it till warmth oozed out the wound, tainting the trickling shower water, a shade mirroring his hair.


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    “Dammit, DAMN IT ALL!” he howled. He sought release from the downpour, wetting him in its pressured, scalding cadence. And yet, he quaked frigidly in the heart of warmth.


    That ocean of nothingness sought me out yet again.


    It questions the very essence of my being.


    Despite all that I indulge in,


    I question if it’s all nothing but a fleeting dream?


    Or a reality I’ve created through distortion?


    Wincing, Azrael killed the jet of water, weaving a string of miasma over the wound on his chest. Grabbing a towel off a rack, he wiped off the crimson stains, kneading his hair into a ruffled mess.


    “Reality awaits. Moping around won’t get me anywhere.” Smacking his cheeks, the redhead wrapped the towel around his waist, heading out the shower room and into the main hallway.


    A glimmer caught his eye.


    Dropping down nearly parallel to the wet wooden panels, chaos erupted around him.


    A claw hammer bit callously into a chunk of wallpaper, tearing through mortar in a vicious mound of savagery before exiting out the wall in an explosive torrent of plaster. Shrapnel flew omnidirectionally.


    “I feel for ya, being targeted by an exceptional assassin as great as me. But alas, such is the price to pay in this line of work.” A seven-foot male, garbed in shadows and donning a welding helmet stood at the other end of the claw hammer, holding a secondary sledgehammer. A clamour of sharpened claw, and raw power tore through the walls of the hallway, hounding the evasive crimson haired male, who was barely holding onto his dainty, wet towel.


    “If you’re so exceptional, at least fight me when I’m fully clothed!” Azrael detested the beads of sweat popping off his forehead and back. Was there a point in showering before a showdown?


    Waltzing around a fatal blow from the claw hammer, he unfastened his towel, wrapping the dripping length of cloth around his assailant’s arm. Dropping to the floor, he held up his right hand, having the bones past his elbows cleaved off by the murderous sledgehammer, exposing the jagged edges of his ulna and radius. Shooting a jet of crimson onto the welding mask, he thrust the exposed forearm bones into the assailant’s thigh.


    The hammer assassin staggered backwards.


    In a fluid tug, Azrael unfurled the towel wrapped around the arm. In a clamour of hammers, the assailant toppled over.


    Azrael seized the moment, pouncing as a cougar would over fallen prey, raising his makeshift weapon above the assassin’s exposed throat. His arm dropped, diving in for the kill.