[A lifelong curse.]

Terrence scrutinised the figure in front of him. A pair of startling blue eyes with tinges of emerald green stared back at him. Terrence raised a hand to smooth his gelled dark hair; the figure mimicked his actions. He tugged his collar- so did the figure. With a sigh, he tore his dull gaze away from his reflection.

He recalled the day he stepped past the glass doors into the silver building, where high up on the 31st floor he penned his name onto the bottom of the papers. 15 years ago, the young him, who was barely scraping by in the gutters every day would've thought this was a worthy exchange for the scrumptious food he now could eat and the lavish suite he now called his abode.

Either way, it was too late to regret now.

His phone buzzed against the glass table surface. He took his time to stroll across the room to pick it up. It was an incoming message.

The marble table arrives at 8pm. The cheques have been issued.

To anyone else, it would've seemed like a typical delivery message of some sort, but Terrence knew better. He glanced at the time on his phone screen. It was 7.15PM. Ample of time left.

Nevertheless, Terrence preferred to take things steadily, and so, he patted himself down as one last check. His palm pressed against an imperceptible bulge on the side of his ribcage. Finally satisfied, he left the ostentatious hotel suite, knowing it would be the last time he came back.

*

The chandelier rimmed with diamonds hung over the prodigious hall. The affluent garnished in the best silks and suits laced with glittering jewellery as they shared clinks of wine glass and artificial smiles sent a familiar roil of revulsion in Terrence's gut. He mentally patted himself on the back for choosing to linger on one of the balconies that overlooked the whole floor.

He subtly peered down at his watch. 7.51PM. The itinerary had stated 8PM was the allocated time for the host's speech. Usually, he had preferred the appropriate time to be later into the night, but if it was his orders for 8PM, then 8PM it is. No questions asked. He would get away eventually, just like always.

And thus, he took one last sip of the wine in his hand, and wheeled around to leave when he bumped against another body, and in reflex, he grasped the smaller figure before he sent them crashing to the ground.

"Woah, hello, handsome." The woman gazed up at him through her thick lashes and fluttered her eyelids, a small smirk in her plump, glossed lips. "A little rushed here, aren't we?"

He flashed her a charming smile. "Ah, I apologise. I must've been a little tipsy from this delicious wine," he uttered in a suave, calm voice. Despite his mask, he internally kicked himself for almost slipping up. The woman hummed, and rested her manicured hand on his arm.

"It's all right, at least none spilled," she murmured and slowly trailed her fingers upwards. "And it is a party, we're all allowed to get a little... drunk."

Before her hand could brush too close to his suit, he gently clasped her wrist, dropping his charming smile to a sheepish one. "Well, darling, I would be honoured to get to know more of you, but I have someone I need to meet, so if you excuse me." He barely had time to espy the woman's porcelain features dropping into one of slight disappointment and an inaudible "oh" to slip out of her lips when he had already disappeared into the crowd.

Through a mini labyrinth of the inner stairways of the building, he had finally reached a metal door. Dismissing the red sign plastered on it, he twisted the knob, knowing full well it had been left open for him on purpose. A dim yellow filled the small room, and he weaved past gears and taut ropes that operated the stage beneath before making his way through another door at the other end of the room.

Mounting the last of the steps of the dingy staircase, he popped open a door above, and what greeted him was the starless night sky. The wind caressed his skin and ruffled his clothes, which was a transient relief from all the stuffy rooms he had traversed through. He hoisted himself onto the flat surface of the roof to see a black case tucked into a crevice between the gap of the walls, as promised. He took it, settled down behind a dome like wall and unlocked the code on the case with ease.

The lid swung open, revealing the dismantled parts of a sniper.

Terrence swiftly set it up, just like he had done umpteenth times prior. He poised the barrel of the gun through a small hole of the curved wall, where it aimed directly at the empty stage in the hall.

Finally, he took out the concealed box from his coat. It was the scope, the last of the items to complete the sniper. Adjusting it took no more than a minute, and peering through, he could see everything clearly.

Just as he positioned himself, he glanced at his watch, looking to see the hands strike eight. Simultaneously, the emcee's voice boomed across the hall. A man clad in a silver suit took the stage and began heartily addressing his audience.

Terrence's lips pressed into a firm line. His grip on the gun tightened; his body tensed; a finger rested idly on the trigger.

At last, he fired.

It was a bullseye, right through the man's cranium. Immediately, the crowd broke into a pandemonium of shrieks and hysteria. Terrence didn't blink an eye, and he immediately began disassembling the sniper once again.

His mind swirled back to the sight of the man crumpling to the ground, crimson steadily pooling around his corpse. However, the remorse he once felt so long ago was crushed by the numbness he enforced over the blood-splayed years.

He doesn't know them. They don't know him. That was all there was left to it. His blood-tainted hands and stripped-humanity were the shackles to his lifelong curse.

♧[28/5/2020]♧