Requiem for a Mouse

by Jamie Wang

  “I knew you’d pull this stunt again.” His fingers twitched on the trigger. Just like before, the gun seemed heavier and the trigger harder to pull. Despite the chilling wind, sweat accumulated on his brow.

  “My name is Sasha,” the Mouse responded with a shaky voice. She slowly moved to turn her head toward him.

  “Don’t you move!” Gunther roared.

  The Mouse stopped. Rain beat down on Gunther but he felt none of it. It was all he could do just to breathe correctly. He brought his other hand to the gun to stop it from wobbling.

  “Are you waiting for me to beg?” The Mouse asked. “Because I’m not going to beg.”

  “Mouse, I’m going to kill you.”

  “Like I said, my name’s Sasha. At least have the guts to face me when you shoot.” The Mouse began to turn.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot! Mouse!”

  But the Mouse ignored him. She turned until her ruby eyes looked him straight in the face. “You’re going to shoot me regardless,” she reminded him. “You better hurry, Lion.”

  The word felt like a spear through his stomach. Gunther ripped the mask off his face and held his gun with renewed vigor. “I’m sorry, Mouse.” He couldn’t tell if it were tears or rain in his eye. “This is for my little sister.”

  Pull! His fingers didn’t move. Pull. The gun just quivered in his hand. Pull…

  “Stop.”

  Gunther looked up to see another a tall and lanky silhouette. He rubbed the water from his eyes and saw a Lion’s mask with a red smile. There was no mistaking it, this was the man he had seen last with Shae. The man held a gun in one hand and a twisting knife in the other. Gunther wasn’t sure which he was more scared of.

  “Who are you?” Gunther asked, but he had a pretty good idea.

  “You know who I am,” The Slasher responded. “The real question you should ask is: why am I here?”

  Gunther swallowed. “Why are you here?”

  “For you,” The Slasher answered gleefully. “I can see your hands trembling, you’re not a killer. You look more like the victim.”

  “You don’t know me.” But even as he said the words, the gun twitched in his grip.

  The white mask tilted until The Slasher’s ears nearly touched his shoulder. “I was born a killer, raised by killers and trained to be one. You are not one of us.”

  Gunther pushed his gun into the red-eyed Mouse’s forehead. “Don’t test me.”

  The Slasher looked back calmly. “Would you like a way out?”

  “There are none.”

  The Slasher took a step toward him, his eyes laughing behind his mask. “I can make one.”

  “Stop!” The gun jerked toward The Slasher. It shook with Gunther’s rising breaths.

  “What’s the point of having a gun if you can’t pull the trigger?”

  “Your way out, there’s a catch isn’t there?” asked Gunther.

  The Slasher slapped his mask with the hand that held his knife and bent over laughing. When he calmed down, he looked Gunther straight in the eyes. “Only thieves and gods ask for nothing in return. I want the Mouse. What do you want?”

  “Money, enough to feed my family.”

  “I can give you that.”

  “You don’t even know how much that is?”

  The Slasher tilted his head to his other shoulder. “I’m the Slasher, I don’t care how much it is.”

  Gunther reached into his pocket and fished out a wet letter. He threw it onto the ground by the Slasher’s feet. “I was already promised a lot of money for this girl’s life. Why should I take your deal over mine?”

  The Slasher shrugged. “Because once you’re dead, who will take care of your family?”

  “From where I’m standing, it seems like I’m already dead.”

  The Slasher shook his head, as if disappointed. “My reputation has taken a life of its own. I have never before in my life killed anyone that didn’t deserve it. If there is no victim, then there is no justice. You are yet to be worthy of my justice. But say you were to shoot this Mouse right now…” His sentence ended in a deep growl.

  Gunther’s shoulders ached. He looked back down at the Mouse shivering inside the garbage bin. Her hair matted to her forehead as she hugged herself to keep warm. He hadn’t thought about it before, but the Mouse was about the same age as Lissandra. She could be someone else’s little sister.

  “Okay,” Gunther whispered. He let his tired arms drop.

  “I’ll need an address.” The Slasher said. “Just give me three days to get the money. Until then, I need you to” —he raised his gun and fired.

  SASHA

  Sasha screamed. Her ears rang a high pitch as the gunshot slowly faded. When she had back her hearing, she turned toward The Slasher. “What was that?”

  She peered over the edge of the garbage bin at Gunther. The bullet had hit Gunther’s head, collapsing his nose into his face. Pieces of skin split off into his skull and blood darker than any she’s ever seen poured out.

  “I lied to him.” The Slasher shrugged. “Obviously.”

  “Why’d you have to shoot him? He was leaving!”

  “He shot you.”

  Sasha climbed out of the garbage bin and plopped down by Gunther. She pressed an ear to his chest. Nothing. She could smell his wound, a sickly sour smell that mixed with the rain water to produce a nauseating scent. She pressed her ear harder against his chest.

  “Don’t bother. You can’t save this one Sasha.”

  He’s right.

  She stood up and punched the garbage bin with a hollow thud. “God damn it!”

  “God didn’t do this.”

  “How can you be so calm right now?” Sasha shouted. She crouched down by the corpse once called Gunther. One second he was a human, a brother and son; the next, just a mass of meat.

  The Slasher knelt next to her. “It’s just not that big of a deal. Sasha, we need to—”

  Sasha grabbed Gunther’s gun and pushed it into The Slasher’s red smile. “Not a big deal?”

  The Slasher paused for a second to register what was happening. Then he laughed. “This is what makes you break your code? A Lion?” His shoulders shook with each laugh. He pushed back against the nose of her gun with his mask. “Unbelievable!”

  “I won’t let you take life so casually.” She slipped the gun next to The Slasher’s ear and pulled the trigger.

  The Slasher shrieked and jerked away from the gun. He pressed both hands against his right ear and fell into the water. “You bitch!” he screamed, rolling on the floor shrieking.

  Sasha dropped Gunther’s gun and took off.

  Fuck!

  Nothing had gone right about the drop. The weather. The Lions. The Slasher. It was as if she was fighting some divine being hell-bent on stopping her.

  Sasha ran, but not very fast. The wind pressed against her and the water slowed her steps. When she felt unable to take even another step, she ducked into an alley and collapsed. There, huddled next to the trash, she hugged her knees into her body.

  Because of her, one, maybe two families were destroyed. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen to the kids afterwards. She knew first-hand how this world treated its orphans. Perhaps this was what happened to Prince or Flower, perhaps she was the villain.

  She shook the thoughts out of her head. Guilt was a luxury she couldn’t yet afford. There was plenty of time for that after she saved her family. She turned the corner and kept going. In less than ten minutes, she reached her destination, a clay building with its windows boarded up and paint chipped away.

  I made it.

  For the first time in a long while, she let herself relax.

  An overhanging roof protected her from the rain. The building itself blocked the wind, only letting through a breeze. The street’s slope prevented any flooding, providing what seemed to be the driest street throughout the slums.

  She combed her fingers through her hair, tugging away rough knots. It felt like rope.
Still, she kept at it until her hair fell semi-flat down her back. Good enough.

  She chuckled at herself. It was a stupid sentiment, but she wanted to look good when she finished the drop. With a deep breath, she gave the door three quick knocks.

  Slow and heavy footsteps approached the door. Each step brought a small flutter to Sasha’s heart. Her eyes filled with happy tears. “Hello,” she called out when the footsteps stopped at the door.

  This is where it’ll all be worth it.

  The door opened the slightest bit and a single eye peeked through the crack. “What do you want?” The voice was gruff and harsh, as if accusing her of something.

  Sasha ignored his tone and instead mustered up the biggest smile she could. “It’s Sasha, I’m the Mouse. I’m here with the medicine you requested. Sorry for the delay, I ran into a bit of –”

  “Slide it through.” The man behind the door instructed.

  Sasha nodded and held the Ziploc bag through the crack in the door. A hand snatched the medicine from her hand and the door slammed shut. Its edges scraping her fingers.

  Sasha stood in shock, staring at the chipped paint of a rotting door. The happy tears that once filled her eyes were replaced with the tears she was more accustomed to. She rubbed her eyes dry and sighed a single waning note. And as her sigh died, so did her smile.

  “You’re welcome,” she muttered to nobody and left.

  No.

  Sasha stopped mid-step and spun back in front of the door.

  No fucking way.

  She clenched her fists into wrecking balls and hammered at the door. Each strike shook the door as if it was about to fall from its hinges. It hurt. Though the door was rotting, its frigid wood still felt like stone. Even so, Sasha kept hitting it.

  “What do you want?” the same harsh voice answered. The door opened the slightest bit.

  Sasha was prepared this time. She jammed her foot through the crack and grabbed the edges of the door. “What do I want?” she grunted and fought to pry the door open. “We Mice risk our lives for you. We get beaten and cut for you. We die for you! So don’t you dare close this door on me, not before you look me in the eye and thank us for all that we’ve done!”

  “Stop it!”

  Sasha swung the door open and stumbled inside the house. She stopped herself right before her foot hit a broken needle. The entire place smelled of antiseptic mixed with a human musk. In one corner were two boys asleep, in another was a stained mattress on top of a pile of empty syringes. On the floor right in front of her sat Jake.

  JAKE

  No matter how hard Jake pushed against the door, he felt himself slowly losing ground. “Stop it!” he screamed.

  The door swung open and pushed him to the floor. He hit the floor with the sound of crunching glass. Luckily, nothing cut him. He slipped an unused syringe into his pocket.

  Sunlight streamed through the door, burning his retinas. He held his hands up to shield his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen sunlight. Now that was staring right at it, he didn’t miss it.

  “You?” Sasha screamed at him. “This was all for you?”

  “Fucking Mouse,” Jake grumbled. “What do you want from me?”

  Sasha grabbed his collar and yanked him off the ground. She held his face just inches from her own. In a single step, she hauled him outside into the rain and slammed him against the wall.

  The blow knocked the breath out of Jake. Worse, the scabs on his back scraped against the wood, sparking pain throughout his body. He grit his teeth and his fingers wrapped around his hidden syringe. No way he’d go quietly. But nothing happened.

  The Mouse simply stared him down as rain beat upon them. It was as if she was waiting for something.

  “What?” Jake answered her stare. “Do you want me to promise to be forever grateful, to give up my life as a Hawk? Or would you rather I beg you for those pills? Neither is happening.”

  “No, I want a thank you. I don’t care who you are, if you’re sick, I’ll get you your medicine because I’m a Mouse. But we Mice go through hell to get you these pills. The least you can do is thank us!” Sasha paused. Her next words came in a whisper, “Even if you don’t mean it.”

  Jake stared back at the one Mouse he once wanted to kill. “God, you’re annoying.”

  “Do you think I want to be here right now?” Sasha released her grip on Jake.

  “Nobody’s forcing you to.”

  Sasha shook her head, looking at him as if he was a child. “You don’t get it, Hawk, because you’ve never had family you could call your own. This is a fucked up world where people do fucked up things, but if I can keep that from them, then I’d say I did alright.”

  “So you chose to become a Mouse?”

  “I chose to show them that the world isn’t so bad, despite all the bad in it.” She sighed with a waning grin. “At least that’s what I wanted.”

  It wasn’t the words themselves, but how genuine they sounded that left Jake in awe. One look at the Mouse and he knew she meant every syllable. Jake let go of the syringe in his pocket.

  “Stupid.” Jake muttered through grit teeth. “Beyond stupid. You’re just trying to show them a fantasy world, to trick them into believing in a world that doesn’t exist. The best thing for anyone in this place is to see it for what it truly is.”

  For how loud Jake screamed, when Sasha spoke, he could barely hear her. “Even so,” she said. “I won’t place my bets on such a hopeless world. There’s nothing wrong with betting against the odds. Even if it’s just a pipe dream.”

  “It’s not a bet if you have no chance of winning! That’s what you call suicide!”

  Sasha smacked the wall with her palm, trapping Jake within her arms. Her eyes went wide. “I don’t care if I can only lose! How sad is it that not a single person will hope for a better tomorrow? Even if it makes me a fool, even if isn’t right, I won’t accept it!”

  “Even if you already know the outcome?”

  The Mouse looked down and once again, her voice died. “It’s because I know the outcome that I have to.”

  “You’ll never win. Your fantasy isn’t right!”

  “But it’s not wrong.” She replied in a fading breath and her arms dropped back to her sides.

  “That’s not good enough! It won’t end well and when it does, nobody will be better off,” Jake yelled. “Pretending otherwise is stupid, hoping for more is stupid. This is the place we were born, it’s the fate we were given! How can you go through life knowing that you’ll lose and still wake up every morning?”

  Her eyes glistened. The words came out in barely a whisper. Jake couldn’t even hear most of them, but he could read her lips. “Because my dream’s not wrong.”

  “But—” Jake held his tongue. These were the same beliefs that had been beaten out of him. From the day he was born, he had learned the true nature of this world. Everyone had, except this girl.

  We all used to be like her.

  Jake held up the bag of pills Sasha had given him. He opened his mouth to talk but stumbled over his words. There was a lump in his throat and he found his hands trembling by his sides. It was his turn to stare at the ground.

  “As soon as I get better Mouse, I’m coming for you on your next drop. I won’t show you any mercy.”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t think I’ll hold back either. I’ll kill you if you don’t give me the pills.”

  She nodded again.

  “Fuck.” Jake mumbled. He looked up to see her patiently waiting. Maybe it was that he hadn’t eaten in days, or the aftereffects of the drugs, but Jake couldn’t summon his rage. At last, he gave up. “But until then… thanks.”

  Sasha broke into a small smile. “You’re welcome.”

  BRYCE

  Bryce slowly clapped his hands as he came out of hiding. Every clap sprayed water into the air in a wet smack.

  “Bravo, red-eyed Mouse. You got him to talk! I was starting to think that he never would,�
�� Bryce said.

  Sasha returned Bryce a confused look. Jake, on the other hand, fell to the floor. His face drained of whatever color was left in it as he huddled against the wall.

  Bryce chuckled in response. “I’m sorry, you probably don’t know who I am.”

  “Are you a Hawk? If that’s the case, the drop is over.” Sasha’s hands curled into tiny fists.

  “No.” Bryce shook his head. “Not tonight I’m not.”

  “Then, a Lion?”

  “Sort of, but I would say I’m more of a friend of a friend.” Bryce thrust his hands into his jacket pockets. In one pocket was Jake’s knife, in the other, his gun.

  “Which friend?”

  “I believe he goes by Maverick now, but when I knew him, his name was Vlad.”

  Sasha raised her brow and put one hand on her hip. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time. Who are you exactly?”

  “Like I said, I’m a friend of his from back in the day.”

  Sasha frowned. “He had no friends back then.”

  “Then I suppose, a fan?” Bryce took both his hands out of his jacket, along with the weapons inside. “Back then, they called me Bryce. Unlike him, I kept the name and I’m not pretending to be something I’m not.”

  Sasha’s eyes veered to the gun in his hand. “Nobody’s pretending.”

  “We were born warriors.” Bryce said, increasing in volume with every word. A smile spread across his face. “We were gladiators, killers for sport, the best this city’s ever seen. Do you honestly believe we can just drop it all?”

  “Maybe you can’t, but Mav is stronger than that.”

  Bryce let out a single exaggerated laugh. “Let me tell you something, Mouse, people don’t change. The situations around us change and we act differently because of it, but put us back where we started and we’ll turn right back into the monsters we were born as.”

  “So, what do you want from me?” Sasha asked. “If you’re just here to lecture me, I’ll be leaving.”