Once upon a time, I was called a murderer.

Now, I'm a hero.

Once upon a time, I'd never fired a weapon.

Now, it pains me to put my rifle down.

Somehow, as freedom becomes a distant memory, and I wonder more and more if the life I once lived was a dream, I'm more myself than I've ever been.

Somehow, when I sight through the scope, and I see the face of some alien bastard, about to get himself perished, there's a moment of beautiful clarity… And part of my life suddenly makes sense. In that beautiful moment that comes with the realization that one is about to play God, revelation is commonplace and no less beautiful for it. Enlightenment comes to us in the strangest of places.

Fii says something over my comms, I barely hear it. I respond out of instinct, as I settle cross-hairs on the eyes of an Elite:

"Target spotted. Sniper One, engaging."

Goodbye, conscious thought.

Hello revelation.

Back home in Concord, Massachusetts, listening to my father screaming the Gospel to me, waiting for the next stinging blow from the belt to rain down on my shoulders. Waiting for him to get tired of using the strap and use the buckle. I remember the taste of hate, bitter in the back of my throat… Hate for God, hate for my father, my mother… and for every brother and sister that stood back and watched in silence, as their big brother took another beating for them, protected them from what they'd never understand… And the taste of fear, sour and hot, that this time, the beatings wouldn't stop… Bang.

We're pinned down on all sides, and we know it. The 94th's job here is to hold position and keep the Covenant at bay, while the citizens of this god forsaken rock are evacuated. That translates loosely to Fii, Jimenez, Rickman and I getting to shoulder the brunt of the work. We're getting more action down here than anyone else.

Secret rendezvous behind Michelle LaForge's house, in her dad's woodshed… Getting high with her, Grace, Todd and Mark, with some of the shit Mark stole from his brother. The taste of hate was there, even then… intermingled with the forced laughter and the taste of the pot smoke… Grace, Todd, Mark, Michelle, and I – misfits who hated each other just a little less than we hated the rest of the world. And so we'd sit there, passing the joint, occasionally a beer stolen from someone's dad's fridge (never mine – alcohol and the Devil went hand in hand) or lifted from a Packie… talking about how we hated this or that, always, always skirting deep, meaningful conversations about ourselves… Pseudo-intellectual wannabes with too much to hide. Bang.

I've often wondered, if all snipers experience this same sort of clarity. Or if I'm the only one.

My first sexual encounter, Michelle and I in the woodshed on a rainy day, stoned out of our minds, fucking like animals on the cold, hard ground. I remember wanting to vomit. The others weren't there that day, all at home out of the rain… but we hated our families so much, Michelle and I, that all we wanted to do was get away. Seemed like a good idea at the time, until we came down and realized we'd fucked without a rubber. Then on to waiting on the edge of our seats to figure out whether or not she'd gotten preggers or not. We got lucky, and we weren't stupid enough to do it again. Bang.

A winter day, hitchhiking our way up to a ski resort. Everybody but me carting their snowboards with them, because my father would have blown an artery if he knew I was out with friends. We're riding in the back of some hillbilly's truck, and it's freezing ass cold, the wind's cutting at our cheeks, making our eyes tear, but we're still talking and laughing and screaming the lyrics to the bad blue grass he's playing in the truck. He's screaming them right along with us, and in that moment,, the world is beautiful. Bang.

Reverie and revelation are always broken by the need to reload.

Drop the magazine, retrieve another. Slot, slam, check, and aim.

It takes a matter of seconds – I've been told I just might hold a record for reload times. Then again, I've also been told that four hundred ranked snipers like me and Fii are flukes and that we're not as special as all that.

One of those is a fallacy – decide for yourself which is the truth.

I'm seventeen, sitting in a piercing parlor, and Grace just finished showing her tits to the guy at the counter to get him to agree to let us all get pierced, no one has to know.

"Mister, our boy Reaper there just got accepted to Harvard, you gotta let us give him something to remember us by!"

Michelle and Mark are all over each other, and when it comes down to the wire, he pussies out because she does. That leaves me, Todd, and Grace.

Grace gets her naval pierced. Todd gets his ear.

I go in for the lip. Off centered to the left – plain as day. I'll be eighteen in three days, and in a month, I'll be gone, out of this shit town forever.

I learned to appreciate pain, that day. Bang.

Fii and I switch positions. We know damn well we can't stay stationary too long. I hear him reminding Jimenez and Rickman to do the same. That's why Fii's my Sniper 2. My brother from another mother (and another father, as the saying goes) always knows what I'm about to say.

I shift on my perch and squint past dirty glass…

The last beating my father ever gave me, the night I left home. The night I ran like a coward to Boston, and never looked back.

The first time I ever hit back.

Standing over him, the man who dominated my life, staring at the bead of bright red welling up over his pale, thin lower lip – I think I felt the eyes of God on me for the first time in my life, and they marked me for damnation.

And I reveled in it. Bang.

Aim. Fire. Aim, fire. Aim. Fire. Reload.

Seconds blur into minutes blur into hours blur into eternity, until there's nothing left but me, my targets, the report and the memories. Boston, College, Dormitories, Roommates…

"God, you're beautiful…"

My first sexual encounter with a man. His name was Jayson Ford, and he was enrolled in the Medical College, same as me. He always sat near me, in our classes, stared at me like he was trying to bore holes in the back of my head, like an animal hungry for flesh. In the libraries, in cafes and cafeterias, he always watched… It took him a year and a half, before it seemed like he finally got up the courage to talk to me, go out to dinner with me, go out for drinks with me… Ask me to come back to his dorm with him…

It was too easy for him, I suppose. I made it too easy, to slip whatever it was that he gave me into the drinks.

"Yeah… you like that!"

He certainly did more than watching that night.

We fucked in his dorm, while his roommate was at a late class. I remember biting the pillow, clenching the sheets, as skin thrust against skin, sweat intermingled with mine…

"Oh God, I'm gonna-" Bang.

I gave him a cheap fuck.

He gave me weeks of self-loathing.

Somehow, I think I ended up on the better end of that trade. Last time I saw him, was after the 'incident', after I'd transferred to Criminal Justice. And those eyes were still as hungry as ever. They were hungry up until I tore him apart, and then there was nothing left behind them. Empty orbs and a panic-stricken expression, frozen for all eternity.

"Pl-Please!"

Skin slick with sweat of a different kind, crimson painting my fingers… Limbs and flesh twitching madly under every touch, every caress…

He was a worthless piece of shit, Jayson. He used people without any care for how much he hurt them… so long as he could get off, and so long as he left them sufficiently humiliated, he'd never get caught and he'd never stop.

So, I taught the rutting dog how to heel. Bang.

"REAPER!"

Cayde's voice, loud and clear, and for an instant, true clarity, an understanding of all things, flashes before my eyes…

Before it shatters into thousands of pieces, staggering me, leaving me as lost as I was when it all began.

"C-Copy!"

"Git yer ass movin'! We's getting pulled off-planet!"

Dart back from the window sill and double-time it out of what may have once been an apartment.

Jump over the railing, and down a flight of stairs.

"Repent your sins, or God will cast you down into the fiery pits!"

Running alongside the last stragglers, the last survivors of this hell-hole, civilian and soldier alike, no one cares who falls or who gets left behind.

"Damien, if you got me preggers what the fuck are we gonna do!?"

Adrenaline runs thick, slams against the base of your skull, when you hear plasma hissing all around you.

"Now and then there's a fool such as I am over you!
You taught me how to love and now you say that we are through!
I'm a fool but I love you dear until the end of time!
Now and then there's a fool such as I!"

"Hey, you kids is pretty damn good!"

Fii reaches out to me, when I'm nearing the evac points – the Pelicans are already getting ready for dust off. A civilian crosses my path, and I slam into them headlong, both of us go sprawling head over heels.

"Just relax. Clamp's the worst part kid. Quick pierce and it's all through."

"SPOOKY! MOVE YOUR ASS!"

Stumble to my feet and get moving, forget about the poor sod who tripped me up. He's still lying there, screaming at me to help him, as I run past.

Sucks to be you, pal.

I'm not dying here.

"Where are you runnin to, boy!? You face me, you hear!? DAMIEN!"

Fii's hand closes about my arm, and he pulls me close, hauling me up on board the Pelican just as it's about to lift off.

"You're so fuckin' easy…"

Rickman sights through his rifle, and gives the poor sod on the ground the most merciful death anyone ever could. It's better than what the Covenant would give him.

"W-WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME!?"

Would that we all would have such a painless end.