The drop is two hundred and eighty feet.

Alyona tries to calculate the distance of the fall, of the cliff face, then makes her choice and takes a running leap.

For a split second she hears a noise, her brother Sergei’s voice, but it’s alright, it’s okay, there’s a plan. There are always plans, even if they’re made on the spot, made in seconds, reconfigured as the situation develops and new information becomes available. The world sharpens around her into clarity, a target in the blurriness, her hands curling into the fabric of the shooter’s outfit, a dead grip sustainable only if she doesn’t lose focus.

He’s someone from one of the enemy factions, one of the more recently formed ones since the United States collapsed. She doesn’t pretend to have memorized all of them or understand all of their ins and outs. What she does know is that they’re human and she knows how to break humans, was taught velocity and the physics of combat by her government as the Cold War threatened to grow hot. Most people have no idea what distance they can fall from where death is certain. Alyona does.

Admittedly there were other factors than mere height; pushing someone off a building was not a surefire way to kill them. This, what she’s done, the sea rushing up towards them, is even less definite. Which part of the body makes an impact first is an absolutely critical piece of the equation. It is a difference she learned was important in Anadyr when she was young and the one she’d tried to kill then had to be drowned afterwards; even with broken legs the human body has an inherent desire to flail for air, to cling to life.

Riding someone else’s crash means the surface is going to be marginally less like concrete. This she also knows from bitter experience. This is what she uses as the rationalization for the impact she know will leave her senses shattered as she grits her teeth and her hair is blown into her eyes, a flash of chocolate brown disrupting the glaciated blue below her. She doesn't have any illusions about how this will end

Sergei may be the leader of the Russian Far East Defense, but he is not immune to shots. The shooter had a sniper rifle, calloused hands that indicated experience using a long range weapon at short range, and no mercy in his eyes for two people trying to make a living in the vast wasteland of coastal Siberia. His hands had been tilted at just the right angle to destroy the only person Alyona has allowed herself to admit matters. And Sergei matters more to this struggling defense initiative as a trained sniper in his own right than his little sister, a run of the mill combatant, ever will. He is the future of their country if there is to be one. She is a single grain of rice in a bowl by comparison.

One of them is necessary and worthy of protection, one of a kind, a leader impossible to recreate. One of them is a weapon that can be rebuilt in the form of another girl, any girl at all.

Air whistles by and then the impact blows every thought from her mind except one, the one she accepted when she made the jump.

Two hundred and fifty feet is a lethal fall in water.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Who's the most judgmental of them all?

Am I fat? Am I weak?

Making an enemy of my own body.

Reflective glass tears my skin

Makes me shameful, outside in

Shards of truth to reflect my fears

No longer able to hide these tears,

Or these scars upon my skin

Reflective of an ugly within.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Oh how you're the most frightening of them all.

What, so you thought the tree just laid down

and died when it was felled

for your household needs?

Think again.

It doesn't die. Instead, it just waits...

Waits for you to drop your guard.

Remember when you shunned the plastic bag

for the "environmentally-friendly" choice

and your groceries caved through the

bottom, splattering

onto the tarmac?

That wasn't circumstance.

That was sabotage.

Those planes that hit you in

the back at school?

That wasn't Bullyboy's free will.

That was mind control.

That time you cut yourself on the

edge of a single sheet and it

reeeeeaaaaallly hurt, and you

suffered in silence because

asking for a plaster

would have made you look like

a complete sissy?

That was no accident.

That was revenge.

They say bark is worse than bite.

Bark CAN bite, bitches.

Protect yourselves!

Buy Kindles.

Write online.

And don't get me started on coffee tables.

I can’t do this. I don’t know why I ever thought I could. No one else thinks I can. Staring at this blank screen I wish I had never discovered words. How they sneak past your defenses and make their home in the very core of your being. How they make you feel. How they make you wonder. How they make you thirsty with an unquenchable thirst.

Seconds turn to hours, turn to weeks, turn to years and still I am here. Waiting, simply waiting. Fingers resting patiently on the home keys like perfect little soldiers waiting for a command. Do they know their General has gone mad?

Where is my voice? I have sold it to a sea witch in exchange for a pair of legs. Damn these feeble legs! They cannot take me where I want to go.

I sit at the spring and wait. It is no longer a spring flowing with sweet waters. It is a stinking cesspool. I stir the stagnant pool with a tinge of hope sitting on the edge of my heart. “Let there be something here; something, anything.” I pray but my bootless cries are heavy and so they lay shattered on the ground, unheard. Only dysentery waits for me here.

My soul runs. I chase it down and like Jacob and the angle we thrash about. Blow for blow we are equals. Through blood and sweat I prevail, this time. Show me what is hiding in your depths. Show me passion, pain, persecution, perseverance; show me anything!

A sharp spile through a soft heart and your secrets are mine. My cup is ready. I will drink and be restored once more. The knob turns, and turns, and turns. I wait, anticipate, and thirst. Ash! Nothing but ash fills this cup. You have been burned up, consumed, and nothing remains. Be gone from me.

I can’t do this. Why should I continue? Fate is the same for all and I will be forgotten. Words once spoken, once written, will be lost like a single rain drop is lost to the sea. I could stop; should stop. End the agony, end the suffering for it is done in vain. But…I am a masochist and so I write on.

      I drank coffee naked. It was an interesting experience, made even more so by the fact that I was on a wooden stool, and it hurt. Like hell. However, one must make sacrifices to wake up, especially from a night as tiring and uneventful as last night. So I just sat there. I looked out the window to see the birds hopping from tree to tree, moving their heads so fast they should be getting constant whiplash, and hearing them sing.

      Birdsongs helped me cope with the death of my father. He was an ornithologist. He would often tell me, “Stacey, remember this: if a bird shows up at your doorstep and you have the chance, fly with it.” After he died, I just remembered seeing a bird at the doorstep of my house. His words rung in my head like a bell, increasing with intensity, and increasing the vibrations of the world around me. I just got up and ran. I ran until I found treasure, or what a little girl would consider to be treasure. I found a gold coin.

After my “awakening”, I decided to cleanse myself, to take a shower. I felt the beads of water crash against my body, as if they were knocking. Some droplets ran down my shoulders, like they were wishing me good luck with whatever was going to happen. Whatever happens happens. A phrase had never been truer.

      After I left the shower, I got dressed, and again I sat down on the same stool as before and had another cup of coffee. I expected nothing to happen on a Sunday morning in the middle of Autumn. I only expected to turn on R.E.M.’s Nightswimming and watch the gold and grapefruit red leaves fall from the oak trees and onto the damp earth below. However, that all changed very quickly.

      My doorbell rang. I only expected a package. In all fairness, I did receive a package. I opened a door to have someone grab my arm and pull me across my lawn to their car. I screamed the entire time, of course. When he threw me in his car (and I knew it was a he because I could smell that it was a he), I realized that I knew my kidnapper. “Robin?”

“Hello Stacey. Listen I don’t have time to explain. All I can say is that I have 24 hours to find buried treasure.”

      “Okay.” This was all happening so fast. Robin. I haven’t seen him since grade school. Actually, I only talked to him once in grade school. Why the hell does he need me now?

“I should also tell you that I have five hours left to complete my mission, and by mission I mean quest. By the way, duck.” Bullets penetrated his back windshield, and I ducked. Robin kept my head down as he pulled out his pistol and fired back. I heard a loud screech and then an explosion. I had no idea what was happening. I got up and slammed into the passenger’s side window. Robin was making an extreme turn around a corner. When I recovered I saw the sun setting on the horizon. Robin hit the accelerator. I thought that there was a straight road ahead, but I was mistaken. There was a beach. We careened off of a boardwalk and crashed into the sand. I got out, and I saw Robin standing there.

      “This is it.” He was looking at a literal treasure chest, somehow miraculously thrusted out of the sand by the front of the car. The sun had set. “And with four hours left to spare!”

      I got up and asked Robin a few questions. “Robin! What the hell is happening? Why are you here? What do you want from me?!” As soon as I asked that, I heard the click of a gun come from the direction of the boardwalk. I turned around to be met with the sight of bright flashlights being held by burly men.

      “I guess you’re entitled to an explanation. I am a treasure hunter. It’s rare to find one of us nowadays. This treasure belongs to the mafia. They hired me to find it, against my will, of course (as is often the case with these guys). They threatened me with the loss of the one that I loved.”

      “Wha—what?”

      “It’s you Stacey. Ever since grade school, I’ve been in love with you. I can’t explain it, but then again, who can?”

She would be karma. It was July 7, 2006. While most imbibed in bars after work, Isabelle was doing push-ups and crunches in the gym. While most spent time catching the first episode of Psych, she strategized on ways of attacking this family who ruined her life.

Isabelle Matthews, also known by the assassin name of Karma, was neither super-smart nor super-sexy. She was mundane, normal and had been reminded of that often by her parents, or her sperm and egg donors, as she liked to call them. She was abandoned at thirteen by those same people, and she killed them at nineteen. People killed for many reasons: funds, ideology, love, revenge. Isabelle, she killed out of malice and retribution, long stirring resentment that had smoldered for years.

Ms. Matthews left Room 701 at the Jade Square Hotel with her knives and her throwing star, Ms. Centennial, tightly packed in her cargo pants. Ms. Centennial’s counterpart, another throwing star named Mr. Century, sat on her belt as her buckle. She wore a cut halter top that exposed a little skin to look seductive, and by the way the concierge looked at her, it worked. As she walked by the reception desk, the concierge needed to check something.

“Ms. Halliwell, I--,” started the concierge.

“Mrs., but don’t tell my boyfriend that,” replied Isabelle in a hush-hush tone.

Penelope Halliwell was one of Isabelle’s favorite aliases when she was on the job, mostly because her favorite show was Charmed.

“Mum’s the word. Would you like a pamphlet with the list of the sights? Los Angeles is not the best at night, and I wouldn’t want you to get lost.”

“I’m fine, thank you. I appreciate you asking, though.”

“Just doing my job, ma’am.”

Isabelle walked out to her rental car. She revved the car and started down Prescott Street. She wanted to get this job done by tonight, but she couldn’t do it on an empty stomach. The clock read 10:09 PM. Plenty of people would have already been in their beds fast asleep by this time, but there were still some restaurants and pubs open that had some good grub. One of those places was Purity, which was owned by her old friend Shannon Wyatt.

Shannon and Isabelle were trained into being assassins by the same mentor, Wylie Quixote. They were a team, Karma and Destiny, until tragedy struck, making Shannon quit being an assassin. She opened up the restaurant and ever since then, it’s been a hit. Isabelle walked into the place, switching her hips to the soft music that played overhead. She ran her hands through her blonde hair and went to a booth. An African-American lady with curly natural hair wearing a Purity apron walked towards her with a menu in hand, and then stopped once she recognized Isabelle.

“Hey, Matthews. What can I get for you,” asked Shannon. “It’s on the house.”

“I’ll have the usual.”

Her usual meal was a chicken sandwich with three juicy wedges of tomato, dripping with mustard and mayonnaise, steaming hot seasoned curly fries, and a cookies-and-cream milkshake with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. She always had that meal before a job.

“When are you gonna retire, Matthews? You can come work with me.”

“I’m retiring when I get sick of it, and I’m not sick just yet. Why don’t you get back in the business?”

Shannon pointed to her prosthetic leg. “This would be a liability. Any witnesses could immediately identify me.”

Shannon lost her leg in her last job as Destiny. The victim was a woodcutter with a pedophilic nature, and he got her good one time in the leg. The leg probably could have been saved if she hadn't been stubborn and gone to the hospital.

“That’s why you don’t leave any witnesses,” joked Isabelle.

“Well, I’m always open for a co-owner.”

Isabelle had been thinking about retiring for a long time, but she wasn’t ready. Shannon slid the food to Isabelle, and not even five minutes passed before the plate was clean and there were only dregs of cookie at the bottom of the cup.

“Alright, Wyatt. See you later. Thanks for the meal.”

“No prob, Matthews. Just be careful, and remember my offer,” said Shannon as she picked up the dishes.

ᆞᆞᆞᆞ

Karma left her car in a parking lot that was a few miles away from the house of the people who would be murdered that night. They were the Shandons, a prominent family in the local area. Owen Shandon was a lawyer and Anita Shandon was an OB/GYN. Both of them were murderers. They had one daughter, Kelleigh, but she was at Girl Scouts camp. She would come home to her parents murdered but Isabelle didn’t care. She would just have to suck it up.

When she got to 1345 LaFleur Drive, she stopped. She walked up to the door and picked the lock with ease. She had come a few nights earlier and oiled the hinges on the door so that there would be no noise when she opened the door. The Shandons’ living room was larger than the little hotel room that Karma was staying in. She locked the door behind herself and ventured through the house into the bedroom. Mr. Shandon was sitting there with his back turned away from Karma, and that’s exactly what she wanted. She pulled Ms. Centennial from her lower pocket and threw it at Mr. Shandon. They met in gory matrimony as the throwing star entered his back and stuck itself into the wall in front of him. He turned around and looked at Karma with shock on his face. He tried to speak, but too much blood was coming through his mouth to understand.

“What? Karma got your tongue,” asked Karma.

“OWEN,” screamed Mrs. Shandon as she came out of the bathroom. “What has happ--”

Mr. Century cut through her throat before she could finish the question. Karma quickly retrieved her weapons, cleaned them off, and left the room with a large weight lifted off of her shoulders. Suddenly, she heard a noise under the bed. She palmed Mr. Century and lowered herself to the ground. There was a little girl under the bed with red dots all over her face, and she looked scared.

“I’m sorry about your parents. Remember Karma, alright? You can come for Karma when you get older if you want,” said Karma, who was now back to being Isabelle.

The little girl, whom Isabelle assumed to be Kelleigh, nodded with a tear running down her polka dotted face. Isabelle ran out of the house and didn’t stop until she got to her car. When she did stop, she broke down crying. She pulled out one of her prepaid phones and called Shannon.

“Hello,” said Shannon.

“Hey. It’s Isabelle. I’m taking up your offer.”

“What’s the matter with you? And why did you change your mind so quickly?”

“The answer to both questions is a liability.”

“OK, we’ll talk about this when you get to the restaurant.”

“See you then. Bye,” said Isabelle as she hung up the phone.

She was young and confused.

Torn between what's right and wanting to belong.

But then she realized.

If you know what's right.

And make excuses for what's wrong,

You stand for nothing.

And most likely would fall for anything.

Even the golden child

Will come and have trial

She may have always handled it

May have always been best

But it was always with an aching

Inside her chest

As the years rolled by

She learned to never cry

Even when if she couldn't hold it all

She couldn't bare the thought

Of if she would fall

She was made for so much more

A thought she knows

But she's chained to the floor

Could you bare the monotony

Of these days

If you knew what you could do

Without all the grey

Could you truly care

When you hate what you do

When you could live for much more

But you stuck in the bore

Could you handle it all

If you were the golden child

Who always made it through trial

But even gold can crack

It's just all under the act

Visible to none

How much she's come undone