1 Application

My name is Shay Dexter Kull, I look like your average 16-year-old, 5'9", black hair, brown eyes, I don't look like anything special, on purpose.

A corner store, a pretty standard place to be working, I've been working here for about a week and it's, just, great. the customers are annoying, my "boss" only shows up once a week to give out checks, and I have no co-workers, at least that's good

Shay is standing behind the Corner Stores counter, A woman that could only be described as a "Karen" enters the store and immediately approaches the counter with an open and half-empty milk carton, slamming it on the counter she demands

"I want a refund immediately! This milk went bad"

Shay inspects the milk carton, finding not only is it 3 weeks past its expiration date but it is also not the brand this store carries, he calmly places the carton back down and turns his attention to the woman, speaking in a calm but clearly irritated voice

"Ma'am, the expiration on this carton was 3 weeks ago, it is not eligible for a return, not only that but we do not carry this brand"

The woman gets visibly angry at this, grabbing the carton she points to an obviously written 3 over the year's first number, she exclaims in anger

"This shouldn't be expired for another 1000 years! Now shut up and give me my refund young man!"

Shay cringes at this, holding back his anger, he reaches for a pistol strapped to his leg but convinces himself to calm down, with no more filter he attempts to barrette the woman but is immediately cut off by the woman wagging her finger in his face, she scolds him

"Don't talk back to me! Do you know who I am? get me a refund now! and I'm reporting you to the manager"

Shay glares at the woman, considering whether this job is worth not killing her, he sighs and opens the register, assuring the woman

"Alright, I'll get you your refund, just give me one second"

Shay takes the tray out of the register, revealing a knife that he takes, screams could be heard from the store for hours, due to the neighborhood not being the best no one paid any mind to the screams, hours later shay exits the store, his hands covered in blood up to his forearms and knife broken, he takes an old flip phone from his pocket and calls someone, they answer, shay immediately explains

"Hey, It's me, I did it again, I'm gonna need some help cleaning up, no witnesses this time thankfully, but I made a mess with this one... yeah I know I know, I really need to stop doing this, hopefully this place will run out of idiots soon or else I'm not gonna be able to keep this job, this makes me want to go back"

The call is ended, Shay shrugs this off and puts the phone back in his pocket, to pass the time Shay begins looking around until he meets the gaze of someone looking at him from a roof with binoculars, decked out in military gear, a little annoyed he shouts out

"I can see you you know! look I'm really in the mood for this right now but it is not a good time, can you come back in like 2 hours and I'll kill you then?"

a bullet whizzes by Shay's ear from behind, calmly checking behind him he sees a similarly clothed man as the one watching him on top of another building, Shay simply informs

"I know you won't shoot me, I've dealt with your friends a lot, I still have no idea what you want from me but I won't hesitate to kill you both, and your third friend trying to sneak up on me, if you don't fuck off"

Shay picks up a rock and throws it at some trash bins startling a third man revealing his location, Shay Lectures

"Look if you want me so badly why do you always make it so obvious, on a similar note, why the hell do none of you ever talk? you're clearly trying to kidnap me or something and it's annoying, so come on, get down here and let's talk this out like men, or women, hard to tell with all the gear"

a chuckle resounds from an alleyway to the left of Shay, from the darkness walks a tall old man covered in scars, he appears to be in his early 50s and his hair is a pale gray, he is wearing a completely black business suit with no tie, he walks over to shay with a look of satisfaction on his face, as he approaches he speaks

"Shay Dexter Kull, Age 16, IQ 246 at the age of 8, as a child prodigy you developed many devices that would take an entire team of engineers and scientists months to make in your garage with nothing but a toolbox and soldering iron. but you disappeared at the age of 8 along with many other children of similar ages, of those children you are the only one to resurface, not only that but you've gone on a bloody rampage, the authorities call you the infamous Skull, due to you leaving the skull unharmed with all your victims, with a speculated 500 kills you dwarf anyone I've ever heard of, and I'm someone with quite the heap of knowledge"

Shay, confused but interested, responds to the man in a questioning manner

"and who are you? are you the guy who keeps sending these wannabe assassins after me, cause if so I have some words for you and very few can be said in public"

The man stops approaching as he is roughly 5 feet from shay, introducing himself while holding his hand out for a handshake

"You may call me Quark, I am the man who has ordered the attempted apprehension of you, although do not be fooled, my intentions are not to turn you over to the police, I simply want your help. you are a true genius in both combat and in the lab, and your past is one I am very intrigued by. quite frankly your talents are being wasted with this part-time dead-end job, join me and your every wish will become reality"

Shay considers this offer, it was obviously too good to be true, but if he was able to at least live off whatever this man is offering than it'd be worth it, but at the same time this could easily be a plot to have him confess to his murders. after much consideration, Shay smacks Quark's hand away, following it up with his explanation

"You're definitely skilled in negotiation. but I'm not an idiot, you're obviously with the government, or maybe just the military, the stuff I took from your previous 'Attempted Apprehensions' was definitely military-grade, and to get info like that, I doubt it's any more than speculation, I'm just a teenager man, I may be good at fighting and lucky as hell but you've got the wrong guy"

Quark chuckles to himself, taking a card out of his breast pocket and tosses it over his shoulder as he turns and walks away back into the alley, as he enters the darkness he offers one final sentence to Shay

"I'm definitely not 'with the government', but if your not who I say you are, then you're a target for assassination, very few people get to see my face and live, if you survive and you've come around to my offer go ahead and call the number on that card"

as Quark finishes his sentence the sniper fires at Shay, Shay dodges out of the way enough for the bullet to just graze his arm, Shay quickly retreats into the store, jumping over the counter he grabs the first aid kit and begins patching himself up, as he does he plots his next move

"1 sniper, potentially another, both in opposite directions, 1 confirmed footsoldier, definitely armed, the gear he was wearing suggests they specialize in CQC, they most likely have a low caliber firearm paired with some form of melee weapon, either a knife or baton, due to wanting to recruit me it's possible they are also equipped with a taser of some kind, or maybe tranq ammo, I've got a full clip but that's only 12 bullets, although, with only 3 targets, that is plenty. with how far away those snipers are I doubt I can hit them with just this handgun, I need something with more range or I need to get closer, assuming the footsoldier is currently approaching I have roughly 6 to 7 seconds before he arrives, but with 2 snipers supporting I doubt they'll enter the store where the snipers can't cover them, I need to lay a trap to distract the footsoldier so I can get the drop on him"

The Footsoldier approaches the store, looking through the glass door and walls he spots the first aid kit sticking out from the corner of the counter, he draws a pistol and steadies his aim towards the counter, Shay pops out from behind an aisle and shoots at the footsoldier, he hits 3 shots right in the chest and the footsoldier falls over, but no blood is drawn. The footsoldier rolls into cover and tosses a smoke grenade through a window, they enter the store and are immediately stabbed in the side by shay, falling to the ground the footsoldier reaches for a taser on his hip but Shay snatches it first, letting it rip as he speaks

"I see why that Quark guy wants me, you are royally stupid, you think smoke can help against a target like me? this is civilian level shit, and I was actually a little nervous to fight you, anyway I'm gonna find a rubber band and stick this right down your pants"

Shay stops tasing the footsoldier who have passed out, as the smoke clears the sniper sees the seizing body of the footsoldier is thrown out of a window, Shay immediately follows through another window and makes a break for the building the sniper is perched on, the sniper fires 2 shots, the first missing but the second hitting Shay in the shoulder. Shay is able to make it into the building, an apartment building with 8 floors, Shay begins climbing the stairs while fishing the bullet out of his shoulder, he tosses the bullet to the side as he reaches the top.

Shay opens the door whilst hiding behind the frame, the sniper fires a shot through the door as soon as it moves, Shay rushes as soon as he hears the gunshot, the sniper sees Shay with a knife rushing towards him and immediately falls backward off the side of the building, Shay looks disappointed and looks over the edge, seeing no corpse on the pavement but instead a window directly under where the sniper fell that has been smashed, with a grin Shay follows suit, jumping off the side of the building and grabbing the frame of the window swinging himself through the window, he is immediately hit over the head with a small tube tv wielded by the sniper, falling to the ground.

Shay reacts quickly stabbing the sniper in the foot, the knife plunges through their foot into the floorboards, Shay begins to stand as he notices another knife on the Sniper's belt, as the Sniper reaches to remove the knife from his foot Shay grabs the knife from their belt, grabbing their hand and pinning it to the wall with the knife, as Shay begins wailing on the now defenseless Sniper his phone starts ringing, he steps away from the Sniper and answers

"Shay's Phone, Shay Speaking, what you want?... yeah I know I killed them..... well some more stuff happened while you were walking over here..... they tried to kill me first man.... well yeah I agree sticking the taser down his pants wasn't necessary but I want to send a message to the rest of these fuckers who keep attacking me"

as Shay is talking on the phone the Sniper slowly takes the knife out from his hand, carefully doing the same to the one lodged in his foot

"yeah yeah, I get it, would have been just as strong of a message to mutilate them, but I've got to have SOME fun man, plus we can get intel since I didn't kill them..... well how was I supposed to know that guy had heart problems?"

The Sniper begins sneaking up on Shay, Brandishing one of the knives, as he raises his arm to plunge the blade into Shay's neck a small throwing knife flies through the window straight into the Sniper's head, killing them

The thrower of the knife? Carl Torn, age 16, tall and relatively skinny, the guy Shay has been talking to on the phone, he walks over to the footsoldiers body and starts dragging it away while talking to Shay

"finish up in there and bring the body, it's gonna be a long night and I don't want to miss my DND session because of your idiocy"

Shay lifts the Sniper's body over his shoulder and leaves the apartment

"Yeah yeah, I'm coming, did you get that other guy on the roof?"

"Yeah, thought he was after me and killed him before I even knew you did all this"

Several hours later as night falls Carl emerges from the back room of the store, almost completely covered in blood, Shay is just sitting behind the counter eating a bag of chips, Shay greets Carl

"Howdy, you done or just coming out for more stuff?"

"I'm done asshole, it's all minced, sterilized and down the drain, why was I the only one taught how to do this?"

"Because you're so good at it, and I figured out how to skip those lessons and not get caught"

"Screw you, let's go home, this place isn't safe anymore, any chance you got any info from those guys while you were killing them?"

Carl goes into a bathroom, the door closes as he begins washing his hands and arms, Shay takes the card Quark dropped from his back pocket and looks at it, the card is completely black with white text on one side, listing the name "Commander Quark" above a phone number, on the other side in red text reads "Project Anatomy"

"Nah, I didn't get anything from them, why don't you go ahead, I've gotta call my 'boss' and tell him I want him to drown in his sink while washing his hands"

Carl emerges from the bathroom in new clothes with all the blood washed off his body

"You sure? there might be more guys"

"Yeah I'm sure, drowning in the sink is just the beginning and I Don't want to keep you"

"Alright man, try not to die"

Carl pauses as he gets to the door, it takes a second for Shay to notice, he's confused for a second but realizes quickly why Carl is pausing

"You too, sorry, thinking of how I'm gonna chew this guy out"

Carl raises an eyebrow before shrugging it off and leaving, Shay sits in the store, staring at the card for a couple of minutes, finally he takes his phone and puts the number in, after a single ring the phone is answered, Quark speaks on the other end, saying the following than hanging up

"Good, we'll be contacting you soon Shay, Welcome to Project Anatomy"