Between The Sea and The Sky

◈The Monster Inside Me◈

Mingi struggled to keep his breathing even, though his hands always remained steady in these moments. Raindrops splattered across his face from the open window as he focused on the house across the street. No sign of movement yet. He hoped they would return soon. He wanted this to be over.

"It will never be over," Mingi muttered in defeat. There will always be a new mission, a new target.

Aside from their physical descriptions, Mingi knew nothing about the people he was sent to take care of. After that first time, he never wanted to know again. It was hard enough knowing what they looked like, but to have any other details about them, about their lives, would be unbearable. Their faces haunted him enough as it was.

Candlelight flickered across the street, signifying that his target was home. Getting into position, Mingi propped the barrel of his rifle onto the windowsill, and then waited.

A couple minutes went by before a middle-aged man walked into a bedroom, shedding off his jacket. The curtains were pulled back enough for Mingi to follow his movement inside.

Mingi inhaled and exhaled three deep breaths. As he released the third and final breath, Mingi squeezed his finger around the trigger, the sound of the gunfire ringing in his ears. Across the street, the bullet split open the man's skull, spraying out blood as he collapsed to the floor.

Mingi bit back the bile rising in his throat as he pulled the rifle back inside, preparing for his escape. The walls of the empty house he was in creaked against the storm blowing outside, the dust and shadows the only witnesses to the horrendous act he had just committed.

Hurrying down the steps, Mingi strapped the rifle into the holster across his chest, resting it against his back. Once he made it to the main floor, Mingi grabbed his long leather coat hanging on the baluster and swiftly put it on to conceal the rifle before marching to exit out the back door.

Mingi staggered through the rain-soaked alley behind the abandoned house, desperate to put as much distance between him and the dead man across the street as possible. As he rounded the first corner, a high-pitched scream pierced the air, heard over even the thunder rolling in the sky.

The sound stopped Mingi cold in his tracks. That scream couldn't be for the man he just killed, could it? The storm was supposed to mask the sound of his rifle. No one should have found that body by now.

Feeling eyes staring at him accusingly, though not a soul was around, Mingi started off again, picking up the pace of his strides. Luckily, most of the townspeople were fast asleep, and those that woke up to the scream didn't notice him slipping through the shadows.

By the time he made it back to Lord Hargreave's manor, Mingi was soaked to the bone and out of breath. He waited outside for a few minutes after knocking before the butler let him in. Despite serving Lord Hargreave as well, the butler always looked at Mingi as though he were mud on the bottom of one's boot that threatened to dirty a clean floor. It's a look that hasn't changed in five years.

"Master is waiting for you in his study," the butler informed Mingi before returning to the task he was doing prior to Mingi's arrival.

Bracing himself, Mingi walked up the flight of stairs and down the long, darkened hallway to Lord Hargreave's study. Knocked lightly three times and then waited. He stood there for seconds, minutes, hours? Mingi wasn't ever certain how long he would wait before he was permitted to enter.

All he knows is that being in this house, near this man, made him feel a kind of fear that couldn't be matched. He felt weak, helpless, and hopeless because he knows there was nowhere he could run, nowhere he could hide without being found. There was no escaping this prison, only surviving.