Teetering near the edge
He sits in darkness, the house quiet, the children asleep, drinking light beer and smoking weed, attempting to retain his sanity and not fall apart. He realizes that his mind has entered a deep state and fears that maybe the last year has compromised his sanity.
Burying his Father and friends and so much else so quickly, in addition to the horrors that mankind practiced on each other daily. Just thinking of the abuse and neglect, the trauma, beatings, killings, even bullying. Anything practiced against another in order to limit their freedoms and/or cause them pain, physical or otherwise when undeserved.
It's enough to make him sick to his stomach. He tries to think of creative ways to exercise punishment for these crimes, an eye for an eye he thinks to himself. Only that's not enough.
These stray thoughts pass through his mind in an instant, he washes away the sour taste with the rest of his beer and another pull from his pipe. As the smoke fills his lungs and the air around him he continues to circle back to them, he relishes the idea of being the one to exercise that judgment, if only he could know who was the true guilty party.
He realizes that all of his thoughts have been genuine and his sanity is pretty much fucked at this point.
The problem is that its not always easy to find someone who is actually innocent and that he could care less about his sanity. It would probably help his sanity to let some of his wrath out and something has to be done, or so he reasons.
With that he begins to think about how to best begin/continue in his most precious and noble of missions, violence begets violence and of course the wicked must be punished. Why stop now, when he's already gotten such a good start.
He stands up and the darkness fades, a man and woman in their mid 30's collapse onto the floor, pale as a ghost and drenched in a cold sweat, eyes wide and staring at nothing.
"Tiberius!", the man calls out sharply and a very large wolf quickly appears.
"I'm going to awaken them, they are not allowed to leave here alive.", the wolf growls in response. Satisfied, he turns away and advances toward the woman lifting her off the ground by her long dark hair and slamming her against the drywall as the wolf moves to block the doorway.
"Wake up filth!", he says as he throws her on the ground while turning and kicking the man in the ribs hard enough to break a few. They begin to stir and look up to see their attacker and panic, eyes moving to the doorway and seeing the giant wolf baring his teeth in a savage but quiet growl. They begin to yell,
"Get out of our home you bast-".
"Silence!" the man hisses with a savage glare that forces them to comply immediately, "You have already traumatized your children enough and I am here to conduct your trial. My name is Sean Thomas but to most people I'm known as The Dark Eye. You have both been found guilty of repeated child abuse and neglect, how do you plea?"
Sean is around 6 feet tall, well built but obviously too thin, grey eyes and a gaunt face. His hair and short beard is dark brown but graying and kept short and neat. His visible skin weathered from years of exposure, his age hard to determine. His grey eyes are surrounded by huge dark circles and the skin on his face is tight around his bones giving him a slightly emaciated appearance.
While he stares at the couple his eyes begin to turn black and seem to devour the light from the room and their eyes, his stare is devoid of any form of mercy.
Another glare and they both fell to their knees,
"please, this isn't a real trial, you must be some kind of criminal and there will be consequences." the woman says.
"Yeah! We have rights, this is a free country." the man follows her lead.
Sean stares at them, eyes becoming like black holes boring straight into their souls until they comply,
"We plead not guilty, we have never been found guilty in a court of law."
"Confess!" Sean says with force while still staring into their souls. They feel compelled to confess their crimes against their own children, the years of abuse and malnutrition, turning their kids into their play things, their punching bags. Shouting at them, belittling them, breaking them down into husks with their abuse and neglect, all because they can't handle their individuality. Breaking their spirits to make them more docile and easier to ignore or order around.
"I have heard enough! I find you both guilty, the sentence is death, to be carried out immediately. More wicked to be cleansed!" Sean says feverishly. He begins to strangle each with only 1 hand, they offer no resistance, he is still glaring at them with his dark eye making all resistance futile.
As their lives slowly fade away Sean can feel some measure of peace entering his body and comforting his psych, it's more euphoric then the weed and beer was. He turns to look at the wolf,
"It's just as I remember Tiberius, this feeling, its... intoxicating." Sean's voice came out more relaxed than before, almost peaceful. The wolf responded with a quiet bark followed by a short whine and sniffing towards the hallway.
"Don't worry boy, they are alright now. I've already alerted the agency of our success, someone will be along shortly to take care of everything else. The children will most likely be adopted out through the agency, after some time to adjust to their new truth." A satisfied whine is the only response he receives.
He turns around to stare out the window, lost in thought until the quiet of the night streets is interrupted by a grey van pulling up. Its a very large design with tinted windows, two women and a man exit the vehicle wearing warm colors and walk towards the front door of the home and let themselves in.
They walk into the living room and look around, eyes slightly narrowing seeing the dead couple as they turn to look at Sean.
"Well it looks like you've done it again here Sean, eyes wide and staring like usual. I've never known how you manage to destroy a mind the way you do and I never want to find out. I do love your results though." Said the only man in the group, a tall burly man with a
"used to be buff" look and a beer belly.
He had short dark hair and a dark five o'clock shadow and dark circles under his eyes proving he has trouble sleeping, he looked to be in his mid-40's.
The women nodded and shivered in agreement, looking at the body imprint on the wall with some long dark hair still stuck in it.
"That's good Harrison, I only perform this work because our ideals and goals align, for now. And the agency allows me to do things my way, as long as I deliver results and has never asked me to do anything I would consider dishonorable."
Sean sished slightly, inhaled and continued.
"There are three children asleep in the back of the house, I gave them a sedative so they shouldn't wake up during transit. They have been through a lot, two girls and a boy ages 4, 6 and 10 respectively. They will need time to heal and learn how to live with their trauma now that their abusers are gone."
"Don't worry Sean, we have seen worse cases and we will give them everything they need. It breaks my heart to see this as a mother." one of the women said to him.
A late thirties brunette with dark eyes and full lips, she was very well built with meat on her bones in the right places to give her a stunning figure.
"Thanks Louise, that's all I ask. I'll leave them in your care now." Sean turns to walk away without another word.
"Wait! Darkeye, I mean Mr. Thomas, please wait I beg your pardon." The other woman had followed him towards the door.
"My name is Katelyn and I'm a big fan of your work Sir." She said while blushing and staring at her feet. A pretty blonde in her mid twenties, not quite as endowed as Louise but naturally prettier and with blue eyes.
Sean stops and turns around, taking in everything with a quick look.
"Okay Katelyn, please just call me Sean, Mr. Thomas was my father and Darkeye is only a whispered rumor. What can I do for you? You seem a little young for this line of work, what are you doing here?"
Katelyn takes a deep breathe and visibly tries to collect herself,
"I could never call you by your first name, you will always be Darkeye or Mr. Thomas to me sir." She sighed and smiled slightly,
"I have always wanted to meet you again and when I learned that you were the agent on the job I begged Louise to allow me to come along. You see sir, Mr. Darkeye, fifteen years ago you saved me and a couple dozen other children from a sweatshop not far from here. And while everyone else was able to compartmentalize their trauma and move past it, healing and not allowing that past to poison their future. I was older than most of the other kids there and had been there longer, I couldn't move past it, so Louise took me in and raised me in the agency." She looked at Louise and Harrison and smiled.
"I know you killed every single person involved and went to great lengths to track them all down and exact retribution. I want to thank you sir, you saved my life and made me realize that not all people are terrible, just most of them. Thank you Darkeye!" Katelyn threw her arms around him and hugged him, her eyes full of tears.
"Do you still have Tiberius?" she asked hopefully.
Almost as if in response he walks out of the shadows, causing Louise and Harrison to jump in fear and Katelyn to jump in joy and change the recipient of her hug. The wolf licked her face and sniffed and sat still while she held onto him and cried.
Looking at the scene made Sean remember the night and the girl well, a sweat shop is a loose term and not the one he would have used to describe what he destroyed that night. It was more like a prison camp for children, working them until they collapsed and replacing them as soon as they did. That's why most of the children had healed from their traumas, most of them hadn't been there very long.
But Katelyn had been there a few years, she hadn't worked the mines, she had been the managers slave girl and toy. She had been subjected to horrors no child should ever witness let alone have practiced upon them. He remembered the young girl in makeup, holding onto Tiberius for dear life and staring at the world with dead eyes.
He had tortured the plant manager to death in the next room only to learn that she had opened a window to watch. Tiberius didn't have the heart to pull her away, it was the only thing that put any life into her eyes.
She had witnessed his dark eye ravaging the plant manager's soul, heard him scream and beg for mercy. Usually Sean would only use internal mind torture but the girl's battered state had been more than he could bear.
"Young flower, I'm so glad to see you with some life in you, I'm sorry I didn't recognize you child. You have grown up. And yes, I did kill them all, I also killed everyone who was involved, their associates and anyone who knew anything about it. I'm glad you found a home with the agency but remember that they don't own you. Good luck in your future child, Louise can give you my contact info so that if you ever need me I can help you. Louise?"
Both Louise and Harrison were still shocked by the sight of the wolf, they had never seen it before, they were more shocked with how casually the young girl had wrapped her arms around it.
I've worked with him for 20 years and I never seen that wolf once, apparently he's had it for at least 15 they both thought to themselves.
"Louise? Harrison? Don't worry, Tiberius won't hurt you, just don't try to pet him." Sean said.
"Yes of course Sean, I'll forward her your information. Sorry, the shock of seeing such a large wolf appear seemingly out of nowhere got the better of me." She pinched her nose slightly before continuing.
"No one at the agency has ever mentioned it before. Also. Speaking of the agency, you have payments for the last 3 jobs and this one waiting for you there. Maybe you could stop in sometime for that?"
As Louise and Harrison regained command of their own facilities Sean slipped away while Tiberius carefully extricated himself from Katelyn's embrace and they both disappeared into the night.