WE ARE THE DESPERATE FOOLS: PART 2

There is something very important I want you to keep in mind: I am dead. This is how I died. I will tell you everything I remember from that night. However, I will not describe to you, once again, the violence I was subjected to, and I will not pay any more attention to my killer than it is strictly necessary for you to understand my story.

This is my story.

I had asked him to meet me here tonight, as not to raise any suspicions. Even though, I feared something was wrong; either he had figured it out or he had grown tired of me. After our last meeting, I did not want to come back to him, and I tried, in vain, to explain to the resistance that this target had most likely been compromised.

The mission must be carried forth until its completion, I was told. At that moment, I realized that I was no one. These people – my people – didn’t care about me as an individual. To them I was only bait.

And to him I was only a plaything.

I heard his footsteps. This was highly unusual, as he would never let me sense his coming. Suddenly, his hungry eyes appeared before me, and any lingering hope that I was going to be okay evaporated.

You scared me, I said. He liked that, to be dangerous, it made him feel powerful. He stared at me for a minute and told me he loved me. As he leaned in to try to kiss me, I realized he was already saying goodbye. The fact is: we were only trained on the art of seduction. We were never taught to fight, or to protect ourselves. That was the man’s job. So, I did the only thing I could: I ran.

But it was all a game to him: he was the hunter and I was the rabbit. And as soon as he got bored of playing, he mutilated me and murdered me.

The truth is that since I was a young girl, I had been recruited to this very purpose: to die. Everyone knew this, except me, and all the others like me, which is to say every man knew this. We were the pretty things sent to lure Them in and deliver Them to the men, over and over and over again, until we, eventually, got killed. On the other hand, to him, I was his favorite collection piece and reminder of his power.

Only as I laid there, betrayed by my own kind, destroyed by the one I was trying to destroy, did I realize the world was truly lost. Regardless of which side won, humanity, kindness, even love, had already been extinguished from this world. A long time ago.