Nidus

Rain is falling with buckets from the sky and beating down on the concrete street. Not a sole dares to set a foot outside of their homes as thunder rumples loudly in the grey sky. Only a lone figure is making his way through the heavy rain. His breath comes out ragged, little clouds dissolving into the air.

He comes to a halt in front of a crooked house. It’s small with a dim light flickering behind the windows. The man takes a crumbled piece of paper out of his pocket and stares at it for a while. “This must be it,” he mutters to himself. His voice sounds hoarse, like he hasn’t used it in years. “Bastards sending me out. What is even going to be the difference?”

He puts the piece of paper back into his pocket and takes a deep breath. A hand appears from under his sleeve, old and worn, and knocks on the wooden door. He’s surprised it doesn’t crumble under his touch.

It takes a while but after a few moments a young lady opens the door. She can’t be much older than twenty-five, but the lines of stress and exhaustion written in her face make her look at least ten years older. Her face twists into confusion when she doesn’t recognize the man. “Yes?”

The man doesn’t reply, doesn’t explain anything. He can see the look in her eyes change into panic and she wants to shut the door. But he puts his foot in between, while she still keeps frantically pushing. “Can I come in for a minute?” the man asks.

The lady feverishly shakes her head. “No!” she almost yells it, her voice laced with panic. “I want you to go away. Leave me alone.” She leaves him no other chose. He knows he is way stronger than her. It doesn’t take him a lot of force to open the door completely and knock her unconscious with a simple punch of his fist.

He simply steps over her body and closes the door behind him. “Why does this always happen,” he mutters to himself again. “Maybe I should take these anger controlling sessions after all.” He shrugs his shoulders and takes a look around the room.

It’s a tiny room – kitchen and living area in one – where most things are crooked or broken. He feels like anything he touches might fall apart. He can’t believe that people can live in places like these. He doesn’t live in a palace himself, but nothing compares to this.

He shakes his head. This doesn’t have anything to do with his mission. He needs to find the baby. Why this baby? He doesn’t know. What even can a baby do? He doesn’t know, either. He only does what he is ordered to do. No questions asked.

He spots two doors on the other side of the room. He reaches them in two steps and tries to first one. It leads to an even smaller bathroom. It only has a toilet with cracked porcelain and a bucket that functions as a sink.

The man closes the door and tries to second one. The room is dimly light by a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. On the ground is a single mattress, covered by ratty blankets. The room is dead silent except for the soft buzzing coming from the lightbulb and the soft whimpers that are coming from the corner of the room.

The man’s eyes land on a basket with moving blankets in it. He wastes no time and immediately heads over to the baby. It’s awake and looking at him with big eyes. He wonders what goes through the head of a baby like this. Can it even think?

His hands start to tremble a little as he takes a silver knife out his jacket. He takes the baby out of its basket and turns it, its neck facing the man. He places the pointy tip of the knife against the soft flesh and starts cutting. The cries of the baby fill the room and the man tries his hardest to tune out the sounds.

The cries keep echoing through the tiny room, even after the man has put his knife back into his pocket. A small trickle of blood runs down the neck of the baby and he wipes it away with his thumb.

Finally, a small silver chip lays on the palm of his hand. He puts the knife away and clutches the chip in his fist, holding on to it for dear life. When he loses this, he’s dead. This could change their future.