If I had to describe my life in one word, that word would be: ohmygodwhatdidIdoinmlastlifetodeservethis.

 

Yes, I think that word sums it up perfectly. Such elegance with words is simply unheard of.

 

Gosh I’m such a genius.

 

William Jiggleshield could never. That is his name right? 

 

Anyways, let me introduce myself and bore you with my backstory . I am, or I guess was, would be more accurate, Joziah Banks. I would love to say I had a normal upbringing , but it was anything but.

 

Being born to an upper middle class family should have made for a peaceful and tranquil life. 

 

But  Reality is often disappointing or something like that.

 

My mother, born with a heart disease died at my birth.  With my terrible luck, I inherited that very disease. My sper- ahem- father blamed me, a newly born baby, for the death of my mother, regardless of his knowledge of her medical history. In his mind, from the moment she died, I was less than garbage.

 

Thus, my life of misery began. Even as an infant, my father had it out for me, keeping me alive only because of the repercussions he would face otherwise.Even so, I recall being on death’s door on numerous occasions. He would choose abusive babysitters. He would put solid foods in the baby formula. Because he couldn’t outright end my existence, he tried to make it as horrible as possible.

 

As I matured to the age for school, my home environment had a profound effect on me. Having felt no love whatsoever, I began to vent my frustrations seeking to get a reaction out of my father. I would play pranks on classmates and staff on a near daily occurrence.Teachers labeled me a troublemaker and made no attempts to connect with me. Great education system, right? Much to my dismay,  my antics prompted my father to ignore my existence entirely.

 

With no reason to stop nor continue, as I got older and older, I would cause more and more trouble. My usual harmless pranks would cause me to get into some physical altercations. Surprisingly, in all my time causing problems, I never lost a single fight. It was almost like I’d been trained in some forms of martial arts or something. Anyways, I’m getting off topic.

 

My life progressed this way for a while, with me constantly getting into problems at school, and not existing at home. While I was definitely a trouble maker, I did quite well in my studies. I often had the top grades of my class. For this very reason, I wasn’t kicked out of school, as my scores would help the prestige of the school system. 

 

One fateful day, in my 7th grade school year, I arrived home after school. Strangely enough, I had been on my best behavior that day, pulling no pranks and diligently doing my class assignments. Of course none of this would matter to my father, who was actually home. Dismissing the unusual occurrence, I entered the house. 

 

As I walked through the door, I noticed several beer bottles scattered across the floor. This in itself, wasn't that surprising, as the man was quite a heavy drinker. What was disturbing me was the fact that he was here, he usually only came home after I was supposed to be asleep, probably to see me as little as possible. Willing myself to continue, I go into the kitchen. 

 

There I see the lunatic himself standing by the fridge glaring at me. In his hand he held the biggest and sharpest knife that we owned. With no warning he lunged at me.

 

“You! You never should have been born!” He bellowed as he slashed at me. “You killed my ticket to an easy life! Her life belonged to me and now she’s dead and it’s all your fault!”

 

“I never asked to be born! You’re the idiot who  forced a baby into a woman with heart problems!” I spat back while dodging his wild swings.

 

My response seems to enrage him even more as he began more emphatically and erratically.

 

Being a malnourished middle school student, I stood at just a hair under 5 feet tall. My father on the other hand, towered over me at 6 foot 5. With the height and reach advantage, it was only a matter of time before he hit me.

 

I dodged and dodged as the crazed man became angrier and angrier.

 

Reaching his absolute limit, he literally jumped at me, scoring a deep gash on the left side of my chest.

 

Being very intoxicated, he stumbled and fell, impaling himself through his heart with the kitchen knife.

 

Somehow, he didn’t die instantly, using his last words to curse me.

 

“Joziah Banks, you will never achieve true happiness for as long as you live.” He wheezed, collapsing and passing away shortly.

 

How ironic, the first and only time he ever said my name, was when he was cursing my very existence.

 

I faintly remember the sound of the siren from a police car as my consciousness faded due to blood loss.

 

I had no family that would take me in.Everyone from my mother’s side were all dead from that vicious heart disease or nowhere to be found. My father’s side branded me a murderer and attempted to get me incarcerated. It would have worked too if the government hadn’t intervened.

 

It seemed that the trouble I had involved myself with did not go unnoticed. They were aware of my unusual fighting abilities, and when I was left with no legal guardian they pounced on the opportunity.

 

I got shipped off to some military base for unruly but gifted children. The formal name was the center of the Corrective and Recreation Agent Program. Conveniently abbreviated to CRAP, a word that describes the facility down to a t.

 

As the name implies, the program seeks to correct and recreate its future members. Very similar to an secret intergalactic  government agency, they remove all records of the child existence and their fingerprints.They attempt to break the minds of the children by treating them as inhumanely as possible. But me living the life I had lived, their methods felt like a Tuesday. After a  couple of ‘sessions’ as they called it, I was deemed fit for recreation. I guess you can’t break someone who’s already broken.

 

Recreation meant taking said broken child and filling them to the brim with skills deemed necessary to be a productive agent. For me, this meant getting lessons to improve my fighting ability, while also training me formally in several forms of martial arts. I also was instructed on the topic of battle tactics.Lessons also included weapons training. Much like the martial arts, I pick up on most weapons quite easily. Before long I was proficient in any from a dagger and katana to a minigun and bazooka.

 

Oddly enough, the classes didn’t stop at simple combat training. Courses included, things like survival classes, botany and culinary arts. Personally  I enjoyed these classes as they made me feel more like a person, rather than a trained attack dog.

 

Anyways, after what I estimated to be a year with no human contact other than the instructors, I met them. Them being my team. My future friends. My comrades in arms. My family. There were seven of us, me being the youngest by two years. Three boys and four girls. Disregarding the age gap, I was selected by the program to be the captain. To my suprise, the others had no objections, rather they looked satisfied?

 

Anyways, I hit it off with the entire team. In no time I could safely say I had 6 close friends. They even introduced me to anime! I’m ashamed to say it but, I developed some weeb tendencies.

 

Of course we weren’t grouped up to be buddy buddy. We had work to do. These assignments as they were called, were special ops missions to aid our country in World War V. They were mainly covert assassinations of figures on the opposing side. Sometimes, they would let us loose on the open battlefield. And man, I can’t even count how many people we slaughtered. Because of our upbringing, we were no longer human, but killing machines.

 

As the war persisted for years, we began to receive more and more difficult missions. Even as proficient as my group was we began taking casualties. One after another, my close friends died on the job. Until it was just me and her. Sariah. 

 

Over the years, I got very close to everyone in my group. To the point where I could comfortably call each of them a member of my family. But one in particular, I got even closer to. That person being Sariah. From an outside perspective, she seemed like a total ice queen. Tall and mature looking both physically and emotionally and drop dead gorgeous. Also being one of the older members of the team, being three years older than me. And for the most part that assessment was correct, she was a beautiful reliable person but her icy stare was a facade. Or at least that’s what I thought.

 

With the war nearing the end, Sariah and I geared up for what was promised to be our last mission. My thoughts were swamped with daydreams of the future we could have together. While I missed my friends that I had lost, the mere growing old with Sariah made my heart flutter. My father’s dying words would haunt me no longer, I would achieve happiness.

 

The mission itself was standard. An assassination on the head tactician of the opposing power.  After years of similar work, even this job was simple. Sneak in, kill the target, sneak out.

 

As we rode the jet back to CRAP headquarters, I started voicing my ideas about our possible life together. Sariah responded dryly to some suggestions and not at all to others.Catching the atmosphere, I stopped speaking.

 

*WHUMP*

 

“Jo-Jo, it’s time for me to be honest. I never liked you. I simply used you as a source of amusement while I was trapped in that crappy place. Now that I’m free, I hope to never see you again.” Sariah declared maliciously.

 

*WHUMP WHUMP*

 

“Oh...okay.” I replied, crestfallen.

 

*WHUMP WHUMP* *WHUMP*

 

What’s that sound?

 

*WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP*

 

Suddenly I felt a pain in my chest, as if someone was stabbing me like one would skew a shish kebab.

 

*WHUMP*

 

I collapsed to the floor, eyes looking up to Sariah, who denied acknowledgment of my entire existence.

 

How pathetic. I survived living with that scumbag and years of warfare, but die to heartbreak.

 

The sounds of my thrashing heart began to soften and my vision began to darken. My consciousness fades away.

 

Suddenly, my ears picked on the most angelic voice I had ever heard.

 

“Oh my, what do we have here?”