Assassination 101: Day 1

“They tried and failed, all of them?”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “They tried and died.”
-Paul Atreides and Gaius Helen Mohiam

(A small piece that I started working on in a writer’s guild meeting. I’ve expanded it a bit, and might continue it down the line.)

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Assassination 101: Day 1

My name is- well no, I can’t tell you my real name. Being an elite assassin carries many wonderful perks which sadly translate well onto the social circle. After all, I can’t just walk into a bar, find a pretty girl, and say “Hi, I’m an assassin!” It tends to be a conversation killer, if not a complete and total room clearer.

A friend of mine, name’s Flonne, tried this technique once on her first assignment. I can mention her name because she did not last very long in the field. She was a promising candidate in the classroom, if not a bit, shall we say breezy. In her haste to look good on her first assignment she overlooked the first rule of being an assassin: silence is everything.

Did I mention a classroom? Oh yes, the path to becoming an assassin is quite long and treacherous. Many prospective candidates endeavor themselves worthy of trying to walk in the shadows, yet very few succeed. If you want to have a remote chance of being an assassin, you have to pass a basic class known as assassination 101.

I remember my first day of Assassination 101 like it was yesterday. The class took place in a packed lecture hall of 200 students. The professor, after quite literally appearing at the podium located in the front center of the room introduced himself as a world-class assassin who would hence be referred to as Professor P.

Professor P surveyed the class with a grim look, his dark brown eyes taking a few seconds to linger on the faces of each and every student in the lecture hall. When our eyes met, I felt myself cringe uncontrollably from my position in the left-central section of the lecture hall. My mouth uttered the slightest, inaudible shout as what felt like an icy dagger pierced into my brain. Eternity passed in a second as I struggled to remain focused. Suddenly the pain went away, and I felt a voice in my head.

“Classroom Name: Nigredo. Specialty: Shadow Puppetry”

As the voice dissipated and I regained control of my senses, I noticed that the professor had already moved on to the back part of the room. With a cautious glance around the room, I noticed a dazed look in the eyes of many, with two students near the front row slumped over on their desks, unmoving.

“Satisfactory,” Professor P said as he finished his examination. “Now, would anyone care to hazard a guess as to the first rule of assassination?”

A hand shot up from the student on my left. The student was a small, eager looking guy that, well describing him is not really that important of a detail. The professor looked at the guy and nodded gravely. That grave nod on the other hand…that would be a very important detail.

“Well, is it-” The guy began to ask.

*Thoosh!*

Before anyone could even blink a throwing star appeared in the forehead of the question asker, directly between his eyes. He slumped over the desk in front of him, quite dead. I nervously shifted myself slightly to the right to avoid the blood quickly pooling on the desk. While I did this, I couldn’t help but note the suddenness of the throwing star. I had been looking at Professor P the entire time, yet I didn’t even see the slightest bit of movement from his arms, which had remained neatly folded on the podium. Oh yes, this guy was good.

“Incorrect,” Professor P said, a slight bit of amusement escaping the edges of his voice. “Would anyone else care to risk a guess?”

Silence filled the room for several long dark seconds before Professor P spoke again.

“Very good class. Silence is the first and most important step to becoming an assassin.”

Professor P glanced at the dead student next to me before continuing.

“Now let’s be perfectly clear. There is no failure in this class. Well, not in the traditional sense anyway. There are no f’s, no e’s, for in this class, failure means death.”

My face concealed a hidden smile as the professor began covering the syllabus for the class. This was going to be a fun semester.