GHOST OF YOU

05

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Flash back

The bar was only half full of patrons, rugged bearded and shaven men in their uniform. The smell of cigars and alcohol swirling together in the air to mixture a distasteful smell. You could even hear the small chatters the men made.

"Not how I imagined this mission to go." I mumbled to myself, shoving my hands into my oversized camo jacket. I kept my head low as I sat on the stool by the bar. I tapped my fingers on the wooden table to alert the bartender, who had just finished fixing a drink.

"A beer." I ordered the most basic drink.

He squinted his eyes to get a clearer vision of me but with the hood over my head and black face mask, he shrugged it off thinking I was just another male to get drunk over an issue in his life.
A simple reason of my presence being needed here:
Meet with my info holding 'friend'

-

Remembering that scene was like a broken record at this point. The first time I had seen him was almost laughable. The way he made me feel like I was the only one for him, and the stupid way I believed it because I was desperate enough try to find comfort in my everlasting suffering.

"Hey." I saw a hand wave in front of my face that stopped me in my tracks. "You're zoning out again." Leon had pointed out. "If you kept doing this, I'll request that you be removed from this mission." He wore a serious look over his face as he examined my expressions on my face.

I tsked at him, "Leon, I'm fine. I was just remembering...something." I hesitated a bit.
The look on his face seems to show that he believes otherwise in what I had said but doesn't pry further.
As we continued our walk through the woods on the thin trail lines, we encountered several things that continued to take a turn of events. Several villagers had been notified of our presence as they continued to hunt us down. The only positive thing was letting a wolf out of a bear trap the villagers must have set up. It was certainly reassuring it escaped safely into the woods. I just hoped it wouldn't get into more trouble.

I stopped in my tracks as I overheard small banter and voices ahead. I signaled over to Leon, whom had been watching our backs, to hide behind a tree.

"I hear more up ahead." I whispered over to him, as I crouched down behind a tree across from him.
I looked overhead to see the village and its surroundings. The full atmosphere would have caused me to think it was just another town, but it's inhabitants along the way here proved otherwise. The way their movements seemed staggered and their overlooking presence to only walk was unsettling. This whole job was unsettling since the day I've accepted it.

Leon had whipped out a binocular to have a closer look, but the look on his face had told me a million things. An unsettled look adorned his features which made me curious as to what he had seen. Tapping his shoulder, I gestured to the binoculars to have a look myself. He looked hesitant at first but lent me them.

A chill was felt over my spine as I looked. The body of one of the men who had driven us here had been impaled through the chest as he hung above the lit fire. The villagers looked unbothered as they walked around him with chickens just waltzing. Not giving a light of day towards the smell of burning flesh. While I had seen my fair share of torture methods on the job, this had to be joining in with the disturbing list.

"Shit." I whispered. "How the hell are we supposed to get through that?" I lowered down the binoculars and handed it back over to Leon.