Published: 2025-09-27

I opened my eyes to the blinding light of the sun. The sun rays seeped through the branches of the tree that provided me with its shape. It had happened again. I couldn’t go through it, not once again; it was maddening. Therefore, I grabbed the dagger that rested beside my right hip and drove it through my heart. A smile drew on my face as the warmth of blood bathed my cold chest. Only in death could I be free.

I opened my eyes to the blinding light of the sun…

The irony is that, after killing hundreds of people across the country, I, Maximilian the Great, the greatest assassin to ever live, could not take my own life. Not because I didn’t have the courage or wouldn’t die. I did die that morning on that hill under that tree, but I was forced to come back to the same day I’ve been reliving time and time again. The God of Death has been cheated of his ultimate reward. What an ironic turn of events.

The sun rays seeped through the branches of the tree that provided me with its shape. I got up. I didn’t have time for despair; I renounced being human when I split that man’s head open with a cobblestone and took his wife. One does not forget the first time. At the time, I thought I did it because I was hungry, “I would kill for food.” is what I told myself. In reality, I would kill for the fun of it; I wanted to experience what taking another man’s life felt like. Seeing a man lying on the ground, his body twitching, life fleeting from it, felt like a thousand orgasms. I was only thirteen.

I had been “blessed” with the gift not only of life, but with the gift of eternity. I could burn towns to the ground, massacre entire villages, and conquer whole cities, and I did. I quenched my thirst with the blood of many innocents and built my throne on a pile of their corpses, but that brought me no more joy than stepping over an insignificant cockroach.

I opened my eyes to the blinding light of the sun…

It was all gone. My empire, my throne, my quenched thirst, everything gone. The lives I took away, I could see them. In the town’s merchant, in the women washing clothes in the river, in the children playing in the streets; there they were, laughing at me, making a mockery of my power, thus I killed and killed, and then killed some more. I was even more ruthless than before. I tore children's heads from their little bodies with my own hands and smashed men's faces on the concrete floor while their wives watched. I made the devil fear me, and yet it didn’t satisfy me.

It had happened again…

Eventually, I understood that everybody was in the joke; everybody except me, that was. The town’s merchant, the women washing clothes in the river, the children playing in the streets, they all knew; they knew that no matter what happened today, everything would be the way it always was tomorrow, and the day after, and the one after that.

Maybe I died, that must be it. In that hill, under that tree, someone must have killed me in my sleep, or maybe I died of a heart attack, but I, somehow, must be dead; that’s the only logical explanation.

I killed without remorse and lived the way I wanted. I made my own rules. My father probably wanted me to be like him; I wouldn’t know, I never met him. On second thought, he probably wouldn’t want that; you don’t get a prostitute pregnant and get proud of the offspring. He probably hated me, and that’s why he killed my mother after discovering he had his child. He was a monster, and I am a monster, but we are not alike; we are two different kinds of monsters.

Killing doesn’t make sense anymore. It doesn’t bring me joy, it doesn’t feel like a thousand orgasms. The sun will rise from the East tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. Life doesn’t make sense anymore; death makes even less sense. I’m trapped. Is this hell? Maybe this is hell. Maybe this town, these people, represent the towns I burned down, the people I killed, the women and children that had to suffer because of my actions. Maybe these are the consequences of my acts. This is how it was always supposed to end. But if this is hell, where are the flames and the cries of the damned? Where is the Devil himself? Am I not important enough for him to come shake my hand? Where is the old man and the hooker? This cannot be hell.

Maybe I should resign myself to this. This is what the gods have decided. This is my life. Waking up every morning under the same tree, stealing when I feel hunger— no, I don’t have the strength for that. I just want to be erased, to disappear, to cease to exist. Is the rapture happening any time soon? I surely would be left behind, but maybe then I can do as I please; I could live, I could die.

I stayed under that tree the whole day. There was no point in getting up; tomorrow, I would wake up under it yet again. Maybe that was my fate, to root myself in that hill, like the tree that gave me shade. It protected me from the sun, but I never protected anything, anyone, in my life.

A dog came to me that day. I never stayed on that hill long enough to see it coming. I looked at the animal, and it looked at me.

“I could break your neck and rip your head from your flea-ridden body if I wanted to.” I said.

But there was no fear in the animal’s eyes. It saw me, but not as a monster. I didn’t remember that feeling; it was better than a thousand orgasms.

“Maybe I am exactly where I am supposed to be.” I said.

I opened my eyes to the blinding light of the sun…

THE END.