NOVEL WEB Chapter 1: Death
"……"In the white ward, the man lying on the bed opened his eyes, revealing a pair of deep black eyes. His dry black hair was scattered on the pillow, his face was visibly weak and haggard, this was a dying man. The tattered black windbreaker and the broken white mask were hanging beside the bed, and a diagnosis sheet was quietly placed on the bedside table on the other side:
No. 13: This individual suffers from hemolytic anemia and severe lack of emotion, the cause is unknown...
There are 13 internal and external injuries, which have not yet healed, 46 hidden injuries, and 17 suspected points of disease... The cardiopulmonary function is abnormally weak, it is speculated that it is due to the great consumption of vitality due to excessive training, the abuse of potential-stimulating drugs, and the trauma and sequelae during the mission...
It is estimated that his physiological activities will last less than 4 days and cannot be treated...
Recommendation: Elimination
……
Rejection: This individual has made great contributions and should fulfill his final duty to allow him to die in a dignified manner, perform euthanasia, and avoid suffering from illness.
The man did not move, his eyes were calm and clear like water, and they were bright and energetic, which did not match his thin face and pale complexion. They were more like the eyes that would appear on a child's face.
He carefully felt the gradually slowing beating of his heart and the stagnation of blood in his veins.
""Is this... the feeling of death?" the man murmured.
Death, for him, who was taken in and trained to be a killer since childhood and walked on the bloody sea for many years, has always been a very close and common thing.
Born with a weak body, he was picked up on a rainy night and barely survived under the care of the organization.
Until he was 7 years old, in the cruel"killer selection" of the organization, relying on his body's survival instinct, he came out of the selection field alive in the hell-like selection as the last and thirteenth place, becoming a killer reserve and was named"No. 13" at the time.
No. 13 has no talent for fighting, but he obeys orders and trains very hard. He completes the instructor's training twice as much with a body that is much weaker than his peers, even if it makes his body more dilapidated.
At the same time, because of his inherent defects in personality and emotions, and his indifference to the outside world, his attention can be completely undisturbed, and his ability to absorb and accept is extremely strong.
After having the ability to learn and make subjective judgments, he constantly absorbs and masters the skills of stealth, assassination, fighting, cold and hot weapons, until no one can touch his back.
In the end, he stood out in the ranking of the killer sequence of the dark side of China at that time and became the number one killer, and He sat firmly on the throne, and within seven years after he won the first place, he looked down upon everyone with a 100% mission completion rate, and no one could shake his position.
At the same time, he was also called"Strange Face" because of the strange smile mask he never took off, his elusive assassination methods and his silent behavior.
Silently recalling his short 17 years of life, No. 13 stared at the white ceiling calmly.
The terrified and resentful faces of the mission targets before their death, and the unwillingness or relief of his companions before their death flashed through his mind one by one.
As a killer who obeyed orders, he could not feel any emotions or thoughts about the deaths of these dead people.
No. 13 calmly thought about the details of every mission in the past, feeling the blood gradually stagnate. His limbs were numb, but he had no fear of death.
Years of endless killing had made him tired. He was confused about the future due to lack of desire. His body function did not support him to continue, and sleepiness kept hitting his brain.
He was tired.
Concentrate your consciousness, meditate silently, and enter the"inner perspective".
This may be his only talent. The strong consciousness beyond common sense can help him enter the two perspectives of"inner vision" and"insight" at his subjective will. The first perspective allows him to observe the situation and injuries inside his body.
This is an ability that is beyond common sense, but in the eyes of No. 13 who lacks communication, it is normal.
"It looks like my body is even worse than the doctor diagnosed, and my body functions can no longer support me to wait for euthanasia. He thought.
"Welcoming death is such a wonderful experience. Is this how those people I killed felt before they died?"
He has been trained since he could remember, and he has missed too much, too many experiences that ordinary people should have. Also because of some defects of his own, No. 13 does not have rich emotions.
He is like a cold machine, constantly repeating the orders from his superiors and the instructions of the mission.
After all, the only meaning of his life is to complete the mission.
While other killers relax, entertain and socialize with others, he closes his heart and devotes himself to countless training, which is also the basis for his great achievements.
However, the lack of emotion and the result of losing the ability to communicate with the surrounding environment gradually shattered and swallowed up his already incomplete heart.
He did not know the reason for this.
Arrived alone and left alone.
Now, he died alone in the pale and cold ward.
People who lack family affection, friendship and love will eventually become zombies in the world, slowly rot, turn into dust and dissipate in this world, leaving no trace under the erosion of time.
From Coming from nothingness and returning to nothingness, the process will be erased and the memory of the journey will no longer exist.
At least for No. 13, he thinks so.
In this way, death is not so irresistible, and for No. 13, a killer who has no worries about life, embracing death is also a good choice. Does he have regrets? Maybe.
But the double burden of physical and mental burden makes him overwhelmed, and the endless training and taking on tasks make his already dying physical condition worse.
Tired, and want to work again, the spirit that has never relaxed in just 17 years finally relaxes at this moment.
When people are idle, they will think about random things and enter a philosophical state. Obviously, No. 13 is no exception.
He began to think about things he had seen and envied before: growing up healthy, living a peaceful life, marrying a wife and having children, and enjoying his old age.
An ordinary life of an ordinary person, perhaps this is the only desire in his heart, right?
"Death might be like breaking out of a cocoon?"He thought about things he had never thought about before.
"Insects dissolve into cell fluid in cocoons and then reconstruct into butterflies. Can they be considered two individuals? Just like human reincarnation?"
After systematically learning a series of knowledge related to survival and tasks, he learned this knowledge.
Obviously, No. 13 believes that people have an afterlife and that after death, the memory of living things will be cleared and reincarnated into the next reincarnation.
"What will happen to me in my next life? I hope I can live a peaceful and ordinary life."For the first time in history, I could hear emotion in No. 13's voice, which was envy... and expectation. For the first time, he had normal thoughts in his heart.
For the first time, the man wanted to see the bright sunshine outside the window, just as bright as the hope he thought of in the future. Unfortunately, he found that he could no longer turn his neck.
He tried to open his eyes, his eyes were as clear as ever, even though he could only see the white ceiling now. He suddenly thought of a target on his previous task list.
It was an old man, who was on the rich list - No. 13 was not sure - and was also going to die of illness.
The son who had not returned for many years and did not know the situation thought that the old man could live for a long time, and he had to wait for an unknown period of time before he could get the property, so he hired No. 13 to create some"small accidents".
The old man had many years of experience, so how could he not know what No. 13, the famous killer, was doing, but he was not panicked. He coughed and asked him to sit down and chat with his dying old man.
No. 13 also judged that he didn't need to do anything himself, the old man would die soon, and there was no need to waste his limited physical strength.
But out of professional principles, he still had to witness the target's death with his own eyes, so he agreed. In order to prevent the old man from killing him, he sat down cautiously, which made the old man laugh and cry. He coughed a few times and almost died early.
He didn't speak a word the whole time, just listened silently. The old man was lonely.
He had a lot of property but lived alone in an empty house. His children were eyeing his inheritance but never came back to visit him.
Now that someone was willing to sit by his side, even if it was just to listen, or even to kill him, the old man didn't feel any fear or disgust. Instead, he smiled and chatted like a chatterbox, just like a youngster. When a person is about to die, his words must be good.
After talking for an unknown amount of time, the old man looked at the bright sunshine and the beautiful world outside the window with a fiery and reluctant look for the last time, and said softly to No. 13:"Death is like this. It's more like the beginning of a greater adventure. I just got there first... That's all."
The old man's eyes dimmed, and he slowly closed his eyes, with the corners of his mouth slightly raised, as if he was sleeping peacefully.
I originally thought that this old man was just a ray of the countless dead souls in my memory, but I didn't expect that I could still remember this sentence clearly.
Perhaps he subconsciously grasped some hope, he himself didn't know
""Great adventure...huh?" The man murmured with a dazed look.
The light of life flickered in his clear eyes and then dimmed. He took a last look at the white ceiling.
The ward returned to silence. In this world, an emotionally flawed soul disappeared.