Heaven Sent

Today was going to be the last day of my life. It had been pre-ordained and decided upon before I was born and there was nothing I could do to change it. So I accepted this and moved on.

I was born into a pretty ordinary family in 1971. My mother didn't work, and my father had many different jobs, always on the road, always working hard. My parents had 3 other kids. My 2 sisters, Rose and Kate, and my twin brother Luke. Luke isn't important to this story and won't be mentioned very often. He is dead. He died when we were 7, hit by a car, nothing anyone could do about it. My parents were devastated of course, it was the main reason they eventually split up. I understood why they did, they blamed each other, and they blamed themselves. I didn't blame anybody. I should tell you a bit about myself shouldn't I?

At the time of writing this, I am 36 years old. I am tall, dark, and ruggedly handsome, or so I am told. I am witty, charming, highly intelligent, and completely fake. I was born completely normally, and I've never been abused or witnessed any kind of terrible event. My parents are my real parents and I wasn't adopted. I don't have the ability to feel for people, I don't feel pain, and I don't care about anybody. I am also quite strong. Very strong. You know how strong superman is? I'm stronger. Seriously. And I have no kryptonite, no weakness. There's no way to physically harm me, you could say I'm not as realistic as superman in that sense. Everybody has their weakness, everybody. Except me. You can't blackmail me, you can't threaten my family and you can't threaten to kill innocents; because I just don't care. Kill them. I'm still going to kill you. But why all this talk of killing all of a sudden? Well that's my job. I kill people. Murder them. Brutally wipe them off the face of this Earth. You could call me a hit-man, assassin, contract killer. I know I'm a murderer, and I'm fine with it. If it makes you feel better about me, you should know I only kill bad people. I'll re-phrase, I only aim to kill bad people. If good people happen to die whilst I'm trying to kill bad people, I'm not going to cry about it. Oh no, you're heartless. Well yes, I am. I've already explained that. Aren't you curious as to why I seem to have super-powers and no soul? I'll explain.

Remember when I said my dead brother wasn't important. He's not, he's dead. But he didn't die alone. I died with him. When he was hit by that car, he died instantly, and I died instantly too. I know now that he was connected to me, and I was connected to him. When we died, we went to meet our maker, you know, up there. Well something apparently went wrong with their system because we were not both meant to die. Just him, not me. And there are rules to the afterlife. They can't wipe your memory, they can't kill you if you're not meant to be dead, and they can't keep you there. They can only send you back. So whilst my brother was dead and done with, I wasn't. I was a problem. And there was a solution of course. They sent me back. They sent me back with strength, invulnerability, charm and all my other assets; but lacking anything resembling a soul. That had been stripped from me and held hostage. It was a wage for a job I had to do. Can you guess the job? I bet you can. The people I murder, the bad people, are on God's hit list. They are contracted out by the big man, and I have to take them out. Sometimes in the most brutal ways imaginable, my boss likes to send messages.

So now you know the back-story, shall we crack on with my impending death, and how it all unravelled? I had just killed four people in a coffee shop. They hadn't been doing anything wrong, just drinking coffee. Unfortunately, they were being used as a shield by my target. He was a big guy. Strong, fast, had a good aim. His bullets bounced off me like raindrops, no effect. I just kept on coming, unstoppable, intimidating. The people in front of him were screaming, what else could they do? One of them was young, blonde and sexy. She was the first to die. I fired twice, the bullets ripping through her flesh, passing in and out of her slender body and burying themselves into my target's shoulder. He reeled backwards, falling into a doorway. An elderly man ran up to me, pleading for me to stop. I looked at his face, the tears dribbling down his chin, his lips quivering with fear. Why? This man had lived a long life. I could tell he was good. I have that ability. If you are a good person, I can tell, if you are a bad person, I can tell. I don't care either way. If you're on my list you're dead, if you're in my way, you're dead. This man was in my way. Bad news for him, or good news; depends how you look at it. You see, I know what lies ahead of him when he dies. He is a good man, he will live again, he will be young again, he will have no worries and no problems, and he will love and be loved. He's one of the lucky ones.

I don't even look at him as I pull the trigger. His face is blown apart in a storm cloud of smoke and blood. There are screams as his brains hit the wall, his lifeless body dropping at my feet. I step over it towards the doorway where my target is stooped. He keeps firing his shotgun, the bullets do nothing. A woman runs towards him, she is also slender and attractive. She is innocent in this. She has done nothing wrong apart from love a monster. She stops in front of him, trying to shield him from me. I LOVE HIM! She screams at me. Louder and louder. I am next to her now, she is beating my chest, pushing and punching, biting me and screaming at me. He makes no attempt to put her out of harm's way. Not that he could. Remember when I said sometimes I had to send messages? This was one of those times. I grabbed the woman by the hair. Ripped her away from the man and held her. Now he is screaming at me, he doesn't fire for fear of hitting her; or out of terror, I don't know. She struggles, screams, and pleads with me. Do you really love him? I ask. Yes she replies. Not anymore.

I pull her hair back tight, exposing her neck. I pull a knife from my belt. She is crying now, asking me why I am doing this. It's not my message, I explain. I raise the knife and slash through her throat. She gurgles; blood spurts out covering my face, covering my targets face. I rip on her hair, yanking her head clean off her shoulders. The body drops to the floor. My target is stunned. He drops the gun in disbelief. I drop his girlfriend's head onto the floor next to her body. There's no need to hold onto it now, she isn't as attractive when she's covered in blood. He backs into the door, stunned. I walk straight up to him. Why he says, God I reply. I thrust my hand forward, right into him. I feel his ribs shatter under my hand. I suddenly get that tingling feeling behind my ears; the innocents are in heaven, happy, loved, and cared for. No memories of this event, away from the evils in this world.

My target reels from the pain of my hand inside him. I reach upwards and feel his heart, beating rapidly in my hands. He is losing a lot of blood and is blacking out; I have to do it quickly. I rip his heart out of his chest; he screams but is still alive. Some divine power is bending the rules a little to enable this message to take place. I hold his face with my other hand and squeeze. His mouth opens and I thrust his heart into it. He wretches but I force him to chew. Blood oozes out of his mouth as he swallows chunks of his own, still gently beating heart. I can see the fear and revulsion in his eyes but I feel nothing for him. He is a bad man. He has murdered innocents, extorted money; he has done the devil's work. This is the price he must pay. After he has swallowed the last of his own heart, his eyes stare straight at me. Still pleading, still. I stare straight back, unfeeling. I raise my arm and strike. Straight through the front if his face, my hand buries itself in brain matter and the man dies. He no longer has a face, he no longer has a heart, and like me, he has no soul. There is a BANG from behind me. I turn. An armed police officer has just shot me in the back of the head. I lift him with one hand and throw him into the wall, his lungs are crushed under the impact. He was a good guy, doing his job. I don't feel guilty; I don't feel anything at all. Like all the innocents, he gets the choice. Heaven or Earth, with no memory of ever dying.

I drop my weapons on the floor and walk over to the counter. The woman behind it looks terrified. Don't worry, I'm dead. I fall to the floor, thud. After every hit, I die. Not the bullet to the head, but God. He kills me, every time. So they can't get to me. Always somebody new.

So far in my life I have died 324 times.

I always look similar, same build, same hair. I work a normal job most of the time too. I have co-workers who for the most part seem to like me, and I have a house and a mortgage, just like everyone else. You might be wondering how I can live a normal life if I die so often. That's what happens when you work for God. The people who need to remember me, remember me. The people who don't; don't. The bodies I leave behind after my death tend to obscure themselves. The face distorts, the fingerprints wear away and the teeth somehow change. No identifying marks. The people I leave alive have no recollection of me at all, and if questioned by anybody, natural or otherwise, they have no information to put forward. It's a good system isn't it? Needless to say, I didn't think of it; that was the man upstairs. I've lost count of how many people I've killed over the years. 324 official hits, sometimes with more than 1 target. And if you count up the people who have gotten in my way I tally it to near 500. But I can't be sure. I'm not proud of this number, this isn't boasting. This is relaying the facts to you so you can understand the kind of person you're dealing with. I'm not evil, as we've discussed. I have no experience of evilness, or kindness so would not know how to be either. I am living a half life, a life without feeling or thought, without fear or love. I am a lingering spirit in the wastelands of eternity and I must carry on with my mission. I don't know why I am unduly punished for a crime I didn't commit, and I don't know when it will end. But when it does end, I will be a whole. I will be a complete person, dead but alive. For the first time I will be truly alive, not a killing machine, but capable of other things. Other thoughts and feelings; experiences that until now have been unavailable to me. I don't want your pity or your kindness, I don't know what to do with futile emotions that people bestow on me. Just be aware that if you are a sinner, and you have fallen out of favour with God, we will meet eventually. And when we do, no amount of prayer can save you and there will be no begging or deals to be made. It will be the end, and believe me, it will not be pleasant.