The door shut behind Ryu with a dull click, muting the world outside.
She stripped the blood-stained jacket, letting it fall across the chair, and pulled out a worn leather-bound diary from her drawer.
Her fingers hesitated over the pen. Even after everything, her hands still shook when she tried to write. Maybe it wasn't fear. Maybe it was memory bleeding into muscle.
She forced the ink onto the page, letters trembling but sharp:
"Another name. Another body. And still I feel nothing I should. Maybe that's the point."
The nib dug too deep, blotting the word point with a dark smear of ink. Her chest tightened. She set the pen down, pressing her palms flat against the desk, trying to steady her breath.
Her mind wandered back, uninvited, to the first weeks. To the gun in her hands that felt heavier than her entire body. To the Captain's voice, hard and unrelenting.
"Again."
The recoil stung her shoulders, her ears ringing with each shot. She wanted to ask why. Why she needed to learn to pull the trigger so cleanly. Why combat mattered. Why her fists had to bruise until the skin split.
But every time the question rose to her lips, the Captain shut her down.
"Keep moving, Ryu. You don't ask why. You just survive."
The memory of the training floor stretched before her sweat, broken breath, the metallic tang of gun oil.
Hours blurred until her body obeyed faster than her thoughts.
Ryu's diary trembled under her hand. Ink smeared where her fingers pressed too hard. She wrote the words, but they blurred, twisting back into her earliest memories.
the endless drills, the bruises that never healed, the Captain's voice hammering commands into her skull.
And then, her mind dragged her further. To the night of her first mission.
At first it was just a memory. Then her chest tightened, sharp and sudden.
Her breath came in too fast, too shallow, as if the air had been sucked out of the room. She pressed her palm against her chest, trying to anchor herself, but the pressure only built like someone had dropped a weight on her chest.
Her vision swam, black spots pricking at the edges. Her hands shook so violently that the pen clattered to the floor.
She clawed at the edge of the desk, nails digging into the wood, as if she could stop herself from floating away.
But her body followed.
The chair tipped, her knees buckling as she crumpled against the cold ground, gasping like she was drowning on dry air.
In her head, everything shouted at once training commands, gunfire, the Captain's sharp "Focus!" but it only made the ringing louder.
Her body curled in on itself, trembling as her throat refusing air.
Panic clawed up her spine, leaving her frozen and on fire all at once.
And just like back then, on that first night, the fear whispered:
You're not ready. You'll never be ready.
Her memory bled into the moment.
The Captain's announcement, the weight of a weapon shoved into her hands, the unspoken truth that survival meant doing the unthinkable.
And through it all, the pounding in her chest, the ragged breaths, Her trembling fingers clawed at the floor, dragging her forward inch by inch.
She forced herself toward the bathroom.
Every movement scraped through her muscles as though her bones had turned to stone. Her breath came in broken sobs she didn't voice.
She reached the tub and clutched its edge with shaking hands, hauling herself up. The mirror caught her for a flash... her face pale, streaked with sweat, her eyes wide and unfocused.
She didn't look like the assassin. She looked like the child again.
Her forehead touched the rim of the bathtub. Then she lowered herself further, plunging her face into the cold water.
The shock snapped against her nerves, numbing the fire in her chest. She gasped when she came back up, only to dip again, as if trying to wash the panic off her skin.
Minutes blurred. The sound of water filled her ears, drowning out the phantom echoes of commands, the ringing gunshots in her head.
Finally, her trembling eased. She slid fully into the tub, letting the water cradle her, clothes and all. Coolness wrapped around her as her body surrendered, muscles unclenching at last.
Her breathing steadied. Her eyelids grew heavy.
And there, with her body half-submerged and her mind quieted by exhaustion, Ryu let herself drift.
Sleep found her in the silence of the water.
The world returned slowly.
The first thing she felt was the stiffness in her limbs, her clothes heavy with cold water clinging to her skin. The second was the ache in her chest, no longer suffocating, just dull and tired.
Her eyes fluttered open. The ceiling above her swam in faint morning light seeping through the blinds.
She was still in the tub, the water gone lukewarm, her hair plastered to her face.
Her hands trembled. She touched her throat instinctively ... it was there, unbruised.
But her mind? Wrecked.
The silence of the room returned, but now it was real. Now, it was safe. Or so it claimed.
For a moment, she didn't move.
Then, with effort, she pushed herself upright, water dripping onto the tiles in steady trails. Her body felt heavier than her own bones.
She staggered to the mirror. Red eyes, water dripping down her face, her skin pale and bloodless.
Not the assassin. Just the child again.
She changed her dress and she dragged herself back to the desk, where the diary still lay open, the last word smeared in ink from where her hand had slipped.
She touched the page lightly, tracing over the blot.
Her breathing steadied. Her eyes narrowed.
And the memory began to pull her under again.
Gun oil. Sweat. The sharp bark of commands.
Her body jerked back into the training room , the smell, the weight of the pistol, the sting of recoil echoing in her bones. The Captain's voice cutting through everything:
"Again. Don't flinch. Don't think. Pull the trigger."
She remembered the bruises, the exhaustion. And then she remembered the day it all shifted to the day the announcement came.
The Captain's voice had carried across the room, deliberate and heavy.
"Your first mission. Tonight, with 2 more rookies, remember... you step into the field. Fail, and you're nothing. Succeed, and you'll finally prove you belong here."
Her stomach had twisted then. Just like it did now.
Ryu clutched the diary tighter now, the page trembling under her hand.
"I thought I'd be ready. But all I carried was the weight of the trigger... long before I ever pulled it.."
The night waited, whether she was ready or not.