Laying there, he had been staring at the same balcony for approximately 15 to 20 minutes, only taking his eye off the scope when doubts started to cross his mind or his emotions started to get the best of him. Each time he tried to get himself back under control, not letting his feelings get in the way, trying to stop his hands from shaking.
It has been raining the entire day, though it got worse the more time passed, making it seem as if Planet Manhattan was placed under a giant waterfall that has been growing over the day, reaching its apex at night.
The rain didn't help his mood, even if the weather was part of his plan. The cold air didnt help him keeping his hands steady either.
Each time he laid his right finger back on the trigger, his left hand back underneath the rifle's barrel and forced himself to stare through the scope again, the mixture of frustration, jealousness, failure of understanding, doubts and fear seemed to overcome him again, sometimes faster, sometimes slower.
Sometimes feeling as if it'd creep up on him slowly, other times it feels like an ulcer growing in his chest slowly travelling up to his throat, making it feel as if it's suddenly harder to breathe or swallow.
Taking a few seconds off the gun felt like it'd ease those feelings off of him again, until they came back. Again and again.
This game between him and his feelings has been going on for half an hour by now. 30 minutes where the only other thing happening were tons of raindrops soaking up his clothes, hitting the ceiling of the unfinished building he was on and dripping on his sniper rifle.
He acquired it 2 months ago, roughly a month after the events that triggered all this, by getting in contact with weapon smugglers.
A military grade sniper rifle, the "EAMR - 'Hawkeye', that has been rejected by the Liberty Navy's ground force command in favor of other, not as heavy models, finding its way into the black market afterwards like many rejected and / or decomissioned military or police firearms.
He spent as much time as possible learning how to use it from ex-military and police men, sometimes falling asleep at the rifle's recoil pad within an abandoned factory used as training grounds for said firearm smugglers.
45 minutes.
His struggle between his feelings, taking his hands on and off the rifle has been getting harder the more time passed, not being able to keep the hand underneath the barrel from shaking even though the gun is mounted, causing the crosshair to move all over the balcony, the finger on the trigger nervously twitching, nearly firing off a shot into nowhere. He starts breathing heavily through his mouth, raindrops travelling from his face onto his teeth while the ulcer seems to suffocate him slowly, the thousands of raindrops each feeling like needles puncturing him though feeling as heavy as hammers when they come down on his head, holding his eyes wide open, forcing himself to view through the scope as if he's hoping for that one, lucky frantic shot.
"Here", a black hand reaches past his face, longing for his twitching hand beneath the barrel, holding it for a moment before moving the barrel back into place. Another hand reaches past his right side, grabbing the hand on the trigger, readjusting it to sit properly on the grip, with the finger resting against the trigger.
"You're going to do it?", a voice said from behind him, with the hands moving back, leaving his own calm on the rifle.
Remaining silent, he took a short, deep breath, before starring down the scope again, the balcony in view, no twitching or shaking of any kind.
"Remember what I told you", the same voice said again, in a monotone voice, before continuing in an equally monotone manner, "No emotions. Don't leave any emotions here."
He remained silent, even unmoving on the ceiling that's now more resembling a small pond.
The voice behind him started to grin, showing a long row of teeth in an unnaturally elongated mouth. "Can I watch?", it said with bright yellow eyes, the pupils seemingly not being more than small slits.
His facial expression didn't change a bit, neither did the rest of his body move. The voice laid down next to him, looking over to the same balcony.
A smell similar to that of a wet dog came into his nose a few moments after the voice laid down next to him, the voice's physics being plain black, the black pupils once rushing over to take a look at him, laying there motionless, before rushing back to the balcony, seemingly excited by what is going on.
Movement at a window. The same level the balcony was on. The silhouette of a man walked towards the balcony calmly.
Still motionless.
A second window that the silhouette passes, still on the way to the balcony. The voice is getting more and more excited, showing it's teeth in the elongated mouth again while its eyes rest on the third window, the last one before the balcony.
Nothing. No silhouette at the third window, no other kinds of movement.
The rifle's barrel remains calm and motionless, as if someone left it there, though a finger underneath the barrel twitches for a split second.
10 seconds pass, nothing. The teeth start to slowly disappear again, the voice's lips closing themselves over them as if they're nothing but pitch black.
The pitch black instantly pulls itself up again, giving light to the seemingly endless row of teeth as the silhouette finally moves past the third window.
Only a few steps left until the balcony is reached. His left eye stays closed while his right one rests behind the scope, focusing on the middle of the balcony.
A hand moves out behind the wall. The instant it showed up, everything seemingly began to run slower. Slow enough to see each single raindrop pass in front of his scope.
The hand moves upwards, grabbing the railing of the balcony, sliding along it while the rest of the silhouette follows, revealing a man in his mid-30's.
He could feel each raindrop splashing on his hands, his head, his entire body, even through his soaked clothes.
The man on the balcony looked at manhattan being rained on before he kept moving towards the balcony's end, pushing off water from the railing with the hand he's dragging on it. He's now halfway from where the scope is aiming at.
The barrel began to shake again, just a little, but enough to throw the aim off again, the trigger finger itching, the raindrops feeling heavier. Frustration, jealousness, failure of understanding, doubts, fear.
The man still taking steps towards the crosshair, looking at Manhattan, then the sky, then back down, watching the lights in the sky and on the ground from the never ending traffic.
His emotions creeping up on him again, the ulcer forming in his chest, trying his best to keep the rifle steady, hammers coming down on top of his head, needles piercing every part of his body.
A few steps left.
Yellow, glowing eyes with black slits moving themselves over, watching the scene in excitement with a elongated grin below them, a unnaturally long tongue slowly moving out between the teeth, now looking at him and his struggle of keeping the ulcer down, keeping himself and the barrel under control, both his hands shaking, the eyes wide open.
His target has moved into scope, the back of his head right into the crosshair.
The rifle shaking more intense with each second passing, he can barely make any shapes out through the scope, even though his target is lit up perfectly, the slowly falling raindrops only blurring his view further.
The man on the balcony slowly turning his head from left to right, turning the back of his head away.
Simultaneously a black hand reaches out at an ever twitching arm supporting a barrel, getting slowly closer the more the target turns his face into view.
Tortured mentally and physically, the entire body stiffened from the cold weather and lying in wait full of anticipation, yet shaking from his inner struggle, an ulcer feeling as if it is squeezing both the trachea and the gullet to the walls of his neck with its size, effectively cutting them off, hammers pounding deeper and deeper into his head. Thin pupils embedded in bright yellow eyes eagerly shift their attention from the balcony over to the shaking man to their right, their hand now inches away from the twitching arm, slowly moving closer.
The head in the scope's view now turned one half of his face into scope, clean shaven with no visible flaws, a content facial expression taking joy in the view of Manhattan covered in water dropping from the sky with short blonde hair on top of it all. The rest following up, slowly turning his face fully into the sights.
A black hand opens up, ready to grasp a shaking arm as if to tear it off. An eye behind the scope seemingly popping out of the sockets by itself, starring at the man it has been waiting to see since nearly an hour, mouth opened wide, taking frantic breaths with teeth grinding against each other, a feeling like a giant ulcer will be gorged out any second, lungs seemingly tightening, nearly passing out from the mental stress while trying to keep the small dot in the scope’s center from moving. Without success.
The flawless, shaven face now turned in his direction, as if they’re both looking at each other, as content a facial expression as before.
Time appears to have slowed down even more, almost standing still, making it even more unbearable to hold the rifle, to lay there in the giant concrete puddle, one of the causes for his ruin within reach, yet being unable to fire. Frustration.
Seeing how happy he stands on the balcony, looking down onto the lower levels where people lived with less comfortable lives. Self-satisfied on the things he has accomplished, the things he still owns at his expense. Jealousy.
Knowing he has been leading a happy life, a life as flawless as his face. Never any worries in his career, love life, everything falling into his lap gently.
A perfect life while betraying everyone as soon as someone’s use for him has expired, no sympathy for others. Failure of understanding.
Can he even pull the trigger? Countless training targets have been shot in the head by him since 2 months, but his gun’s muzzle didn’t point at a person once until now.
“No matter your gun and your training, whether you can shoot a person the moment you see them is what decides everything. You don’t strike me as that type.”, the words of one of the smugglers kept circling through his mind. Doubts.
What if he misses? What if it doesn't go as planned? What if he leaves a trail? What if, despite all the precautions and the circumstances someone would still see him, allowing the man on the balcony to continue his life? What if everything fails?
The consequences would be trial, jail and a death sentence, the worst part being that the people who brought him into this position, who ruined his life after exploiting and misusing him, would be able to continue their lives unhindered, as if nothing happened. All while he sits in a cell, waiting for either a syringe or electric chair. Fear.
Quick, frantic breaths trying to fill lungs with air obstructed by an ever growing blain, shaking hands pierced by raindrops holding an unsteady rifle, a mind turned to mush from hundreds of thousands of hammers coming down on it with all these thoughts circling through it, unable to focus on a single thing nor able to fully comprehend that his target, maybe even partial relief, was within reach.
The game of emotions starting to restart on top of itself, intensifying everything even more, an eye behind a scope twitching in all directions, blurring its own vision.
The black hand violently grabs his left arm, feeling as if it's sinking its claws into him. For not even a split second, everything was still. No shaking, no twitching, no breathing, no needles, no hammers, no thoughts or feelings, he could see through the scope perfectly clear, the center of it directly placed over his target's frontal lobe, below it a face still expressing joy in the weather.
A bright, wide opened yellow eye with a barely visible black slit for a pupil suddenly takes up the view in the scope for not even a split second, the finger on the trigger instantly pulls back, firing a bullet, the eye disappearing before the round leaves the barrel. Time returns to passing normally, the now free scope letting him see his target's head explode all over the balcony, the body pushed back slightly before slumping to the ground like a wet bag of papers, with pieces of its skull and what used to be inside of it scattered all over.
The instant the trigger was pulled, it felt like the blain in the throat and chest was disappearing, just as everything else. Fear, doubts, failure of understanding, jealousy, frustration, the ulcer growing in his chest and throat, all this felt like it instantly disappeared, sucked out of him, shot out of the barrel, impacting on his target’s head, violently rending it to bits and pieces, leaving nothing above the shoulders except for a torn neck. A shredded, bloody stump where the now nonexistent head used be placed on.
Raising his head from behind the scope, starring in disbelief at the balcony, how the person previously standing there now lays on the ground, the walls and floor painted in red slowly being washed away from the rain, feeling nothing but emptiness, not even recognizing that his entire body is lying there calmly, as if he was just waking up after a long sleep.
He finally started to experience relief. Relief caused by seeing one of the persons responsible for his demise meeting their end.
Feeling as if his depressions, the blain growing inside of him, the hammers and the needles violently shredded his target’s life within an instant, destroying the face of a person he couldn’t get out of his mind since months no matter how hard he tried, making his insides cringe each time he remembered it.
Finally accepting what just happened, he starts to fold the rifle together, stuffing it inside an old sports bag while hastily running his eyes all over the place, not thinking of anything.
No one to be seen that could have observed anything, no one besides him on that roof either.
Getting up on his feet, he looks around one last time before rushing down the concrete stairs of the building under construction, running past various equipment and tools before exiting the construction site via a hole cut out for a window.
Running off into dark side streets, his mind totally bleak before small hints of disbelief, relief and a barely existent bit of a strange, perverted satisfaction started to seep into his head, like raindrops directly splashing on his brain.
Except this time it was a pleasant, yet odd feeling. One one hand, he enjoyed this satisfaction, on the other, he wanted it to disappear, to be gone.
