Page 72 of Eternal

AZRA

“Miss Misery” by Elliott Smith

Present

B reathe in . Breathe out.

In. Out.

Breathe.

I’m following the steps, I’m trying, really, but why is my heart not cooperating?

Why is it beating so fast, that it feels like it’s going to burst out of my chest?

It hurts. Maybe it’s because thoughts are spinning in my head, crashing violently against each other, colliding and colliding and colliding until there’s no space at all.

The organization, the missions, the kills, the never-ending cycle.

The past, the present, the future.

I can’t breathe deep enough, I can’t make it stop.

You did this. This is who you are now.

That’s not true… they made me that way. The people who abused me, the ones who destroyed me. They made me that way.

It’s been so long since I was anything else, since I was a person who cared, but the job... the job takes all of that. It’s all-consuming, and I’m... what now?

The cigarette is burning between my fingers, I inhale again, deep, trying to make my thoughts disappear as the smoke is.

My hands ached, my body ached. Everything ached.

What am I going to do today?

The answer was always the same.

Kill. Kill again. And again.

Until my hands stopped shaking, until the past loosened its grip on my throat, until there was nothing left of me. But I knew better, the past doesn’t let go.

It clings bone-deep, siphoning away every ounce of warmth until you’re left with nothing but the cold ashes of a world you can no longer imagine belonging to. Just the vague idea of a life you’re not even sure was ever yours to enjoy.

I crushed the cigarette against the windowsill, looking down at the city, with the ghost of Damir’s presence beside me. I wish he was here, I wish he could offer me his warmth for the night, but he’s not here.

Tonight, I know someone is waiting for me, a man who thought tonight was his fantasy came to life.

A man who didn’t know he had been marked for death.

I turned away from the window. My hand slipped beneath the pillow before I could stop it. I knew opening it would hurt, but I did it anyway.

I turn page after page, names already dead, scattered thoughts, pieces of her addiction. And then I stop. In the center of one page, the paper is warped, faintly stained, a small mark, round and brittle at the edges.

A dried tear. Hers.

Still here, even after all this time.

I swallowed, knowing I shouldn’t even read it, knowing the words would bury themselves deeper than pain into my bones, knowing it would make me feel too much, and that tonight… I needed to feel nothing.

I’m so scared. Of them. Of myself. Of my own daughter.

It’s like a sickness eating me from the inside, taking away everything I’m supposed to feel.

I look at my children, their innocent faces, and all I see is blood.

Blood on their hands, their necks. My blood.

I know it’s not real, but it’s too late.

They’ll find me. Azra won’t leave me alone.

She’s always in my head. And I can’t stop drinking.

I can’t stop the pills, even when they take me under.

I slapped her. I know Alexei is trying to keep Eren safe, but Azra…

Azra’s always here. She doesn’t understand.

I didn’t understand.

I cried tonight. I couldn’t breathe through it and screamed into the pillow. My head’s a mess. I feel sick. Azra heard it all. She came over to hug me, but I felt nothing. I was so disgusted with myself, and when I looked at her, all I saw was how much I fucked her up too.

My nails dug into the paper, the words blurred as my vision swam, but I could still feel them. Her words. Her pain. My pain.

I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m not the mother my kids need, I can’t be. Azra is suffering from it, I see her face, her eyes, and all I can think is… how long before I break her too? How long before she looks at me like I look at myself? I never wanted this.

I try to focus, but I can’t.

She was scared too, but she still hurt me, she still destroyed everything that could’ve been. I should feel something, I should feel angry, but instead, I just feel tired. So tired of reading the same things over and over. The apologies, the promises, they never came to anything.

I shouldn’t be crying, not now, not before a job.

But my tears slipped past my lashes, one by one, staining the same spot where hers had dried.

“If our tears mingle on the same page, would it feel like I touched the only part that’s left of you, Mama?” The journal trembled in my hands, or maybe it was just me. “Would we be closer? Would you love me, then?”

No, she wouldn’t.

Last week, I had to pick a name, to keep going, to keep killing. And who better to kill than an abusive father who thought he could slap my mother because she tried to protect his own daughter from his abuse.

It didn't matter. The man was nothing, another name, another target, another body to add to the list.

And I’m still crying, I think. I cry in silence, letting the smoke curl around my fingers as I light another cigarette. The burn in my chest doesn't come from the cigarette, though, it’s something else, something deeper, I don't care about that now. I don't care about much anymore.

It's been a week since I decided to track this man and let him be the next name on my death list. The guilt was there for a second, but it doesn't stick, it never does. If anything, the kill felt like a release. She would’ve wanted me to do this, at least that's what I told myself.

She would've wanted justice, right? She always wanted to protect the weak.

The second cigarette burns down, and I flick the ash, there’s nothing in me that hesitates.

The world keeps turning, people keep dying, and I keep killing.

I look down at the journal again, but there’s nothing left to read, just the name, the case, the plan.

All I have left to do is follow through.

And tonight, I was going to kill a man who had made her cry, it hadn’t taken much to find him.

Men like him never made it hard, they moved through the world with the confidence of someone who had never known consequences.

By day, he was a businessman, powerful, respectable, untouchable. By night, he was something else. Something filthier.

His trail led me to a website, one of those websites, the kind where anonymity gave men like him the space to be who they really were. The kind where masks weren’t worn, but identities were hidden behind usernames and requests. He was looking for an escort, and I simply made sure he found one.

All it had taken was a message, a few carefully chosen words, a promise wrapped in sin.

He had responded within minutes, desperate, and eager.

Be there at midnight. I’ll be waiting.

His confirmation sat on my phone screen. He wanted me there, he thought he was in control, but he had no idea he’d just invited a monster into his home. I just need to keep killing. I have to.

If I stop, even for a second, I’ll feel it, feel something. And I can't let myself feel again, because when I do, the agony, the throbbing, it all comes back, and I can’t go through that again.

It's too late for that, too late for guilt, too late for regret.

So, I dress up.

The tears have dried up, but the weight of what I’m about to do sits heavy on me. I keep thinking about the people in my life. Do they have any idea what I’m becoming right now? How am I letting my body, the same as it’s always been, be used again?

Could Damir even imagine me right now, dressing to play the part, the part of something I’m not, just to end a life that deserves to be ended?

Would he still look at me the same way if he knew what I was capable of? Would he still be gentle with me, or would it change everything?

The mirror reflected someone I didn’t recognize. A woman wrapped in silk, her hair falling in loose waves, her lips painted the kind of red that men like him liked to see.

I ran my fingers over the thin straps of my dress, adjusting them, making sure everything sat just right. Then I pulled on my thigh-high stockings, letting my fingers ghost over the knife strapped to my leg. The blade lay cold against my skin, hidden beneath lace.

I had done this before, this wasn’t the first time I had dressed this way for a killing job, it should have felt degrading, it would have felt degrading to anyone else.

But my body hadn’t belonged to me in a long time, it was just a thing, a tool to be used.

The moment I had slipped into this dress, I had ceased to exist. He wouldn’t be meeting me tonight, he’d be meeting what he had ordered… a fantasy, an illusion.