The rain drizzles down onto the empty dimly lit streets of Jamestown. The sky overhead was full with black thunderclouds that circled above the quiet houses and acted like they could bring down another round of rain onto the quiet streets. A few hours later the thunderstorm dissipates and moves on to seek havoc on another town. It's well past midnight and all I can hear are crickets chirping and the soft sound of my feet that shuffle across the wet surface of the sidewalk. I pull my black hat off my head for a moment to see which street I was on. Once I figure out my correct bearings I quickly put my hat back on and pull it down over my eyes. I also pull the collar of my raincoat further up my face, to my nose. I did this so then I could keep the myself dry and to keep myself hidden, because I wasn't even supposed to be here. Technically I didn't exist, because I was known by another name, but tonight I am going by a name that's much more secretive. Tonight I go by the name of 'Soul Taker' and you better wish that your name doesn't show up on my to-kill list.

The thunderstorms that have been happening in the past couple days weren't unusual for this time of the summer, but something about the upcoming future felt off and I couldn't quite place my finger on it.

(*)

My name is Dimitri and I have been sent to Jamestown, Nebraska for a specific reason and that is to collect the souls of some corrupt politicians. I'm what you would call a Soul Taker, because I collect the souls of the damned and corrupt mortals. I guess you could say I'm like a Grim Reaper, but I don't collect the souls of the deceased; I only take the souls of the evil doers and those who deserve to die. I'm not your ordinary assassin and I'm not your average person who lives a 'normal' life. I can also tell when somebody is going to die and how they'll die; it's a curse I got when I became a Soul Taker, and those images always haunt my dreams whenever I close my eyes at night.

My ideal mission is to rid this world of the corrupt and evil doers while trying to save those who are innocent, but as you can already guess this mission of mine won't always work out. Innocent people will end up dying in this corrupt world and there is nothing I can do to stop them from dying. That is what happens in a war, innocent people end up dying because of those who try to crush a single rebellion. I work alone without anyone's interference and my number one rule is 'Never let anyone get too close to me.' For if they do, they'll certainly end up dead. It happened before with my best friend William, and he died in a plane crash. Then there's the incident that happened with my twin brother, Maximus, and I haven't seen him for twelve years now. He supposedly died in a house fire but I somehow believed he survived it, so I've looked for him, but have never found any signs of life. So after a few years of searching, I assumed he really was dead.

(*)

I walk down the empty street of Boulevard Avenue looking at every household until I come upon the one I was looking for. I stand outside the house for a few minutes before noticing that only one light was on and that was coming from the left upstairs window. I scoured the grounds outside the house to make sure there wasn't any security devices, and thankfully there wasn't any. I than slowly make my way to the back door and peeked into the home, the room that I saw was dark except for the glow of the moon that shone through the window. I gave the door handle a jiggle to see if it was unlocked, it was, which made me laugh, because who leaves their door unlocked in the dead of night. It was just asking for someone to rob them.

I cautiously make my way into the house, carefully listening for any noise that might alert the owner of my presence. I bring out my handgun and put the silencer on it, then I slowly make my way up the stairs and towards the dimly lit bedroom. I pause outside the door when I heard voices coming from the other side of the door. I lean towards the door to see if I could hear any better, but the voices were in a hushed tone and it was hard to hear anything. I knew I should just walk away and collect the soul at a later time, but a voice within my head told me that I had to collect this soul tonight. It kept telling me that if I walked away tonight, he'd get away. So I made a split second decision to kill the target tonight, so then I strolled right into the room.

Standing inside the room was a young woman and an older man, who was standing next to a window smoking a cigar. The man was wearing a black suit and was holding a brown briefcase in his left hand. He had green eyes and gray hair and he was in mid-sentence when he noticed me standing there in the doorway. I pointed my gun at the man and asked "You're Zeke Woods, right?"

"Yeah, and who the hell are you?" He demanded.

"I'm glad you asked," I said. "I'm a Soul Taker, and I'm here to take your soul. You are one corrupt judge, Mr. Woods. Taking bribes and favors from all sorts of people so they will either get lesser time in jail or they'll just get probation. So that's why you haven't been fired from your position in the courthouse? But do not worry, I'm here to help you and give you your rightful punishment. Because it is your time to go. Here's a question for you, do you fear death Mr. Woods?"

His facial expression was priceless, he was deathly white and was shaking like crazy. He muttered something, which sounded like a quick prayer, then I raised my gun to his head. I glanced over at the woman, who was standing there frozen in place with fear, than I pulled the trigger and seconds later the man fell over dead. It took the woman a moment to come out of shock of what just happened, before she let out a blood curdling scream. I calmly walked over to her and roughly grabbed her right arm, then said "If you don't want to end up like him, then you'll shut the fuck up and you'll never speak a word of this incident to anyone. Because if you do I'll come back and kill you. Do you understand me?"

She nodded her head yes, her blue eyes were as wide as they could go. I snapped my fingers and she passed out, she fell over into my arms and I carefully placed her onto the bed. I knew that when she woke up in a few minutes she wouldn't remember a single thing about what just happened in front of her. After she was taken care of I turned my attention back to Zeke's soul. I stepped over to the gray soul that was hovering over the lifeless body, grabbed it and stabbed it with my golden knife. It shimmered and trembled in my hand before it's energy faded away and it went still in my hand and it's gray glow turned black. Then once I knew it was 'dead' and after making sure it was 'dead', I walked over to the window, opened it then I jumped out and into the dark.

I treaded in the glow of the moonlight, keeping to the shadows until I came upon my next destination. My next victim was the mayor's oldest son, Jonathan Smith, he is supposed to be heading to Washington D.C. this weekend, to become a Supreme Court judge. The thing with him is that he payed his way into that position by bribing the other officials to turn a blind eye on the way he judges. So I decided it was time that Mr. Smith met his maker. So I came here to Jamestown to collect his soul as well. I knew he'd be hanging out at the bar at the edge of town until two in the morning. Then he'd make his way home with a friend of his and they'd take a dirt path through the forest, so that way no one would see him all drunk, and so he wouldn't get pulled over for drunk driving.

After a while of waiting alongside the beaten down dirt road, I saw car lights appear over the hill and rapidly making it's way down the road. I slowly stepped out onto the road and as the car got closer to me it swerved to try and not hit me. The car ran off to the other side of the road and managed to come to a complete stop before falling off the road and down into the river down below. After a few seconds went by, two big drunk men came stumbling out of the vehicle. One of them turned towards me and asked "You trying to get us killed?"

When I didn't respond he marched over to me and grabbed the collar of my coat and put his face inches away from mine and asked "Didn't you hear me dipshit? I asked you a question. So answer me or else I'll put my fist in your face!"

The other guy called out, encouraging the other man, "You show him who's boss, Jonathan. Kick his ass!"

I stared into Jonathan's blood-shot eyes and said "I've finally found you Jonathan Smith. You've been bribing your way to become a Supreme Court Judge. You are a no good mother fucker who needs to get his rightful punishment. Let me ask you this one question Mr. Smith, do you fear death?"

"Wha...Wha...What are you talking about? If you kill me, people will hunt you down. There are people who'll notice that I'm gone. So don't kill me, I'll give you whatever you want. You name it and it'll be yours." He started to plead.

"But people won't come looking for me, they'll all think you died tonight in a car crash. But too bad there's nothing you have that I want." I said, "but hold on just a moment, there is something you can give me..."

"And what's that?" He asked nervously. He was already starting to sweating like crazy and his breathing was getting faster and faster.

"Your soul!" I exclaimed, then I shot him in the head. He fell to the ground and his soul appeared above his body seconds later. I pulled out my golden knife and stabbed the soul right through the middle. Once it was 'dead' I turned my attention to his friend, who was as pale as a ghost. I snapped my fingers and he passed out and collapsed to the ground. After he was unconscious, I picked him up and put him back into driver's seat and then I picked up Jonathan's dead body and put it in the passenger side of the car. Once they were both in the car, I pushed the car off the road and it rolled down the hill until it crashed into the river down below.

Once the car landed into the river, I picked up my stuff then started walking back to town. It was starting to become light out so I checked my watch and it read '6:35am'. I couldn't believe how fast the night went, and I was getting drowsy from staying up all night. I knew I had to find somewhere safe to sleep, so once I got into town, I went to the small motel and rented a room for a couple days.

(*)

As I laid there in the bed, I started to think about my life before I became a Soul Taker. It was about twelve years ago when everything changed for the worse. It all started with the murder of my next door neighbor. I was accused of killing him and went to trial for second degree murder. During the trial, the prosecutor didn't have enough evidence to send me to jail, so I was found not guilty and set free. But the effects of the charges of the murder, were already set in motion. My parents couldn't trust me with anything and truly believed I killed our neighbor, so they disowned me and kicked me out and told me to never speak to them again and told me to never come near them. But the worst part about the whole ordeal, was that my twin brother never spoke to me and turned his back on me and refused to help me when I needed his help the most.

So after a six months of living on my own, I got this call from this detective and he told me that my entire family died in a house fire. Even though they disowned me, I was sadden by the horrible event that happened to them. They were family after all. So after that horrible event, I started my life as a new person with a new identity. I kept my first name, but when I encountered an authority person I used an alias, John. I also changed my middle and last name then I moved to Michigan where nobody knew me.

(*)

I must have fallen asleep because I was woken up to the sound of my phone ringing. I picked it up and put it to my ear. "Hello? This better be an important issue to wake me up so early in the morning."

"Early you say...It's already well past noon on Friday the twenty-fourth and I'd say this is an important issue and it needs immediate attention as soon as possible!"

"It's already the Friday? Man I must have been dead tired. Been out for two days, but ok...Ok then, you got my attention. So what's the problem Maria?"

"I think I'm being stalked by this strange man. Every time I look over my shoulder, I see the same man walking a few yards away from me. It's been going on like this for several days now and I'm getting really freaked out. Can you help me?"

"Sure I can help you. Just give me a few minutes to get ready then I'll be over there in a bit. Meet me at your place in about an hour." I said.

"Thank you so much John! I definitely owe you a big one after this one!" She said. Then she hung up the phone.

Just to fill you in about Maria; her family, my dad's brother, took me in after the alleged murder trial and they been like family to me to ever since I was thirteen. But to them my name is John and that is how I wanted it to stay. I didn't want to drag them into my troubled past and them kicking me out like my other family did. All I ever wanted was to be part of a normal family but six years later, my life changed for the worse.