Life with the Assassins
Prologue
Everything was messed up. Everything right in front of my eyes were glowing white and pulsing. My ears were bombarded by noises, echoed off from all direction, even the smallest sound of breathing was deafening. I walked around without knowing where I was walking into since everything was very bright and noisy. As I walked, I noticed everything was blurry as I moved across, but I didn't mind about that since I have other issues to deal with.
I walked for almost few minutes and the noises were getting stronger by the passing second. I was forced to cover up my ears and lower my hood to block off the noise and brightness. It didn't help much to loosen the tension, but at least part of my brain could focus on the situation in hand instead processing the same input from the sensors. As I walked, I noticed a big man with a butcher knife, standing in front of an old two story wooden building. In the blur, I saw him talking someone inside before he walked toward me, his big body plus a sharp bodily odour from his shoulders struck my nose. I walked away immediately, but he seemed to follow me. I walked faster, trying to ditch the man with the knife, but he just followed me.
My head started to ache as I walked, like something was sucking my life force away. The noise was getting louder, despite of that, I continued. By the time I walked past a fountain, the deafening voice was replaced by a loud humming sound, and then everything turned into darkness.
"That boy is a criminale." The man with the butcher knife said to his colleague behind him, hidden from view from the crowd.
"Criminale? Are you serious? What did he do?" His colleague protested.
"Chiudere! I will show you that boy with that strange outfit is a criminale. I will show you!"
His colleague appeared in the darkness of the building. He looked left and right for anyone who might be listening to their conversation. After checking, he whispered, "If you irrational act caused another death, then I won't help you this time since I already helped you enough, signore."
The man grunted then followed the boy in the strange blue outfit.
I felt a powerful surge of coldness hit my face. I screamed in the sudden numbness on my face. I flung open my eyes: everything was a black blur with some multicolour patches. I let my hand wonder behind my back and felt something soft, wet and straw-like…wait? Straw? I was lying on top of a pile of wet straw! My sensors got back almost in an instant and I jumped off from the straw pile. Then a hand stopped me.
It was the hand of a young man. He wore an old 15 century robe with strange looking pants, something that I would only find in a museum or in an exhibit. His hair was blond and long which curls up a bit at the edge. His hat resembled a French artist would wear. He set the bucket aside and looked around. Then he whispered, "Le mie scuse of pouring water on you, but you must leave here once and for all signore. I know you are innocent but my stupid 'cacciatore' always ignoring my orders.
I still didn't trust him since he was a part of this. I crossed my arms and glared at him, "Why should I trust you?"
"Signore, if you don't escape…"
He placed his index finger a few inches off his neck and made an gesture that resembled beheading. I got the idea very clearly—they want to kill me.
"What should I do?" I asked, with fear in my tone.
"You should get upstairs and right in front of you is the main door outside, but be careful, my stupid 'cacciatore' is up there sleeping and he is a light sleeper. One slight move can set him off and you will…well you know what will happen right?"
I tried to get away from the scene after I thanked the young man, but I slipped on the wet floor and ended up a nasty fall headfirst and a wooden water barrel fell onto my legs. The numbness of my head was replaced with a sharp pain radiating all over my body like ripples.
I let out a loud groan.
"What's going here?" A man in rusty old clothes came rushing out from the kitchen with a butcher knife on his right hand. The young man watched and yelled at me to run. I let out a loud yelp before charging out from the room, with the man with the butcher knife chasing me behind. I knocked over things tried to stop him down, but it seemed futile as he was able to dodge the falling objects as if he already knew what I was going to do. I encountered open window which was no much bigger than my wrist at the end of the corridor. Oh my!
You must clear over this, like you always do to small windows! I commanded myself as I did all these parkour moves for years. As the scream from the man increases, I started panicked and as I started to imagine I being caught again by the man and being chopped into pieces and dumped into the nearest alleyway filled with hungry, blood thirsty dogs. As the scream drew closer, I bent my legs and dived into the window, clear over the frame just a few inches to spare. However, my nightmare was far from over because behind that window, was a river.
Oh crap! More water!
I closed my eyes and let the river took over me. I felt the rush of air moving across my body and my face. It was like the sound of death ringing in my ears. Then I hit something, but it wasn't something wet or liquid, it was solid and dry, followed by pain in my face and the rest of my body. Then, I saw a pair of feet then legs then a body. It was a man! A oarsman to be exact, he looked very astonished after he felt a sudden bump on his gondola and the next thing he knew was a teenager in a blue hooded outfit.
He offered me a hand and said, "You must be lost young man."
I grabbed his hand and he lifted myself off the gondola and set me in a sitting position. Then he turned his back and started paddling through the waterways in Florence. I looked around the river and saw the old masonry and wooden structures. All of them were generic and the same as if they were pre-fabricated or some sort. So, this is how Renaissance Italy looks like. I wondered as I recalled my previous history lesson before graduating. As I looked around, I started to notice the iridescent from the water, the shiny white reflection from the sunlight was delightful to everybody's eyes, but not mine. I started to felt a sudden urge of nausea running in my stomach when I realized the fact that I was surrounded by a body of water, in fact I never fond of being in or near water, I always had that dark memory of near-drowning replaying in my brain again and again when I saw anything that involved getting into water.
I gripped the edge of the gondola until the oarsman turned his back and looked at me. He raised an eyebrow, "Singore, what's the matter?"
I tried to calm myself down and loosening my grip at on the edge of the gondola, I replied, "Nothing—"I tried my best not to look at the surrounding water, but I couldn't help it. Then, I noticed a dock at my left with people waiting for a gondola ride. I tugged the oarsman to make him stop at the dock. As soon the gondola had docked, I leaped out from the gondola and tried to escape the painful sight of the river before I was tugged back by the oarsman.
"Pagare, singore." He ordered.
I had nothing to give to the oarsman, the only thing I had was my golden wrist chain on my left wrist. I took it off and showed it to him, "Is this enough?"
He gazed at the golden wrist chain and accepted it. He thanked me and returned to the gondola to transport people to other parts of Florence. I returned my gaze and saw the city of Florence looming in front of my eyes. I started to get worry on how to return to 21st century. I left the dock and blended into the pedestrians in the foreign city in a foreign time.
