Don't I Know You?

He was staring again. He didn't mean to, but he was. He couldn't help it. The girl had the most striking red eyes, and they made him think of... something. Something on the tip of his tongue. Of course, he didn't have a tip of his tongue. Not anymore. Not since she'd done him the courtesy of removing it for him. Not the red-eyed girl. Someone else. Someone ... He didn't like to think about that. It was unproductive, it was, and there was nothing worse than being unproductive.

After all, he loved Goshi.

His name was Old One-Eye. Well, that wasn't really his name. It was the name they had given him after she...

*FLASH*

Glint of metal descending. Sharp, sharp, sharp pain. A woman's cool, professional, detached voice. The feeling of something sharp digging around IN HIS EYE. Wet. Blood. Goop. Eye-goop. Hello, eye-goop. Aren't you supposed to be in an eyeball?

*FLASH*

Well, never mind how he got his name. He smiled a faint, grimy-toothed smile as she looked at him. She was hard to spot, she was, moved like a big cat. Like a Jevuum, maybe, except without the ears or fangs. Red eyes. White hair. Pale skin. What did that remind him of?

Well, no matter. Off she went, scaling the wall of That Building. That Building. The place where They kept their things. The Biomade Oversight Council, yes, that was They. He didn't say anything as she climbed up it as easily as walking down a quiet avenue. Nobody else noticed, but it was hard to get anything past Old One-Eye. It had been even harder, once, back before She'd taken his other one. Back when he'd been a special operative for the Biomade Oversight Committee.

That took him back it did. The kinds of thoughts that brought with it were downright painful. She'd taught him not to think them, with her knives and instruments and her red-hot psychic pokers and her drugs.

He missed the drugs.

Still, he soldiered on despite the pain. He thought back to his... his investigation into Typhon's death. He knew they'd kill him for what he knew, one day, but he didn't care. He welcomed it. It made him feel good, knowing that somewhere out there, an assassin was waiting for him. That someday, he would turn a corner and walk into the open arms of death.

Maybe it was her. The red-eyed girl.
Now what did that remind him of?

... Oh yeah. Typhon.
"Did you know that Katashi Blade ordered Typhon's death?" he asked the dark alleyway.
Neither the alleyway he called home, nor the stray dog, nor the bits of trash that lined the sides of the alleyway gave him any answer.

He cackled. "True, sir, true."

The dog disagreed.

"Now, now, no need to get all angry about it," he said, glaring at the barking canine. "It was a long time ago. Nobody cares about that anymore. Except me. Me. Me. me. me. Hehehehehehehe."

There she was again, scaling the walls the other way, leaving the compound. He wondered why she would go back in there. He'd seen her come out of there once before, but she'd been pretty badly injured then, and she'd not come back out carrying anything.

She dropped into the alleyway, glanced about, and set about walking towards the street.

"Spare a minute for a miserable old man, dear?" he asked as civilized-like as he could manage. The pain in his head was a piercing thing now, and he could feel a faint hysterical giggle rising up in his throat.

The girl's eyes narrowed, and as she turned to face him, Old One-Eye felt sure than this was the one who had been fortold. The one who was here to take him up into her gentle embrace and guide him to the death that Goshi had so kindly promised him after ... after... She had been...

Red eyes.
Now what did that remind him of?

Now the red eyes were full of sadness, and he felt a faint tingling. The kind of tingling you feel when someone's poking around in your head. Well, not that most people felt it. He did. Now. Kind of tickled. Kind of giggled. Kind of wiggled. Wiggled. Miggled. Miggled? That wasn't a word. He wiped the smile off his face and tried to look sober.

It wasn't hard. Drink gave him nightmares lately, it seemed.

"I'm sorry, old man," she said. Those words sounded strange when she said them. As if she was mimicking the sounds without knowing the meaning.

His awareness snapped back into the here and now, and he looked at her. Looked at her closely. She seemed... familiar, somehow. Had they met before? "... Hey, don't I know you?" he asked.

She nodded. "We met. Once. When I brought you in."

Red eyes watching impassively. Glint of metal moving towards his eye. Pain.
Red eyes watching impassively. Eye-goo. Teenaged girl with red eyes sticking her finger in the remains of his eye and then licking it.

Red eyes.

"YOU!" he hissed. "You... you shouldn't have done that. Wasn't proper. Wasn't nice. Leave a man's ruptured eyeball to his own devices, you should! ... What did it taste like?"

"Blood," she said, her voice low. "Blood and extinguished sight. Your agony. Your terror. It was..." She shuddered. "You know that I can't leave any witnesses here, don't you old man?"

He nodded happily. "So it is you after all. I hoped it was. You kept me waiting an awful long time, you did. Your Mama Pain promised that someone would be along a lot sooner than this."

She looked at him pityingly. He didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit. Still, if pity was the price he had to pay for the death he'd dreaded/longed for, then that was OK with him. Yes indeed.

...

"I can't..." she said, and he didn't think anything of it, but stood there, waiting.
Waiting.

Waiting...
...

...

He opened his eye. She was gone.

"HEY! GET BACK HERE!" he bellowed. "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO..." he trailed off.

What had he been thinking about?
Oh yeah, the girl with red eyes. He'd seen her out and about, he had. His memory wasn't as good as it used to be, before She'd done Her work, but he hadn't forgotten the red eyes.

...
Now what did that remind him of?

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