It was cruel. He didn’t deny it despite the severe lack of empathy in the man’s heart, eaten from inside as if by an acidic solution. Born within him — consuming.

Maliciously crafting a life that wasn’t his, didn’t belong. Never earned. Never wanted, never yearned for either. Just needed by circumstance, if out plainly. Wouldn’t be his first time having to create a false identity, a marriage based on lies and the fact that he wasn’t really going to linger around for long.

He knew. John knew, of course he did, how could he not? After all, he was the deceiver. Creating the perfect illusion of love when there was none, allowing words to slip by through rotting teeth. Saying ‘I love you’ when there was none to begin with.

It was all an act. A play. Part of the circus show and the shitstorm that was to follow. Usually the identities were based on mutual understanding, though. Perhaps the only part that didn’t settle proper in his gut at first was the fact that he was fooling an innocent civilian.

Starting from scratch. Turning the hourglass upside down. Restart.

Repeat ; Figure out the target’s routine ( favourite places, likes, dislikes, and everything else that didn’t matter ), pretend to be new to town on their first meeting. Get close, a few dates here and there and a while later get married just so the probing doesn’t come off as weird.

As abnormal.

But there was never a need for it when it came to someone who was so clearly gullible and vulnerable.

And it was easy, too. To find vulnerable individuals was no hard feat, but rather an easy one — finding insecurity when there seemed to be none was never an issue for John. And if there wasn’t any, he’d place them in their mind like seeds. Create doubt in themselves.

So unfortunate, though, John thought to himself more than once. They got tangled up in something they weren’t aware of just because they knew the wrong people. What a cruel fate for someone so stupidly clueless and ignorant about the world.

And then came watching his own death from the passenger seat of a car. He’d watched it happen before, it was all part of the carefully cultivated show. When they got what they wanted, the intel to help them progress with the mission, he faked a death.

John watched that day as a soldier knocked on their door, presenting his deepest regrets and a few items of his — all fake. A sacrifice, a passing that was all real to {{user}}. It was a sad sight, truly. Watching the realisation dawn upon those familiar features, the way they almost crumbled underneath it all.

If he could bring himself to care about anything beyond the mission, that is.

He was a man shaped by chaos, the everlasting feeling of dread that came with war — living it. Breathing it, being one with it, walking hand in hand with its destructive existence as though bloodied hands and screams was the only thing he knew.

It was him.

They were innocence in flesh, a deer with a shotgun pointed between its wide eyes and John was the man holding the gun.

——

It was a year later.

A year later when he’d found himself standing at the porch of the house he used to reside in. Build the lies and twisted stories of love that was completely one-sided. Where he’d faked his entire life down to a T.

He was standing at its door like it was just another winter night, the snow softly falling from the sky. It was peaceful.

It felt like it.

John just stood there, never knocked, didn’t move either. Almost as if he was making sure there was no semblance of guilt or attachment to this place. To the person whom it belonged to ( there was no place for something as minuscule as guilt when all of this was for good — to prevent harm to others ).

He’s sacrificed them for the sake of others.