The Final

This story contains themes of violence and self harm.

Dane’s chin brushed against his chest as the teacher droned on. It wasn’t just the warmth of the room or the dull voice of Professor Haven. It wasn’t even the evening sun filtering through the windows and gently dispersing across the desks of other dozing students.

It was what the sunlight dispersed through- a thick fog of noxious fumes created by the experiments that the professor kept bubbling on the tables behind him. No two of the bubbling liquids looked exactly alike- there were slimy greens and yellows, dingy blacks and browns, and a few of pale and almost imperceptible colors. Each sat on its own hot plate, releasing the fumes that took Dane’s breath away.

They were poisons. Not to say that they looked like poison or tasted like poison- they were literally poisons. Enough poison to kill the whole world sat steaming not five feet away from the students, and they felt the effects. It was enough to make the strongest man dizzy. The slight, pale youths of the Assassin’s Academy weren’t the strongest men in the world. Not yet.

Dane’s mind drifted, far from the room filled with choking gasses and Professor Haven’s sonorous lecture. It drifted back to his own family’s manor, his father’s knee, and the quiet lecture he’d received.

“Dane, do not forget” it began, “that the Assassins lurk around every corner. Do not forget that our family has powerful enemies. With enough money, any one of them could set a horde of killers on us. Dane, this family believes in doing what’s right. Promise me you won’t let them stop you. What do we do?”

”We do the right thing,” replied eight year old Dane, nodding solemnly. Then he’d run off to play, stabbing a wooden sword around each corner that presented itself.

It hadn’t been a year later that the Assassin’s knife took his father. His mother hadn’t cried at the funeral, he remembered. She’d stared straight ahead with iron in her gaze. Her pale hands had balled up into such tight fists that nails bit and palms bled. She’d taken his shoulders with soft, bloodstained hands and looked into his eyes.

“Dane,” she’d begun, “do not forget anything that your father told you, and know this- one day you will be the most powerful Assassin of them all.”

His head dropped, and shot back up. His eyes were beginning to sting, and he could taste bile in the back of his throat. Blinking away the tears, he focused in on the voice that threatened to lull him to sleep, and heard the words:

“Okay, class! Pop quiz.” It was spoken in sarcastic tones, a mockery of every mundane teacher who’d spoken the words before him. The professor’s sallow skin stretched tight over his skull as he grinned out at them.

“This will, in fact, be your final. Many of you will be graduating next week. Many of you will not. Today begins a series of final tests for admittance into the Society of Assassins.”

He stared out at them, the grin remaining fixed. He was a thin man, his stomach turned by poisons, or so they said. He often tasted his own elixirs, drop by drop, until they had little effect on him at all. This method of slow poisoning had leached every color but yellow out of his skin, turned his nails a sickly blue, and sunken his eyes until he seemed to be staring out from twin caves. He was never a pleasant sight; now, even less so.

“You will drink from a vial of your choice. Then, you will drink one of the antidotes you yourselves have created this semester. Remember- not every antidote works for every poison. Choose wisely.” Dane’s head whipped around to meet Mark’s terrified gaze. He’d never been the best at antidotes.

Mark was Dane’s best friend. They shared a room, and turned their backs to each other while crying, each pretending he hadn’t heard. Mark made notes for him when he was sick. Mark brought him food when he couldn’t face the cafeteria. Mark was going to die.

The knowledge settled in Dane’s stomach like the poison he would soon be drinking. Every antidote he’d ever made had worked, on rats at least, and nearly every one of Mark’s had failed. Together they’d watched rats twist in agony and laughed to think his best friend’s parents had ever thought him suitable for the Society.

Mark went first. Professor Haven knew his students well, knew each flaw and failure, and twisted the knife wherever he could. Dane couldn’t bring himself to look away as the tears began to slip down his friend’s face. He didn’t beg. His hands shook as he unstoppered the vial of pale pink liquid, as he quickly followed it with a brown concoction that everyone knew wouldn’t work. He didn’t beg, but he turned to Dane.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in a voice so stricken Dane could barely hear it, “Tell my family I love them. Goodbye, Dane.” He fell out of his chair, writhing in the same agony he’d put countless rats to, and Dane’s fingernails bit into his palms until they bled. When it came his turn, he could barely hold the vials.

He passed with flying colors.

It wouldn’t be fair to say finals week flew by. Each day, another impossible task awaited them- each day their number dwindled. By the end, only fifteen of their eighty-three man graduating class remained. James, who used to throw his notes at the back of Dane’s head, was impaled. Derek, the class clown, slipped and fell from the rafters. Tommy, quiet and shy, died screaming.

As each boy died, Dane stared the way he had at Mark. Over and over again, his nails dug into his palms until the wounds made it hard to climb or fight, hard to hold a weapon. He did those things anyway.

He kept passing.

He didn’t deserve it. He knew he didn’t deserve it with each slap on the back by his teachers, each nod from the other survivors. He knew it as he stood in the great hall beside all those empty seats and graduated from hell.

Still, they spoke the words. Still, they pressed the Assassin’s dagger into his hands. Every Assassin in the world, though few their numbers might be now, watched as their names were read out. He was even top of his class.

The feast hall was a riot of colors, the mood light and triumphant. Even Dane grinned as his class howled their victory. Finally, he felt like he might just have won.

It was Brandon who slipped from his chair first. Dane saw him fall, though for a moment the others did not. When they did, their shouts were cut short as they each fell in their turn. Every man in the feast hall, every Assassin in the world, fell as one.

Dane rose from his chair. He was still grinning.

Only one other remained. Professor Haven struggled to his feet. Even after a double dose of the same poison that had killed Mark, Haven’s carefully immunized system let his heart beat on. He glared out at the scene.

“What have you done?” He croaked at Dane, who now stood tall in the room full of corpses he had known well. Dane stared back at him.

“The right thing.” He unsheathed his dagger, his final gift from the school that had crafted him in its own image. Haven fell back, fear mingling with the rage on his face. Dane advanced, and took this final life with even less regret than the others. Then he turned and left it all behind. 

There was a car waiting for him outside, his mother at the wheel. Her words after his father’s funeral rang in his ears.

“You will be the most powerful Assassin of them all. You will make them pay.” He opened the car door, and saw inside exactly what he’d asked for in return- a sack of pennies, amounting to 2.73 dollars. One penny for each life he’d taken.

Murder for the sake of revenge was wrong. Assassination was just a profession, and now he really was the most powerful Assassin of them all. He gripped his dagger’s hilt with a palm that now bore scars. His father could rest easy. Mark could rest easy. Perhaps even Dane could.

After all, he’d done the right thing.