POV: Miru, the fifth
Date: May 28, 1997
Time: 10:30 PM

Lillin comes home and goes to her bed, where she falls asleep.

And then I get up and head to the door. This is the way things go for us. We live in two different worlds, on two different sides of the day. As I make my way downstairs and out the front of our apartment building, I do notice someone down the street stop from walking away and take interest in my departure. That's not a problem. If some weirdo wants to follow me, they'll only find that I'm going to a club or a bar for some normal drinking and hooking up like any girl would do. Maybe I'll hook up with them.

And if they try to do anything I don't like, I'll just kill them.

I make my way down the street and head towards a more active part of town. Somewhere fun lies ahead, something that will hold my interest for longer than a few seconds. It's hard to find good entertainment without having to resort to nudity, but if it comes to that, I have tits for a reason. If that reason is to be a table for someone to snort something off of, well then that's just fine with me.

After walking past the first couple of places, cause they either don't smell right or I know from experience they don't allow acts of debauchery in their back rooms, I find a club that's just the right balance between pop star and sewer rat. That's me in a nutshell. Raven locks, torn jeans, pale skin, a big mouth and perky breasts showing through my t-shirt. I approach the entrance, and the guy at the door is about to ask my age when I let him have a good view of my eye patch. I'm not getting bounced by this asshole.

Walking past him like I own the fucking place, cause I could very well own it if I wanted, I walk into the club. The music is about as lame as any club, and the people here are doing that party-lite thing where they are kind of dancing, but not committing to it because they don't want to be away from their drinks. So dancing how I want to dance is going to draw way too much attention, but that doesn't mean I can't have fun here. Heading for the bar, I ask the bartender for some water. Because I do like to stay in control of my own body. And also he'll want to know my age if I ask for alcohol, and then it'll be a whole thing and I don't need the stress.

Just on schedule, a dude shows up to my right. I can't really see him well without turning to face him, cause eye patch, so I get to hoping he'll talk and give me an excuse to look at him and silently judge his appearance.

"You look a little disappointed. Were you expecting something a bit more exciting here?"

Now that I can turn and look at him without being the one who started it, I see that there's not some sad sap next to me. This is a real man. Clean-shaven, dark hair just a bit on the shaggy side, a neat business suit without a single wrinkle, and a pair of sunglasses. At night. Sunglasses at night. Yeah, you had me with the rest, man, but that's a weird thing to do. I guess he thinks he's hot stuff. He's not entirely wrong, but if that's the case, he doesn't look like he'd have to resort to picking up the girl with one eye. I suppose it's a good tactic if you're looking for someone with low self esteem, but that is not what I am.

But buddy, the excitement has just arrived. "It could be more lively, but I'm not necessarily looking for the kind of wild you get on the dance floor."

He gives a nod, like that's what he expected to hear. "You know, that's fair, but you don't exactly give off the feel of someone who came here to drink water."

Perceptive. I turn to face him, staring him down. The stare of a person with only one eye is not something to be taken lightly, but this man doesn't seem to be phased at all. I take another drink of water, then confirm his assertion. "If you've got a more fun idea, I'm all ears."

"Well sure." Pushing off of the bar, he steps away and holds out his hand, presumably for me to take. That seems a little old-fashioned. Holding hands? We haven't even fucked yet. Urging me on, though, he says, "I've got something that might be of interest to you."

Oh, well, if you insist. I am interested in things that interest me, after all. "Alright then." I take his hand and let him lead me to a door near the back of the club. He takes me into a small back room and I let the door close behind us. There isn't really anything of interest in here, so he must have everything he needs on him, or it's hidden. "So... what do you have for me?"

The man turns to face me and confidently holds out his hand. Which is stupid, cause I was literally just holding his hand. Now he wants be to take it again? What's going on?

"I want you to come and work for me."

Eh? Really? "You've got to be joking. I don't need a job, bozo."

"I think your head is still stuck in the mundane, my darling. This is not the kind of job just anyone could offer you." He takes off his sunglasses, finally, and I can see his eyes are a startlingly bright yellow. "You'll be helping me protect this world from inhuman evils."

Wow. Just, wow. I'm not impressed at all. Even if he's telling the truth, I have like zero interest. "Forget it. Let the inhuman evils consume the world, I say." That's my honest opinion. A world ruled by inhuman evil sounds way more interesting that what we have, a world ruled by human evils. But, just as I'm turning to leave, he decides it's time to prove something.

"I know about you and your sister, Miru." That does get me to stop before I can open the door. But so what? So he knows my name, and about Lillin. That means nothing. He continues like it does. "I know what the two of you do. I know everything about you. More than that, I know about your eye."

I turn back to him. "You know of my eye. You know nothing about my eye, or me."

"Oh, I know everything." He takes a file out of his suit. Like a manila folder. He flips it open and begins to read. "Miranda Ariel Jackson. Born June fourteenth, nineteen-seventy-eight, in Seattle, Washington. Five feet, seven inches. Currently unemployed."

"So what?" I call him out on his pretend obsession with me. "All of that information is available if you know where to look. All this proves is you're a bit of a creep."

"Oh, but there's more. When you were five, you answered on a paper at school that your favorite pass time was stepping on ants. When you were nine, you found a bird that had hit a window. It was still alive, and you drowned it in a puddle. When you were thirteen, you found the most popular girl in your school and, coming up behind her, you gouged her eyes out with a plastic fork. At fifteen, you learned about the powers held within your eye, and have since killed three people, turning them to nothing but ash. Now, at nineteen, you are playing a cruel mind game with-"

"Shut up!" How dare he... how could he... "Who the fuck do you think you are? Where did you get this information?" I have to kill him. I have to destroy that file. How could he possibly know any of that? How does he know about... how...

He closes the file, with a smug look of satisfaction on his ugly face. "This file will tell me about anyone I want to know about. But you needn't worry. I don't intend to blackmail you, or use this information against you in any way. I only wanted to prove that I am not some snake oil salesman."

It doesn't matter who he is. That doesn't matter anymore. There's only one thing I need from him now. I need him to die. Reaching up, I wrap my fingers around the patch on my eye and tear it away. "Prepare to die, asshole." I can feel the blue fire wreathing my eye already. "You want to be number four? I won't keep you alive against your will."