Author's note: Got bored, and decided to write something (rather than doing my science homework). I'm submitting this for CrapPish's contest. Wish me luck.

- Zethos

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I smiled in relief, feeling the pain surge to my brain as the knife slipped from my hands. I collapsed back into my bed, exhausted. It was deafeningly silent out there. I could only hear my own shallow breathing and the chirping of crickets. The village down the road.... I knew it was the fourth. Because then he would come. Again.

Every time it came to the fourth, he took a life. Nobody else knew why he did this; he just suddenly appeared from the blue. They stuck charms, they burnt offerings hoping to appease the rage of the 'ones up there'.

I knew better.

I gripped the chair, standing up. I glanced into the old, cracked mirror my uncle Pat had given to me about two years ago. He had once joked it was a magical mirror he bargained from in the Free Market. Maybe it was. Most people saw a weak, frail teenager with bloodshot eyes. His clothes were torn and patched in many places, the colour running.

But I saw differently.

Was it true that a level forty magician could destroy Dark Knight without magic? It was impossible – it defied theory, theory we learnt from textbooks… Perhaps the so-called grand 'theory' was made-up stories. Could it be? The whole world seemed to be so close, but yet so far. I had moved from the village now to the wilderness, avoiding people. I only came down to get some supplies. Despite how the loneliness killed me, I carried on. This was for the good of everybody. I hoped.

I stumbled to the hall and looked out of the windows, coughing. The door was locked both on the inside and the outside. Maybe it was a nightmare, and Spy was just a creation of my imagination. I hoped it was true, and I would wake up soon. Nobody would have been dead, no funerals would have been held…

Maybe I should not have been so stupid.

That was where it all started - my second-job advancement; a new, untested second job that promised power at no cost. Everyone had shunned it, except me. I made excuses about it, quoting historical examples. I heard nothing from others. I was insistent on joining. Why? Because I had been so stupid, so idiotic to believe such a good thing would be true. Dark Magic, in the end, is still Dark Magic.

And now, I would pay the price for it.

After a while, the members of the new second-job were behaving strangely. The people who lived around them were murdered. After through checking, the government stopped offering this new job. People who were members of this were relocated to desolate regions. They stopped taking action after that. No armies nor war. I still did not know why, and what was happening. Maybe they were fearful of us.

And I'm fearful of myself, too.

We put two-and-two together. However, the uneducated farmers were clueless about this – they thought it meant their Gods were angry, and kept praying to no avail. Month after month, someone would die – Ben, Tom, Harry and Paul. Killed by a mysterious warrior; us. The farmers were helpless to their plight - all they could see is the works we have painted up, joyfully in our unconscious state. We treated this as a chess game, where people were just like wooden pieces.

We had ruined others and our own lives. We had allowed our greed to rule ourselves. Now, happy families had been broken. Children were missing one of their parents. Sorrow and death rampaged. Everyone continued their lives, seemingly normal. Oh, nothing happened, I'm just tired.

But, on the inside, they're cracking up. They don't tell us, of course. They hide it underneath a smiling face. If we did'nt have this special powers, I would not have known. One bit.

After that, the braver of us committed suicide. And then everyone else lived happily ever after. Like a fairy-tale. But for the cowardly, like me, we stayed on. We clung onto life, for we were fearful of death, fearful of the unknown. Day after day we bluff ourselves that it would be over one day. Like in a novel, the author would give us an escape route, the twist, to save our lives. And then he would finish off with that old ending.

Except this was not a story.

CLINK.

I heard chains from outside. Someone was unlocking the locks outside. My vision was turning dark, a lump forming at my throat. Spy loved spilling blood. My heart hurled about wildly. I choked, unable to speak or warn. I gestured my hands wildly – maybe I could save somebody today. I wanted to end this.

NO!

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I rose up from the floor.

"You there? Let me in! I'm the landlord! You owe me four months worth of rent! You better pay me now or I'll kick you out!"

"Coming!" I drew my long blade out from the display case. I glanced into the mirror his uncle Pat had given him. One of the people I had killed for him . The weak, stuttering magician was gone – replaced by a confident, skilled warrior. I flashed a grin. It was time. Nobody would despise him again. They would… fear him, apologise to him for overlording him, treating him like a slave. He should actually thank me. I was doing so much for him.

And I opened the door.