The End of Vengeance ©️

There is a moment before the kill—quieter than breath, colder than steel—when the assassin becomes no longer a man, but a principle in motion. In that moment, he does not feel rage, nor hatred, nor joy. Only alignment. His soul, his weapon, and the world are briefly calibrated. And into that stillness, he whispers a prayer—not to a god above, but to the hidden order below.

The assassin’s prayer is not a plea. It is not the confession of a sinner or the wailing of the damned. It is a vow. A ritual spoken in the language of shadow, honed through centuries of blood and betrayal. Its words are sacred not because they are holy, but because they are precise. Each line is a lockpick to fate. Each phrase a key to the silence behind all noise.

He begins with recognition—not of a deity, but of the Hidden One, the unnamable presence that exists in the slipstream of power. This force lives not in temples or palaces, but in alleyways, behind curtains, beneath the floorboards of empire. To it, the assassin dedicates his breath, his patience, and his blade. Not for glory, but for balance.

The world lies. It paints tyranny in gilded robes and wraps injustice in ceremony. The assassin does not shout against this. He does not protest. He studies. He watches. And when the lie grows fat and heavy with its own arrogance, he slips in—unseen—and whispers truth into the world with a single, precise gesture.

The prayer demands clarity—not mercy. The assassin seeks not to be spared, but to see. To see the rot behind the crown. The fear behind the cruelty. The trembling foundation behind the towering lies. And when he sees it, he acts—not for vengeance, but for symmetry. His strike is not revenge. It is correction.

If he dies, he asks not to be remembered in song or stone. He only asks to be known as loyal—to the Creed, to the code, to the invisible geometry that holds a corrupt world in check. For he understands what others forget: that nothing is true, and everything is permitted. But permission does not mean chaos. It means responsibility. To choose carefully. To strike with purpose. To disappear without trace.

The assassin’s prayer is not meant to be heard. It is not written in scripture or kept in libraries. It is carried in the blood, passed hand to hand in darkness. It begins before the kill. And if spoken well, it ends with a world slightly more in balance than it was before.

Let the silence begin.

Before the Tide ©️

Fog comes in like a promise. Low and slow, like a ghost with secrets. I open my eyes beneath cedar roots and breathe in the earth like it’s an old lover. Cold. Damp. Sweet with rot.

There are no clocks here. Only tides.

I move quiet.

Bones like smoke. Skin like river light. I’m not a man, but I remember what it felt like to be one. That’s the curse, isn’t it? Memory. That tight little whisper you can’t ever drown.

The water’s warm today. Too warm. The kind of warm that brings hikers. Solitude seekers. Broken-souled wanderers. God, I love ‘em. They taste like hope.

There’s one now—I feel him before I hear him. Heart thudding against rib like a war drum. Young. Lost. His sadness hangs off him like soaked cotton.

I follow.

I do not stalk. I… accompany. He doesn’t know it, but he’s already said yes. Yes to the sound of his brother’s voice, yes to the lie carved from memory. “Help me,” I whisper. It’s soft, cracked, human. Perfect.

He turns.

It’s the eyes. The eyes always do it.

He falls.

The moment breaks like a mirror dropped in wet moss. I kneel beside him, wear his brother’s skin like a borrowed coat, and I look down at him with the kind of love only monsters know.

Not yet. I don’t kill. Not now.

I convert.

My hand on his chest. His breath catches, and the water begins to teach him the first hymn.

He’s going to forget everything. And when he wakes tomorrow, he’ll swim like a ghost and think like a god.

I’ll be there. In the shallows. Smiling.