The Pain of Loss was the oldest of the Pit Razor assassins purchased by Miss Planner, a tall young woman with dull brown hair. She was quiet, obedient, and unimaginative, and her psychic powers were a little on the weaker side. But she was still an elite killer who'd survived fourteen years of brutal training in the Razor Academy and graduated with top marks. And now she lived to serve a man named Evan Albright. She couldn't disobey him. Indeed, her very being depended upon his love and adoration. And he did love her. He adored every detail about her. He admired her loyalty, her unbreakable will, and the utter faith she placed in his self-proclaimed genius. It was a wonderful, wonderful thing, having a master who would praise her so openly.
Her title, 'Pain of Loss,' was just as abstract and inhuman as any title given to a Pit Razor assassin. She'd been forced to forget her birth name in the early stages of her indoctrination, and this fact drove the young assassin crazy. But she had a new name now, one Evan gave to her. He called her 'Tia,' a short, bright, and charming little nickname that brought a smile to her face every time he said it.
"I am... Tia. Tia."
She didn't tell the other Pit Razors her new name. It was a secret name just for her and Evan, a name he gave her to remind her how special she was. While her brothers and sisters continued to be called dark, symbolic things like Shadow, Burden, Tears, and Struggle, she had a feminine human name. It helped to keep Evan and her separate from them, to give her and him a unique sense of intimacy that no one else shared in the entire Tower.
Evan told Tia hidden truths about the world of finance. The stock market, bonds, mortgages, commodities, inflation, interest rates, tax shelters, futures trading. He set up a small trading account for Tia to manage with his assistance and taught her how to read financial news and analyze investment opportunities. He showed her that his world wasn't a place of savage battles to the death and cruel punishments meted out by pitiless psychic taskmasters. It was a place of possibility, potentiality, opportunity. A vast and boundless field of dreams, where anyone with vision and courage could find unimaginable riches if they put forth just a tiny fraction of their efforts.
In turn, Tia was completely open with Evan about the horrors of the Razor Academy and all the deprivations she endured there. She told him how she was forced to live like an insect, confined to a tiny plastic chamber and surviving on little more than a daily handful of rotten food. How she survived every fiendish game of death, every excruciating challenge, all the way up to and including the ultimate ordeal: the Island of Betrayal. He always listened intently and then, when she was finished, he would hug her and tell her how brave she was, how smart she was, how wonderful it was to have her as a partner and friend.
The other fourteen Pit Razor assassins, ten young men and a quartet of young women ranging in age from seventeen to twenty-four, also loved their new masters with all their hearts. But what they had wasn't the same as what Tia and Evan had. They kept their secrets close to their hearts and maintained a professional distance from their assigned Chosen Ones, even though they craved life-affirming attention, praise, and adoration every waking moment of their miserable existences. They contented themselves with the occasional 'good job' and 'thank you,' because their true, passionate desire to love and be loved wasn't strong enough to force them to go beyond the boundaries set forth by Miss Planner. They were too damaged, too warped, too tormented to withstand the intense pain of rejection if they tried and failed.
"Chris is going crazy. He spends most of his time talking to Wiseman now..."
"What did Eliza do today?"
"We visited the Pit Kings. She wanted to negotiate a deal, but they politely declined. We went out for dinner after that. How's David? He looked a little down this morning."
"His daughter's been very disrespectful lately..."
The seven young assassins laid in a big heap on their double bed, recounting the day's events while holding back the searing agony inside their hollow heads, as always, in darkness. The pitiful sound of their voices echoed through the apartment, the crawling noise of an infernal wind, driving away the pain of the long and empty days ahead. They craved solace in the warmth of flesh on bare skin, the primal comfort of closeness and touch. It didn't matter who it was; just so long as they were near.
Tension and exhaustion crept over the group as each one recounted the most mundane and unimportant things in a roundabout attempt to alleviate their growing dread. Sleep was fast approaching, and soon they'd be left to the mercy of their nightmares once again, trapped and tortured in the Cage of Fear, the Maze of Death, the all-consuming abyss of hopeless despair.
