"MONSTERS."
An Overwatch drabble featuring Sombra.

Rated M for violence and language.
Her carefree attitude towards killing people has to come from somewhere, right?

Blood spattered against the wall and pooled together on the floor, drained of color by flashes of artillery light as Sombra gunned down the last of the agents in the hallway. Alarms began to pierce the air with their overwhelming blare as security managed to manually override the female's malware, but as she stepped over bullet-ridden bodies she reached out to the red-speckled wall, dragging her sharp cybernetic fingertips along its surface. Within seconds the sirens cut out - permanently this time as she sent a wave of viruses to overtake all manual-input security measures.

Resting her gun up against her shoulder, she stood before the door at the end of the massacre of a hallway, glancing down to the pin-code lock. Hovering her free hand over it, the LED screen suddenly glowed purple and rapidly scrolling numbers revealed the pin one digit at a time until the full password had been found. A soft click proved its success and Sombra turned the handle before shoving the door open and casually strolling inside to face a terrified CEO cowering behind his desk.

"P-Please, don't shoot me! What do you want? I'll give you whatever you're after!"

The female rolled her eyes with a scoff. "Aye, have some dignity man, don't be such a little pendejo~ Besides..." Her free hand came to rest at her hip, her fingers playfully drumming against her clothes as she lowered her gun with a shrug. "I'm not here for money. I'm here to kill you, so there's no other way this is going to end."

The older male's eyes widened, sweat dripping down his temple. "Wh-What?! No no no no, surely... S-Surely there's something I can do for you! I... I run this company! I can get you anything!"

"See, that's exactly the kind of attitude that got you into this mess~" With another scoff, she began slowly pacing around the room. "I mean, isn't that what you did for the city officials when they came in and threatened to shut you down?"

"What... What are you talking about?!"

"Ugh, don't waste your breath denying it, I've got all the emails. Anyways~ you told them you'd cut whatever programs they wanted, in order to keep you running. Right?"

"I. . . how did you-"

"-so you cut the programs that made them look bad. The programs that gave aid to those who desperately needed it, those who live out on the streets, in poverty, because of the new government. And helping those people? Well, it made other people want to help, and it made other people feel bad. It made other people care about the poor and the homeless and the orphaned. And... if people started to care..."

"Please... Please just tell me what you want! I'll do anything!"

She stopped and turned to face him. "¿Me estás escuchando? Fine, it's no use anyways. I don't like talking to brick walls." Her lips spread into a rather grim smirk as she held out her gun, holding it steady as she took aim. "So I'm done here. Adios."

"W-W-Wait, wait! Please! How can... How can you kill people like this?! So carelessly?! Please, I know- I know a lot of people got screwed over, people who really needed our help, but- but how can you- Please don't do this!"

Her eyes focused and narrowed as she lined up her sights. "How can I kill without remorse?" That question seemed peculiar to her. It wasn't anything that struck a nerve, or made her think on it, but perhaps subconsciously it stirred up a few memories of her past. Memories that had been stored away for a long time.

Wide, sapphire eyes gazed on in pure fear as two men, whose faces were painted with glow-in-the-dark skulls and other colorful markings, strong-armed a businessman to his knees before her.

"Okay, ¿ya estas listo Sombra?" A third man asked as he shoved a glock into the trembling eight-year-old girl's hands. "Don't you waste my bullets. Use one, make it count."

"I... I-I can't..." She murmured, her voice shaking as tears swelled in her eyes, her gaze flicking back and forth from the Los Muertos boys to the man cowering in front of her, struggling to plead for his life behind a thick strip of duct tape.

"You can, and you will. You wanted to join, right? Be one of us? Then you gotta step the fuck up and earn your spot, chica. You do as we tell you. That's how you survive. That's why you're here- to survive."

"But... I-I..." Her eyes fixated on the man, who had also begun to cry, watching as he shook his head, tugged and wriggled his arms against the duct tape restraining his wrists, his cheeks puffing as he tried to yell and cry out underneath the tape sealing his lips.

"You ready for a life lesson, then? Time to grow the fuck up, Sombra. Did anyone ever tell you monsters weren't real? Because that's a damn lie. Monsters are real, they just don't hide in closets and under beds. They hide out in the open, with human faces."

She couldn't peel her sights away from the man as he sobbed and weakly struggled, watching as helplessness slowly overcame him, as he gradually realized there was no alternate ending for him - that this was where his story would end. She could see it in his eyes, that he knew there was no walking out of this old abandoned warehouse for him.

"They look like us, Sombra. They talk and act like us, to trick us into thinking they're people, too. But they aren't. They're monsters and they hurt us, and if we find one it's up to us to put them down before they hurt anyone else."

"I-I... I can't... Doesn't he have a fami-"

"No no no, don't you start with that. This man here? He signed a bill last week that gave all the housing on 13th over to some big company to tear down and build a new tower. Screwed all those people out of the only affordable place to live, so that he could make more money-"

"B-But-"

"-and you wanna know something else he did? He's the one who fucking sold out your parents, Sombra."

"...w-what?" Her pounding heart suddenly skipped a beat at the mention of her parents, who had been slaughtered by Omnics only a few months prior.

"Yeaaaaaah, how does that make you feel? When they came to take over his shit, he begged them to target someone else. Begged them to spare him and his family, to find another neighborhood to attack. Made a deal with them and used his money to screw a lot more people over... including your parents."

Her chest pounded and she felt like she couldn't breathe, like her lungs clenched up and she had to gasp and force air down into her scrawny, shaking body.

"So you put a bullet in his fucking skull."

Tears streamed down her face and she'd never felt so trapped. She had no choice. She had to do what she was told. The man who cowered before her... he wasn't human. He couldn't be. Not when she would have to kill him. No, she couldn't kill another person, but a monster on the other hand...

"You put it right in his skull, Sombra."

Tiny arms shook as they struggled to hold up the gun, heavy enough as it was, the barrel wobbling around as she pointed it at the man only a few feet in front of her. She clenched her teeth and forced her eyes open even though she wanted to close them, close them and run away. But there was no running away. There was no other ending.

"And don't you dare feel bad about it."

Little fingers moved over the trigger as she drew in breath, her lungs rapidly pumping air in and out as she sobbed.

The loud bang of the gunshot echoed throughout the building.

Following the bang was a loud thud as the CEO dropped to the floor, several bullet holes across his chest and neck. Sombra took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, lowering her gun as she moved to stand over the body and examine it to make sure the job was completed. His chest wasn't moving with breath, and the only movements he did make were erratic twitches as life drained from every muscle.

"How can I kill so carelessly, you ask? It's simple. I don't care about monsters."