Hard Man

He pulled the hood off the victim, and froze.

I instantly knew something was wrong. I'd seen this man do this exact sequence with dozens of victims. He'd threatened little old ladies, he'd cut the cheek of a six year old, he'd pulled a tooth of a pregnant woman begging for her life.

Hell, he'd done this to his literal own mother!

So either he was getting soft, which for a man like this wasn't possible, or he'd just fallen in love.

In either case, I couldn't risk anything, so I shot them both and closed down the operation immediately.

Blipped Out

I could tell you how the world ends, but you don't want to know.

Seriously, I'm sure you think you do, especially if not everyone knows it. The old glowing moon idea, if you knew we were all dying at a certain point, you can spend all your money and go out happy.

But it isn't going to work like that. There's no build up, no change to change or prevent it. We are a blip in the normal operation of a universe, and eventually we will be blipped out.

When?

Oh fine, if you must know. It'll happen in-

My Driver

I couldn't have done this without her.

She was the one who pulled me up out of the rut I was in, who saved me from remaining in the never ending cycle of laziness I was stuck in.

She was the one to keep driving me onwards and upwards, to not accept me stalling out, never letting me stop.

She was the one who, when I faced the biggest challenge of my life, wouldn't accept me backing down, and insisted I go through with it.

I couldn't have done this without her.

And that's why I hate her stinking guts.

Lurkers

So I saw something about how as a creator of art, or at the least content, which is a spectrum most everything on the internet lives on, that I shouldn't be discouraged about responses, or lack thereof, to my work, because you never know how many silent fans you have.

Thing is, while I agree that it's a lovely sentiment that some need to hear, it's not true, at least for me.

I can access all the statistics of readership I could ever want, so I know exactly how popular, or unpopular, I am.

But thank you, in any case.

Unhook

He was floating down the river in a small row boat, lying down with a hat over his face, and seemed genuinely annoyed when I called out to him.

"What do you want?"

"Caught anything?"

"Son, this isn't a trip about catching anything, this is about relaxing away from my harpy of a wife!"

"Oh, does she know you-"

"I buy fish on my way home to cook for her, now leave me alone!"

I left him alone, never saw him again. Although I wonder how it went down if she found out the river's fish were declared toxic later.

A Champion

When the call went out for a representative of the planet, there were millions of volunteers.

Thus, they were disqualified immediately.

Then there were all the people who didn't care if they were chosen as the representative, those who would do it but weren't going to stick their hand up.

They were also disqualified.

So there was all the people who'd refuse, because they were sure they couldn't do it.

After removing those with an actual good reason, I had a pool to select from, of those who I could claim were worthy with a straight face.

Couldn't risk winning.

Lessons

I learnt many things under his tutelage.

Obviously the basics on how to use weapons, how to care for them, and most importantly how to recognise problems before they happened in the middle of combat.

Several different styles of combat, but more importantly how to fight against dozens more. You don't really need to know how to fight Crane Style, just how to beat someone using it.

But most of all, he taught me that most people aren't really people. They think they are, but really they're just tools, to be used in various ways.

Like, say, continuing your teachings.