Hallucinations

"Congratulations!" Flashed on Yuki's Nintendo DS Lite console. It was the 4th time the screen had shown the word.

I successfully enrolled in college, currently in my 2nd month where all the quizzes, midterms start rolling in as well as the final assignments for the respective subjects.

For you dear. What I promised.

---

"You're cute."

The phrase repeated itself perpetually in Yuki's mind as he was walking up a hill with a mild gradient; grass and trees, both young and husks lined the street on both sides. The bright sin's radiant heat created mirages not far off from his position, they remained forever fixated, moving with him.

"You're cute."

---

"I like you, alot." She whispered timidly into Yuki's ear.

It took him courage to rouse from a corpse-like state, to place his hand unto her waist after an eternity of inner turmoil and doubt. One that his companion of the day seems to have disregarded long ago. Her warmth seeped into him. He held her closer. Resting his head on top of hers which laid on his shoulder.

"I like you, alot." Repeated in his head.

---

"I would like to hold your hand again." he whispered to her.

The bus' engine roared on the ramp leading unto the highway. He was on his way to meet her again. At a shopping complex that he has not visited for a long time. Insecurity laced his mind. The passengers were few and uninteresting, Yuki decided to turn his gaze to the fast moving street. His interest at the passing trees and cars waned as the words weighted in his mind heavily. Eyelids lowered, he contemplated the words carefully. It carried a promise, for her; for himself. A promise that requested for a future when it was uncertain.

"I want to hold your hand again." His silent mutterings carried away by the noise of the bus.

---

"I miss you." a message appeared in the conversational window.

The title in the taskbar flashed incessantly. The message was simple and clear. She missed him. He missed her too even though he was chatting with her on his computer seat. Moreover, he missed her touch; her hands; her smell, when she rested her head on his shoulder. The cursor pointed towards the flashing title, the window appeared; The cursor flashing, begging for input.

"I miss you too." he typed in with a smile.

The kisses. Well, generally everything that happened on Friday.

Touching your hair and jolting you when I ended the call. Holding your hand again, browsing odd stuff in Action City. Getting lost looking for MPH.

The way you supported me when I asked you to be my girlfriend, I know I asked before, but when we were face to face it was a lot harder.

How you didn't mind me not being romantic nor strong enough that I actually told you I have no idea how long it might last.

Not giving a fuck about that old uncle across the lounge.

My first kiss outside Haagen Daaz, playing traffic lights with the shoppers, and then not giving a fuck about them in the end.

Holding your hand more, walking around randomly, the kiss near the weird suspended cola can in river. Going back to MPH.

Using books as an excuse to stay close and hobo'ing at that corner.

More kisses.

The test of trust between us.

Throwing away books completely to snuggle, playing with your petite hands.

Having my world spin round and round by your antics.

The taste of your lips, mouth and even braces. The smell in your hair, nuzzling your neck, your petite frame, your delicate hands.

You're amazing.

First and foremost, let's clear this up. I'm not gay. I'm just an optimistically objective person, I try to see what things are on their grounds. If a boy looks cute. (Like it is shown here, yes, that's a boy.) I will say he looks cute. I won't reel back in horror with the knowledge that he has the male genitalia. He's cute, but I won't hit it. Am I clear on this? I appreciate the fact that he's cute. That's enough. No need to go anywhere else.

Meanwhile. I'm blogging about this dress because I would like to remember it. I will, and yes, -WILL- secure one of it in the future, for a loved one. I will not, in any case, secure it when it does not have a chance to be on someone I love. Or if I do have the extra cash from some sort of weird chance occurence. I will buy in to have it wait for it's proper owner. Yes, I like the dress that much.

Here it is:






They're from a Japanese lolita fashion company named Victorian Maiden, aptly named, I'm sure you'd agree, as the dress is very much inspired from the Victorian era of immaculate details and lots, lots, and lots, of frills. Doesn't contain as much ribbons or laces as I'd like it to be, but this also means the dress is not cluttered and oozes elegance. Just, perfect.

By the way, these dresses are extremely costly, perhaps not as much as designer apparel, but this particular dressed is priced at 24k yen. That's about 800 Ringgit Malaysia. Still very achievable, and much sought after by aficionados of all nationalities.

P/S: The red, of which I have picked out from a choice of three, is no longer available. I believe when I visited the site back when I was 15, the red version of this dress is also sold out.

Assasin's Creed
GRID
Sid Meier's Civilizations 4
Silent Hill Homecoming.
Prince of Persia
Tomb Raider: Underworld
World of Goo

Games I've finished
Pure
(Published by Disney, good for distractions, nice sense of over-the-top racing, a little repetitive and isn't as good as SSX)
Burnout Paradise
(Bustling city, with the 24hours patch it becomes a living one, actual immersion blending nicely with over the top action and speed. becomes repetitive about 20 hours in, overall amazing arcade racer.)
Dead Space
(Flying limbs everywhere, a rare good scifi horror game, shocks become infrequent close to the end of the game, scares become routine. Overall good game, confusing storyline.)
Call of Duty: World at War
(Overall good game, exact same formula as COD4:MW minus some points, Nazi Zombie bonus mission very awesome, even when alone.)
Mirror's Edge
(Amazing visuals, has occasional hiccups, but overall great game.)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
(Effing hard. Also, I found the 360 controller more forgiving. Great game for it's time, non linear.)

Games I gave up on.
DMC4.
(Backtracking is surprisingly tedious and unfortunately boring, even with badass Dante. It might've been good in RE2, but that's a design about 8 years old)
The Club.
(Strictly Multiplayer experience. Single player is so-so. Not very worthwhile.)

Yes, I'm putting in comments for the games I've played now. As a reminder of why I liked and disliked certain games.

Silent Hill:Homecoming is on hold until a good graphics patch comes out for the game, or an unofficial fix. Currently trying to finish Prince of Persia.

Just as a reminder for myself. These are dire times, there are too many games for me to complete.

Assasin's Creed
Devil May Cry 4
GRID
Sid Meier's Civilizations 4
Silent Hill Homecoming.
The Club
Prince of Persia
Tomb Raider: Underworld
World of Goo
Call of Duty: World at War
Mirror's Edge
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

Games I've finished
Pure
Burnout Paradise
Dead Space

Games I gave up on.
DMC4.

Look at that HUMONGOUS LIST!

I'm not even including the PSP games I have in my PSP or the NDS games I have in my NDSL.

My earlier post mentioned that I only had two purpose for the Singapore Trip. I shall now report like the dedicated journalist I am. Ain't it obvious from the state of frequent updates of this blog? *Ba-dum-dum-plish*

Number 1! Out of the 3 Arcade machines that has uber amounts of potential to sap my pockets dry during the trip, the only one that I've discovered costed less than all other stuff I've played in their arcades. I've managed to find Deathsmiles, thanks to my aquaintance. Review of Deathsmiles coming up after all my reports. BlazBlue is nowhere to be found. Perhaps due to the overwhelming presence of SFIV and Tekken 6. DJMAX technika would've stuck out like a really sore thumb, so it isn't there. Or it might've been shrunk to a molecular size where I can't find it.

In the arcades section. I've tried out DDRX. It's still as americanized as the last time I saw it, the major turnoff for me was Candy without lyrics, and the fact that Breakdown was not on the list. I was sad after realizing that and stopped playing. I've also tried out and sucked at Espagaluda, but I'll definitely play it again for the sheer amount of blood the game gives the players. It's pretty copious for a shmup. Lastly, my beatmania skills downgraded, I suspect it's partly due to overstraining my left hand, which resulted in my left index and middle fingers being numb for 3 days. I nearly thought I had Carpal Tunnel, but from a self diagnostic the symptoms were inconsistent with the ones associated with CTS. Thanks Soo-Ann for the information on the diagnostic tests, you rock, and hope you do extremely well in your exams, enough to cut a year or so of being an in-house. :P

In addition to the above, I've also had the privilege of meeting some very good Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3DX players. As well as acquiring a present card to tryout the new MX-5 introduced in this iteration. Throughout battles and several hours of observation, I've gained a great amount of insight as to improving my own play level. Thanks to Maya for introducing me to them, they're friggin' awesome, as are you, Maya.

Number 2! Cosafe was pretty kewl. From the picture in the link to the left, there's still a Malay(?) girl that wasn't in the picture. But does it really matter? The two Malay girls that works there seems more likely to be temps, since their uniforms are standard and seems nothing out of the ordinary. Either that, or the opposite is true. BTW, my favourite one was the one on the far left, she seems to have her own fan, since my aquaintance seemed to have noticed a certain foreigner only wants to be served by her. The blue ribbon was a nice touch I like attention to details (Her underskirt was red checkers. Contrast.), although I don't think you'd see it in the picture.

I've noticed, that the standard skirts are actually layerred, so they hike up when they bend over a little, just like the ones in mangas. Results were the two Malay(?) girls wearing shorts. Which were surprisingly long since they're actually visible even when they're standing straight. I've had a pretty great time there. Since I've been accompanied by an interesting person. Oddly I didn't pay as much attention as I thought I would on the waitresses, which seems to be the whole point of the cafe... Isn't it?

Price of the place seems reasonable. As long as you stick to coffee and starve. Food is adequately priced for a cafe in a high-end city area (Not to mention this is a novelty cafe). Coffee and Steamed Milk seems to be cheap, considering they're actually cheaper than Starbucks to a certain degree. Alcohol is extremely overpriced in my opinion, regular cocktails were at least 30 dollars. I'm glad I don't drink.

*I honestly do not know their race, they're not chinese, neither do they look too indonesian, in the end, I have to settle with modernized Malays.

No, not the boardgame.

I was playing Ketsui on my DS the other day. It's a Shmup, an arcade styled bullet hell/curtain shmup. As training for my debut with DeathSmiles. Utterly sucking at Ketsui's Very Hard course, I started thinking about what drives me and other people who are into shmups. I can't speak for the veterans, who are absolutely crazy and deserves lots of hentai art for their surprising amount of finger finesse, but I can speak for myself.

I think risk plays a significant major factor here. From the original Space Invaders, we are encouraged to rush the game, since the last few aliens would tentatively move faster as time passes, as well as speeding up significantly the closer it reaches you until the point where they can't be shot, and you die. There's just that much more sastifaction from squeezing that last shot off before they or their shots, or their kamikaze nosedive, reaches you.

This evolved. Free movement was invented. Instead of just sitting there waiting for your death ala Asteroid, you've been granted control over the ships movement, ensuring that you play a much larger part in ensuring your own survival. It fed our desire to be in control and played to our fears of losing. In the end it's a seamless combination of both, with the sastifaction of just plain surviving and sustaining yourself, that drives people to continue playing shmups.

Shmups, after the point of Gradius. was even more gratifying, not only do you get to have control, fear as well as adrenaline to survive, you also get great gratification from bosses. The large nemesis that you are forced to take down after every hair chewing, nail biting stage. The resultant is 2 minutes of even more hair chewing and nail biting, because the bosses are so huge, and obviously overpowering, it feels like you're trying to topple an empire (Built with guns, all firing bullets at you, alone). This serves to positively reinforce the player to continue rather than slump over exhausted. Almost in a self contradicting way. Imagine fighting a leopard in a coliseum and then asking for a tiger. It doesn't make sense, but it sure feels good if you manage to kill it.

Then the extreme forms, almost like cocaine, popped out. Bullet Hells, the arcade variation of Danmaku. Involved raining projectiles on you, challenging you to weave yourself in and out of the trouble, navigating a maze of several pixels thick, of abnormal dimensions and shape, just purely out of the will to survive a session of the game. This proved to be an extreme concept that completes the whole package, I don't think the games' design gets more primal than that. The games gets more advanced in terms of graphics, mechanics, complexity, but the most basic of our mindset, survival, makes it all the more gratifying the harder it is. As long as it doesn't border on unfairness.

However, the more advanced our shmups have become, the more estranged are the laymen who doesn't know how to play, because if they lack the ability to survive for a decent amount of time, before the gratification arrives, they basically can't see the point of continuing, therefore abandoning all efforts to continue playing.

Perhaps then, in the future, there will be more games that emulate Geometry Wars' success, combining frantic pace, advanced features, as well as letting the players gain gratification, just enough to continue to play; just enough to convince themselves that they can survive. Maybe, the shmup genre will receive new blood in their userbase as well as game variety. To continue the chain of evolution in this particular strain of games.

I'll be heading to SG for a one/two day hiatus. Actually it's for gaming, I've been itching for a round of Beatmania IIDX 16 DJ TROOPERS and the crowd's attention so I want to go to Bugis Jt to get some beatgame fun. Or Plaza Singapura...

Anyways, this will also be a spelunking opportunity for me to check if SG received any good games that deserves good attention. DJMAX Technika being one of them, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is also something I would like to see on one of their cabinets. Lastly, if I see Deathsmiles in their arcades I can't assure that I won't jizz in my pants. Which would be a social faux pas since I will supposedly be walking about arcades accompanied by an arcade racing game vet. One that has proven to be very much friendlier than the Malaysian counterparts.

On a side note. Last time I was in SG, which was in Dec, I've had 2 occasions where I was alone with a female friend, going on activities that vaguely resemble a casual date. Meanwhile, in Msia I have had no similar experience (Or no experience similar to that of the trip in SG). Whenever I do ask, usually I get thrown a lemon. There must be something going on here. Hmmm...

Lastly, I also want to check out that Maid CosCafe around the Raffles City area. I'm sure the coffee will rip burning holes in my pockets the size of jupiter's moons. But meh, I'm still being served by people who get paid for wearing victorian maid inspired dresses (That's Laces and Frills, two of my favourites accessories in female attires) Perhaps I need to check if I need to pay for pictures. Cause if I do have to pay, my pockets will be gone altogether. Maybe I can get my female accompaniment to have a drink there. Hopefully it won't end with Iced Lemon Tea.

Oh BTW, Malaysian arcade vets are 50% pricks. 40% that treats other players with indifference (I belong in there, depending on the game) and the last 10% are kids who somehow are able to excel at the game. They deserve a spot. Nice guys in arcades are rarely found, if they ever existed in the first place. Literate people in arcades are even more rare. It has something to do with images of arcades in my nation, but it's hard for me to go into detail without creating another entry, perhaps next time then.

Who are you and why did you invade my blog?

Just joking. Always glad there's someone here, even though there's not much for these someone's to read.

As you've noticed, I don't update my blog often, because I never made any commitments. Unfortunately, this blog will remain this way unless I can actually find a method to generate revenue off this place, then I'd start blogging for my life, since it'll be considered a job. Most of the articles here are mainly personal anecdotes, testimonials as well as pseudophilosophy, kindly do not take them too seriously. However, when I blog about something, it will be something I feel strongly about, not just "I had a cake this morning", so rest assured that anything recorded here are major events or thoughts that have haunted.

Been catching up with gaming lately, have to finish the following list of games:

Assasin's Creed
Burnout Paradise
Dead Space
Devil May Cry 4
GRID
Pure
Sid Meier's Civilizations 4.
Silent Hill Homecoming.

Unlike blogging, I dedicate a lot of time to gaming, so you can imagine what I'll be busy with for these next few weeks. If I do find anything interesting though, I'll let someone(s) know.

*Insert cue for awkward laugh*

I'm still here! (ba-dum-dum-plish)

That wasn't really a punchline, was it? More like a line that will get you punched.

After that dreadful year working with a call centre, I've decided to call it quits when my contract expiry came up, I'm now official a NEET (Not engaged in Employment, Education or Training). I heard they're in fashion nowadays.

I also got my first birthday cake this year, there weren't any candles, or singing, or wishing, but it was my first birthday cake that I've gotten for my birthday.

Maybe I'll take some of that NEET time to work on this blog. Let me see what I can do.

Crazy, crazy, crazy week.

It's sunday over here in Malaysia, and I'll be staying over at my workplace, trying to clear the backlog of tasks. I didn't take a day off in the last 6 days, even though I did take it easy on my assigned off days which is Thursday and Friday. Today will be the death of me. If my efficiency doesn't go up at least a dozen notches above "Crappy".

Anyways, please allow me to elaborate. I just happen to be working for a Company in Singapore that deals with CableTV. I'm a Call Centre Agent, or those fancy terms like Customer Care Consultant/Customer Service Representative. When you're in this line, you've basically trapped yourself in an Iron Maiden, the nasty ones with the spikes that pierces you when the doors are closed on you.

I'm sure that most Malaysians, or Asians for that matter, would've noticed that there's a football event going on right now, it's called Euro 2008. This is my first La Petite Mort, and no, it isn't about orgasms, I died a little inside. When you work at a call centre, you are expected to try and get as many items done as possible within a certain timeframe. Originally we managed to take all 2500 calls offered before the event started, we thought everything was alright.

Then came the event, being the natural procrastinators we all are, we were ill prepared. Thousands of calls came pouring in starting from the few days before the event itself, requesting for the Pay Per View event, causing havoc all around the call floor. The word Euro 2008, if audited, should've been said at least a million times in the duration of that few days, if not more. We were getting on average 5 thousand calls and more for that week, far exceeding my own expectations, the catch is, we only have the capacity for 3 thousand, at most. If the definition of hell weren't flaming and sodomy, I would've thought it'll be thousands of Singaporeans banging on your doors (Or screaming at the phone), to get you to give them football.

On a side note, I hate football.

Of course, the above event had a significant impact, a very negative one. Staffs are overworked, tired of the mundaneness of dealing with customers hungry for sweaty men on a field chasing a ball. Team morale was on an all-time low due to not being able to foresee any tropical rest islands beyond the waves in the sea of work. We have no idea when we will be heading back to shore. Since May 12, the date the price for the Pay Per View event changed due to an expired promotion, we were all a little dead inside.

Continued soon... Sorries, need to head off to work.

ALLEN WALKER. YOU BASTARD!

I'm pretty sure anyone with an eye or more should be able to see that this blog is almost deserted, posts take months to be updated, no one leave comments etc.

I want to change that. However, I've finally realized things that I should have years ago.

I have no material.

To an artist, nothing pains him so much as to give him inspiration and nothing to draw on. In my case, I have thoughts, words to be spoken. However, no method in preserving them. Therefore you don't see my posts being recollection of memories, because I am incapable. My posts are mere contemplations on recollections. Something anyone with an imagination can do. I have put thoughts into words many times before, however I have not found a solution to one very simple problem a friend pointed out by a penetrating gaze through my works. I think fast, but I write slow. In addition to that, the barrage of thoughts in my head is usually cluttered and unorganized. Hence you see poorly structured sentences.

I get derailed easily.

I write with pen and paper, pencil would be the best, because I enjoy solitude when I use those tools, be it in my own room or a table in a public place. For blog posts, I use my computer. When I use my computer, I can compose a simple prose, only to have it ruined because outsiders are disturbing me. As I type this, 5 minutes ago I was going to write something about Transcience and Ephemeral elements of life. Now I'm ranting. Because I was disturbed. Honestly, if I weren't disturbed by a family member, I'd have shouted profanities. My logical train of thought moves quickly, therefore, derailment is much more severe when it happens.

I have no skills.

To humble any author, put him in a library. I couldn't agree more. I have read pretty much anything from casual compositions to elaborately woven stories of dragons and knights. I find my own writings absolutely horrendous. I believe that horrendous is an understatement. At times I struggle for adjectives, punctuations, even adverbs. This kind of sloppiness should not be tolerated. Even if this is the internet, there's still standards. Being Malaysian doesn't mean I can get away with a lower standard in english. It simply does not work. I cannot lie to myself. Stop telling me I have good english. I don't. As many times I try to convince myself that my english is better than my peers, the same amount of times I would look at fictional stories by other members of the intellectual society and weep.

I am wrong.

In many cases. This is the case. I would end up contradicting myself. In the end it's all bullshit. That's all I'm going to say on this point.

If you've been wondering why I do not update the blog frequently, there you go. Reasons.

I always thought that sharing is for good things like love and money and happiness and crap. Then I realized how selfish people are and that they usually horde those things to themselves. Fortunately I realize that other people are more than glad to share those that aren't theirs. Money from others is thriftly spent, happiness from others is prompt spread, love from others is quickly abused.

Then it's when I realized also that negative aspects of human emotions are also shared as easily. Also, the same rules apply. The victim of any misfortune are usually glad of and understanding they might get and are held down and fastened to their current reality of depression or unhappiness, but the friends and relatives of the victims are usually not burdened by such thoughts, therefore spreading around ways of which to cope. Usually not to the victims, but to the people in the immediate area. Which makes any victim's relatives or friends the targeted area of a tactical nuclear strike that induces all weird ailments starting from depression.

I prefer to keep quiet and restrain the radioactive area to fan out. Doing practical things rather than just talking about it. Next time you see someone being robbed, give the guy a pat on the back, buy him a bottle of water and let him drink and cool down significantly. Then you've helped enough.

It's just my way of showing my support. That's all.

Thank another you for another lone comment. I have opened the comments section for all anonymous and known users as per your observative judgement has advised.

Recently, I've actually asked someone if she would oppose to me trying to win her favour. Permission for courtship, if you'd prefer. It ended horrendously, at least on my side of the thing. It was a subtle rejection, we could still be friends and nothing was ruined. Until 6th of November, Tuesday. Curious? Let's put that on the backburner for a bit while I rattle off to other things.

The examinations for senior highschool is here. 2 more days and I think I have to start writing apology letters to my parents for having failed them miserably. Looking on the bright side, I might not fail entirely and get several A's. Not the amount specified for a Nobel Prize or a scholarship to Cambridge but it will do, explicitly for me and me alone. I wish all those who will be sitting for these examinations all good wishes and best of health.

I realized what friends were for in the weeks preceding these forthcoming exams. There are not there for you to fall back on in case of emotional breakdowns, they're not meant for that. Neither are they pillars on which you can base your palace of moralities on. Nope. They're there because they're there. Because we are all alone at heart, we desire companionship. Simple but unrealized fact. However, I shall warn any potential readers, that the more we dwell on the fact that we seek companionship, the more painful our existance become. Tis' an elastic relationship we are looking at. The more we think we don't really need companions, the harder the truth hits that we actually need companions. I'm now trapped.

Once again, the polaric vision that I have disclosed earlier (Very much so, around a year back.) Seems particularly true (When responding to myself, a larger sample space was unavailable to me.) when the matter of human social interactions are concerned. The idea of cognitive mental capabilities state that people classes quantitatives (e.g humans, objects or speech) into sub-groups that can be identified by the person in question. With humans it is criterions such as skin color, language and/or/notwithstanding to actions. However, I have found articulation in particular especially engaging. Though I personally rarely engage in idle chatter, I have found that even idle chatter is classified into sub-groups, perhaps unconsciously. Glimpses of these characterizations are noticeable if attention is concentrated (via introspection, although not perfect, is the only method available to me.) when speaking or listening.

This means that I'm adding to my earlier thinking of working with polaric versions of reality. Instead of polaric extremes, it is safe to assume that reality belongs in sub-groups according to enviromental or psychological factors. With enviromental factors being culture, social standards or generally accepted biases and psychological being an egocentric methology of grouping according to personal understanding (either shaped or unshaped by the enviroment.). What this changes, is the whole idea of exptreme polarity in thinking, yet maintaining a central and needed section of it: The inexistance of a grey area. With this newfound generality, there might be a reason for me to remember exactly the words and tones used in important conversations for intro or retropection in order to find something intricate in human nature of thinking.

The process of thought is not as simple as anyone thinks it is, no one even knows if thinking and learning is explainable in biological or behaviouristic means. All we can do is to hold on to our existing beliefs and hope for more empirical evidence which doesn't explain a whole lot. Not that much of the general public care for evidence, we are a gullible lot that put beliefs without evidence (also known as "faith") in front of those with evidence and exclaims their overwhelming righteousness (of their own experiences) without checking their integrity as a whole. Yet we remain ignorant of this most basic of facts.

Mayhaps it is better to be ignorant, to be unwary of ignorance, to be woefully binded with earthly worries. What are we but organisms which only ultimate goal is to survive and triumph in our own social class. How does the scientists that do not realize their impact in the future continue to do research that benefits no one of that period? No one knows, I do not want to know either. Perhaps fueled by anger, fear of losing or self-realization. Maybe it's just the need to know, the curiousity that killed many proverbial cats. For me, it's all the above.

This was made to simply test how easy it is to switch settings for a same activity. Not more than 50 words were changed or added. Assasination is still the activity, but it is now a modern setting. If more elaboration was in the previous version I'm pretty sure it'll be harder to convert.

My undershirt sticked to my back from the perspiration, my breathing heavy, my chest rising and falling rapidly. On the contuary, I was ready. Carefully, my fingers slid out to caress the trigger, the stock firmly in contact with my shoulder. Too predictable, a held rifle must be firmly fixed in place, all covers are restricted to the range. Too limited was my choices, too obvious my line of attack. This would be my last kill with such an dangerous method. I was to be accepted into a circle in which my life would start anew. My excitement laid with this vision, a vision that would be realized after this one and final kill. I felt my hand clutching the stock with excitement, my breathing steadied, my heart stopped. I looked through the scope, identified my target once more and pulled the trigger.

The moon shone lightly on the speeding bullet before it entered sharply into the neck of an elite guard. No sound came from his mouth, shock had not reached his facial expressions, the bullet had severed the guard's trachea and larynx, cutting off all nerve signals to the brain. A successful kill, had any sound escaped from his mouth, any sudden jerks of movement, I would've failed, my creed broken, my esteem shattered. I would accept no less from myself. The final deed was complete, the petty kills will not continue for any longer. Before anybody even noticed the missing guard, I would have wiped away all traces, Even a slight detail such as perspiration will not be overlooked. I shall be perfect. For all my previous kills was. For I know, from this point on, there cannot be any more imperfections, any slight mistake, none that I have done before, will kill me.

I left without haste, the only evidence of my existence being that deadly wound on my victim's neck. It would've been usual practice to hid the body, I would not have liked the attention showered onto it. No dead body needed the attention. But tonight, the purpose would be different, this body would mark the beginning of a series of killings, one that would strike fear unto my future targets. Fear, it seems, is very effective in destroying common logic, which makes the hunt so much more interesting, challenging. Fun.

On this night, a new perfect assasin was born.