It was now 7 p.m. Finally, her shift at Ophelia’s was over. She took off her apron, placed it on a shelf behind the counter, and went out through the back door. The breeze outside made her shiver involuntarily, and she wore the jacket that she had been holding in her hand.

Ophelia’s was the most popular dessert store in the city. The number of applicants increased day by day. She had landed a position at the store thanks to her relationship with both the owner of Ophelia’s and the head of the assassins’ guild. I can’t say that I got this job completely through my own efforts.

Brushing off her thoughts, she started her kilometre-long walk to her house. It was a bit far from the town compared to Ophelia’s. Her house was in the outskirts; near the forest hills. After a few minutes, she reached a small, dark alleyway and immediately stopped. Something was wrong, she couldn’t quite figure out what it was, but rarely was her intuition ever wrong.

A small trail of bloody footprints that led to a dark alley came into view, and soon after, she heard what sounded like a man groaning. Instinctively, her hand reached for the small dagger concealed behind her coat as she continued to walk cautiously towards the sound. The groaning became louder as she got closer.

“Who’s there?” There was no answer, except for the man’s groaning. As she neared the end of the alley, she saw a man lying down. He seemed injured, and the bloody footprints ended there.

Quickly, she hid the dagger she was carrying and started walking slowly towards the injured man. He was bleeding, profusely. His once white shirt was so soaked in blood that it now seemed crimson. He had torn off a piece of the shirt and tied it around his torso to stop the bleeding.

At the sight of the girl, the man tried to move back, without much success. She kept walking slowly, trying not to alarm him, until she reached where he was. He formed a fist, prepared to ward her off, but relaxed his hand soon after he saw that she was unarmed.

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed as she noticed that the bloody footprints were his. “What happened?” she asked while slowly lifting the man, searching for the wound. It was hard to see in the dark alley. I can see he’s bleeding; from his torso, but where is the wound? I can’t see it. She tried touching his torso.

“Don’t touch… Ouch!”

She tried touching it again and the man groaned in pain.

“You are clearly injured, and bleeding. I should take you to a healer.”

Under the dim moonlight, his green eyes, despite his injury, scanned Ahel’s near face like he was worried about something; if it was okay if he followed her.

“No!” The man interjected in-between his groaning “Just… take me somewhere else… they will be back.”

“Who?”

“I… do not have time to explain. They’ll kill us if they find us.”

Finally, she saw it – the injury underneath the blood-soaked clothing. It looked like a deep stab wound. Luckily, whoever did it did not aim for any vital organs.

Ahel had to do something, or the man would die. She had only two options; one was to run away so that whoever was after the man wouldn’t find her and kill her. The other was to help him, probably putting her life at great risk. Oh… I’m probably going to regret this. She thought to herself as she lifted him up and put his arm around her neck. He’s… heavy, she said to herself while trying not to fall, or touch his wound.

“Okay. My house is just up the hills. I’ll take you there.”

Slowly, they started walking uphill towards Ahel’s house, stopping ever so often to look behind and make sure they were not being followed. The sun had completely set by now. The only light source was the faint glow of the moon. The journey was tiresome as she had to carry a man nearly twice her size. It did not look like he was going to make it; he was so weak, and fell a couple of times on the way.

“We’re nearly there; my house is just up the hill.”