6 years later

Oh how tiring it was to be a killer.

To be the beautiful porcelain marionette with no flaws. Just pure perfection with the perfect white skin and perfect red hair tied up into that perfect bun. The black eyeliner that sat so perfectly on the eye....

But all marionettes are hollow on the inside.

Capable of being no one,

With piles of secrets filling every square inch of that perfect body...

And yet,

Somehow,

Still be

Empty.

5.

That's how many.

5 white nightmares dancing in the wind, the other twenty were killed by me. It never made me wake up at night sweating. I never felt regret. The only problem was the pleas. The people in the streets that I kill...the women in this red room with me...all the men and women I seduce only to kill.

All of them.

"Please," the 7 year old chained to the floor cries to me as I raise my gun.

"Don't," the 12 year old laying on the mats asks as I raise my knife.

"Help," the 16 year old yells as my spiked pointe shoes get dangerously close to her neck.

"Why," the 7 year old whispers with her last breath.

"How could you?" The 12 year old dripping blood whispers with her last breath.

Silence.

Today was a big day for the 5 of us. Only the strong will survive, and there can be only one survivor.

I look in the mirror at myself. We had gotten all dressed up to kill today with a white synthetic shirt and yoga pants. I was ready, but that was only because I knew what to expect. Most of the others have never killed an innocent, or sliced someone's head clean off but I have.

The five of us walked in silence to the gym where all the girls from other programs would watch us rip each other apart.

We opened the large gym doors and stepped inside. By the ring there was a rack with knives and guns galore which delighted me.

The entire sparring ring was surrounded by girls of all ages, and it was then that it hit me. I could die.

I don't fear death, just where I'll be spending eternal time-probably hell-.

The man waved us over and a path cleared in the crowds allowing the 5 nightmares dressed in all white to walk through the dead silence.

The man had a large smile on his face that was visible from across the gym, but up close it looked dangerous.

"Welcome to the killing ring. Today you will fight for superiority amongst your program as well as the full White Nightmare ceremony. There are a few rules that I'd like to go over. The first is no teaming up. The second one is you can gang up on a woman, and the final rule is if someone outside the ring is killed, the killer is eliminated.

This is the first annual killing games, so without further ado, let the games begin!" I had never heard the man so excited as he explained to the massive audience the gameplay, but I didn't have time to think about it because the match had started.

The first thing I did was run for the rack like most of the other women, but I made it there first because I had received the performance upgrade injections which included better strength and faster speed.

I grabbed two guns and three knives from the rack and immediately shot one woman through the head, leaving only four players including me.

The second one was a bit harder. She dodged my first bullet and a few jabs of my knife, but I finally stabbed the woman with bleach blonde hair in the heart, causing blood to rain down on me and stain my clothes crimson.

I yanked the knife out of the woman's body and turned around ready to kill my next target. I saw one woman break another's neck which made it three remaining players, three remaining marionettes dancing on the strings of their masters, then it was two porcelain dolls, oh so fragile, but so deadly with blood on their hands.

I killed three women so far, the blood staining my hands, but I could tell this last one would be difficult to beat. She dropped her weapons to the floor so I did too. A fair match. The brunette ran at me with a loud battle cry that shook my eardrums, and in seconds the woman was upon me, swinging her fists wildly sending one towards my head, but I quickly ducked and sent my knuckles into her stomach. She stumbled backwards a bit so I jumped up into the air and swung my foot around, whacking her in the head with a loud 'THUMP.' Brownie fell to the ground so I straddled her waist and punched her in the face. There was a bone shattering crunch so I did it again.

Punch.

Punch.

Punch.

Punch punch punch.

Punch punch punch.

Brownies nose was gushing blood and so were my knuckles, but still I punched.

Punch punch.

There go some teeth.

Punch punch punch.

Broken cheekbone.

Punch.

Just broke three ribs.

Punch punch.

Popped a lung.

The brownie was coughing up blood all over my white uniform, but I continued to punch her, letting go of all my worries and troubles with each blow to the dying body.

Punch.

Broke her jaw.

Punch.

Broke her eye socket.

I ran out of things to hit so I scrambled off brownie and picked up the gun that I had previously tossed to the floor. I aimed the barrel at brownies head and pulled the trigger multiple times, watching each bullet sink into her forehead and splatter blood all over me, but I quickly got bored and aimed the gun at brownies stomach, filling her intestines up with metal. The gun ran dry but I still pulled the trigger, small clicks sounding from the gun  as nothing happened.

I felt a hand on my shoulder as the man grabbed my arm and raised it up into the air.

"The first ever winner of our killing games!" His voice was loud and filled with excitement as I was dragged out of the ring by the man in my blood soaked clothes. "Now it's time for your ceremony," he said manically.

I've heard stories about what the ceremony really is and it doesn't frighten me, but it's come close.

They say that it could mean death for some girls, but I don't believe it. My old handler used to quietly whisper stories about the red room as we trained alone in the gym, but he was killed on a mission and the stories stopped.

I believe the truth is that it's different for everyone depending on what they spend most time doing, which in my case, was killing.

"Won't it be so nice once you don't have to worry about emotions?" The man laughed like a mad man as a look of discomfort spread across my features.

I was brought into a room on the south side of the building and a man stripped me of my clothes and put me in a hospital gown, wiping away the blood on my hands. I stared down at my stained hands as another doctor stuck a needle into the side of my neck. I began to feel dizzy as I was pushed onto a stretcher and hauled out of the pristine room, and as we entered another room black dots began to cloud my vision as I quickly fell to sleep.