It was freezing cold, sitting in the blind as he was, nearly freezing his balls off, but the moment was at hand. He had adjusted his sights long ago, planning the spot where it would take place. And now, this was the time, and this was the place. His training wasn’t even a thought; he took a quick breath, and let it out slowly, before he pulled the trigger.

It hadn’t started out like this, this action, this scenario, this plan.

To be completely honest, it had started out so much worse.
He’d graduated high school, and felt the calling to serve his country. And he’d found that he was good at a particular set of skills, that the government had helped to hone. He’d put those skills to use many times in the supposed service of his country, reaching out from two hundred, four hundred, sometimes eighteen hundred meters away, and snuffing out the life of a lieutenant or general of some tyrannical group or faction. But he’d come to discover that he’d come to like it just a little bit too much, that killing, that sense of taking a life in righteous justice, and he knew that while he wasn’t a killer in the sense that he enjoyed killing for the sake of killing, it wouldn’t take too much to cross the line, to start being able to justify killing for the sake of killing by telling himself how righteous his actions were. Nearly twenty years, most of it in the doing, the last half dozen or so in the instructing, and he decided that it was time to retire.

And he’d thought he’d manage to leave that part of him behind, as he rejoined civilization, and met someone; they married, and lived for quite some number of years happily together before a drunk driver and a very slick road of ice had taken her from him, leaving him approaching the end of his middle ages with little left of the world for him beyond the day-to-day.

A little ray of sunshine had seemingly come into his world not too long after that, when a little girl toddled across the neighbor’s yard one day, and came up onto his porch. He’d inquired about mommy, and discovered that mommy was asleep. He’d entertained the young girl for about thirty minutes before mommy had come rushing out of the house, frantic for her child. He’d returned the little girl, but that was only the first time that she’d come to visit him.

The months passed, and the little girl had become something like a good friend, always coming by at least once a week to chatter with him, and he came to dote on her like the grandchild he’d never had. More time passed, and she reported that mommy had a new boyfriend, and then later, that she had a new daddy. Her daddy seemed like a distant sort, but the little girl didn’t seem too terribly affected by the addition to her family, and besides, it wasn’t his business, not really.

But he paid attention. Instincts—for lack of a better word—that he’d developed—or perhaps the justifications he’d come to take to heart—regarding who wasn’t quite right, and who ‘needed killin’ seem to stand up the hairs on the back of his neck. But there was no real reason for it, not that he could prove, and so he simply paid attention.

As the little girl grew, her family dynamic changed yet again, as another young man—well, younger than himself, and perhaps only a couple of years younger than her “new” daddy—came into the picture. He seemed to be the doting sort, and was often found in the company of the little girl, absent the times she came to visit with him. That one set off a slightly higher alert within him, but still he had nothing concrete to go upon, and so he still watched.

Through it all, he told the little girl stories, fanciful stories at first, and then as she grew a bit older, he told her stories about what he used to do for the government, for the military. He kept his stories appropriate for her age, but he didn’t otherwise sugar-coat his memories all that much, and she seemed amazed at his service for making the world save from the monsters who would prey upon those not strong enough to fight them themselves.

And then came the day that forever changed the both of them.

She had come to him that day, talking obliquely—or as obliquely as a seven year old could—about her “Unca Rick”. She’d mentioned a few times here and there that she didn’t really like Unca Rick, and she’d told of his insistence that she be always clean and bathed, and that she eat her vegetables and listen to all adults, and how he liked to take pictures of her and so she couldn’t mess up her clothes playing around outside like she wanted to. On this occasion, she simply expressed that she didn’t like him anymore, and wished that he would leave. Then she’d asked him to tell her a story—which he obliged her on. And at the end of the story was when the world had grown so cold.