Wanting. It was wanting that he knew would eventually kill him, not the man himself, no, oh no, it was the wanting. Never mind that the man in question wanted him hunted down, tortured and killed simply for daring to be born into the line that he was, for being what he was, this man thought that was cause enough for death. No, that wasn't what threatened him, what threatened him was the wanting.

He could remember, clearly as it had been only the day before, when it had been more than ten years, to his memory. Told from day one who he was, what he was, and that this man, only a boy then, not more than thirteen, had to die before the man, the boy, got to him first. He knew from the time he was old enough to know that this was what he had to do. So he trained He trained and he practiced and he spied and he mapped out a road he could run away from, young and impetuous and bold he thought what he was doing he was meant to do, the only thing he could do. He had never seen this boy before, he knew nothing about this boy and he was more than convinced that he had to kill him. Later, he would refer to it as brainwashing, but that was years and years away and he just wanted to impress these people who had brought him up to believe this was what he needed and what was best.

So he snuck out. He knew that if he told them what he was doing, he could go with their full blessing, but he wanted to surprise them, make them happy. They were never happy with him. It was all that he asked for, but it was also the only thing he never got. The night was cold, and his old faded black denim jacket wouldn't keep the air away from his skinny arms. Planning got the fifteen year old nowhere, he hadn't thought about the night cold, out in the mountains where each clan, of sorts, secluded themselves, he didn't know at the time this wasn't exactly within the boundaries of the law. He thought this was what happened, how everyone grew up, he had never known anything else. He could deal with the cold, put his hands over his arms, and tried to get there fast as he could, not even thinking, knowing that he could be warmer there. Their home was miles away, but he could make the run, pushing himself, in half an hour. By the time he got there it would be full dark. They wouldn't see him sneaking in, or so he figured. The way it played out in his head it was perfect. He was the conquering hero, he earned the love and respect of those he considered then to be family, and the heathens that wanted them dead, were, themselves, six feet under.

It was around then he realized that very little was going to go right in his life. He made it into the enemy compound, sure, it was dark and quiet and he could see no one around. So he looked for a way in. He would find this boy, and he would kill him. He would be the hero, the one who defeated that which was evil, for he could not possibly be evil himself. No, no, of course not, he didn't know any better so of course he could never be evil. Students training in the compound found him, locked him away in an underground dungeon. Imprisoned like that, he wondered what he had done wrong. In his mind it was a turn of bad fate, not any fault of his. Replayed in his head he had done nothing wrong. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty, he knew now that he was stupid for even trying. But mulling over the last half an hour in his mind, sitting in a dungeon cell at idealistic fifteen, he would have his sweet revenge. A way out, pride, love, something good, for once, in his short life. He hummed a song to himself, sang, tapped his faded broken converse on the stone floor, blinked out the single square window looking out to the sky.

A slamming door broke him from his sick conquering fantasies. A bulk large man guiding a child, no more than thirteen, the boy he was told to destroy. To the wide eyed innocent that the child was, he knew what he must look like, faded patched denim jacket, loose jeans, his converse were at least three years old, he must look terrible. A punk, a disgrace, humiliated by the childlike beauty that stood in front of him. A lab monster, display, hideous and shamed. He looked what he was, though he didn't know it at the time, a demon. The child's face was lit with fear. He had been told that this creature in the cages was what he had to kill. The man left, abandoned the child with this creature, told to kill, and alone. He stared at the child, the light shone on him, and only him, and made the child, though only, at most, three years younger than him, still very much a child, made him look angelic with the light against him, shining on his face. This was the child he had come here to take out of this world.

He couldn't do it anymore. He just wanted out, forget this angel child, erase this memory so that he could go after him again, forget that he was tiny and scared and alone, abandoned with his orders and this creature that watched him so intently. He tried to put himself in the child's shoes, and felt only fear.

"I-I'm supposed to kill you." The child stammered.

"I know." He mumbled.

"They said you came here to kill me."

"I did."

"Why?"

"I was told to."

"Did they tell you why?"

"Because you were going to kill me."

"That's what they told me."

"No reason?"

The child shook his head. "No reason. Just that you were going to kill me if I didn't kill you first."

"Exactly what they said to me."

"Why do they want us dead?"

"Like I know." He sighed, looked at the ceiling, out the window, anywhere but at the child. He was, yes, not more than three years younger than he was, but he was a child. Naïve, didn't question what he had been told, and here he was, realizing that this was a human being he had been told to kill. If he looked too hard, he could see the child's thoughts, his fear, that painful realization, something he had always known, that these were real people, and he had to choose if he wanted his family's pride more than he was afraid to kill. The same thoughts were running through the child's head at this precise moment. He wondered if he had looked like this when he had dealt with the same things.

Why he dwelt on that moment, that exact moment, the moonlight and the fear, was beyond him, but he could see if perfectly in his mind, blown far too beautiful and out of proportion the innocence, not knowing what he wanted. He knew what he wanted now.

And it was the one thing he could never have.