Prelude ? - Adequate

People read the title.
Just adding this because last prelude someone didn't and thought this was a regular chapter

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He looked across the room and back, all the blood smeared on the walls, all the bodies dead on the floor.


He clutched his gun tighter in his hands, his stare was blank, his breaths were shallow. He just looked at the mess, the mess he'd created, in silence. Certain emotions were swirling inside him, but he didn't really focus on them. He just stared.

In all of his missions before this one, he'd always only had one target he needed to eliminate, rarely two or three. But now, he was suddenly sent to assassinate a whole group of people, who may have been criminals, but that fact didn't make him feel any better.
During the whole struggle and fight, he'd always falter anytime one of the members of the group called out for help from the others, whenever they would scream at him for murdering one of their friends, and then another, and another, and another. He wanted to stop, but he couldn't.
He let his guard down so many times during it, that one of the times his arm actually got slashed, and until now, it was still bleeding, blood dripping out, as if it was showcasing his regret. He made no attempts to patch it up or heal it up, he wasn't even sure if he could.

He looked back at the bodies one last time, before swallowing his regret and guilt, turning his back, and walking out. He couldn't just stand there all night.

He exited the building, hand on the wall holding himself up, as he went into the complexes of the alleyway. He just needed to go back home now-

"Good evening, ????."


He flinched as he heard a voice from behind him, and without thinking about it, he reacted on his instinct and turned around, raising his glock 34 up.
But shortly after he saw who it was, he sighed in relief and lowered his gun. "Oh.. it's just you, ????."

"A little shaken up, I see?" She said, calmly.

"Just a little, I guess, yeah." He mumbled. "It's fine, though. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" She examined him. "To be completely honest, you don't look so good."

And she was almost fully right. His right arm slightly flinched and twitched as she looked at it. He immediately knew she could see the slash that went through his arm, the bloody tear on the jacket. Suppressing the mild pain, he replied. "I told you- I'm fine."

Unlucky for him, though, she indeed saw the tear in his right arm sleeve. "Let me see your arm real quick."

"You really don't need to-"

"Your arm."


Sighing in defeat, he slowly reached for his right arm, and rolled the sleeve of the jacket up, revealing the slash wound he'd gotten moments earlier. He decided to just stay quiet as ???? investigated the still bleeding wound, but flinched slightly as she carefully touched the wound.

"Dude- what were you planning to do with a wound this big-!? You need to get this patched right away!" She told him, concern present in her voice. She let go of his arm, and reached for something in the backpack she was carrying. "Sit down, I'll treat the wound for you."

He was pretty taken aback by that last statement, not expecting her kindness this night. "You really don't have to-"

"Sit down. I'm not letting you die to a simple wound, let me at least patch you up." She stated, getting out what appears to be a simple med kit.

He didn't really have much of a choice nor any reason to deny her help, and so, a bit hesitantly, he sat down on the concrete flooring of the alleyway, watching as she opened the small box.

She didn't really say much after that. She got out a roll of bandages as well as a cloth and a bottle of clean water, and slowly kneeled down, softly grabbing his arm. She first grabbed the cloth and dripped the right amount of water onto it, before carefully wiping some of the blood off with the cloth, the other slightly flinching in pain as she did so, but tried to remain calm and still.

"Do you just carry around a first aid kit everywhere?" He decided to try starting a conversation to distract himself.

"Pretty much, at least I try to keep basic necessities in my backpack." She briefly replied as she placed the now bloodied cloth down, and splashed the wound with a bit of the remaining water before pressing a cleaner cloth on the wound to dry it. "I don't necessarily carry my backpack with me for missions, but I do try to keep it at least close, so I can just help myself if I get injured. It's not like I can just walk into the hospital and expect treatment without the staff being at least a bit suspicious of me." She then took the roll of bandage and started unrolling it.

"True, true-" He twitched and went silent as she started applying the bandage to his skin, his breath hitched. He could tell she was trying to be as careful as she could, but it still painfully stung.

The atmosphere of the alleyway fell to silence again as ???? was carefully and slowly rolling the bandage around ????'s wound. She did seem to have some experience with stuff like this, and seemed to be pretty good at it.


"...Why are you helping me, though?"

"Hmm?"

"Why are you helping me?" He slowly repeated. "We only know so little about each other, and rarely even interact. We're just acquaintances at most. There's really no reason for you to help me, and it's not like you'll get anything out of this."

"You may be right, most of the stuff you said is indeed true." She calmly confirmed. "But even though you say we barely know each other, I think we both have a lot of similarities."

"Really?"

"Mhm. Even though I've been in the business for longer, we've had mostly the same experiences. We're both hitmes, and none of the two of us became one willfully, we were both just thrusted into our positions without much warning, and have our physical capabilities overestimated. Even though we might not even barely know each other, the least I can do is help you, and maybe at some point we can help each other out."

"Are you... proposing some sort of alliance?"

"Perhaps, I guess." She said just as she cut the remaining bandage off, having finished patching him up. "That's not exactly what I'm asking for, but I just wanted to say that I'm here to help you if you need it, I'm always down to help a fellow struggling assassin."

"Well- okay." He muttered, touching the now fully bandaged place where the wound used to be. "...Thanks." He briefly smiled.

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