Another Chance

Code X's ears rang, giving her a terrible headache. It hurt so much, more than any wound she had ever been inflicted with.

But there shouldn't be pain in death. Or at least, that's what she had told every single one of her victims.

She thought back to all the people she had killed…

The woman begging to see her husband again, unknowing that he had been the one to send the killer.

The poor old man writing his will with blood, leaving his entire inheritance to his second son, when he was the one to ask for his death.

She remembered the first time she killed, the hopelessness and emptiness that overtook her as she stared blankly at the blood dripping from her blade. Deep down, Code X knew that she deserved every bit of her current fate.

The countless more faces that she tried so desperately to forget blurred together until they became a single faceless figure.

Struggling to keep her eyes open, if not to just see the emptiness for a second longer, she squinted as she saw the figure's mouth move.

"If there is a second chance at life, will you take it no matter the price?" The voice was hallow, almost chilling.

After a moment of hesitation, she nodded. As much as she hated her cold-blooded life, she feared the concept of death even more. And as much as she had to take other people's lives, she had no intentions of losing her own. Perhaps she was selfish in that way, she thought as a self-deprecating smile twisted onto her lips.

"You've caused quite a mess for us down in the Underworld. Did you know that?" The eerie voice sounded again. "So many people, whose ends were foretold to be different in the Book of Life and Death… so many people, who came reporting to us before their time was actually up."

The hooded figure materialized from the darkness. Large sunglasses obscured his facial features, but a lop-sided grin hung on his face. He handed her a business card, and the thick black card-stock had a single word printed in silver: Death.

"And all of those people reported to us early for a single reason," he paused, clearing his throat as if for dramatic effect. "They came to us because of you."

Code X felt a shiver run down her spine as she braced herself for the worst. There was no way that this man before her was actually Death. This must be a cruel joke, some form of entertainment that the rest of the agency had schemed together.

Almost as if reading her mind, the hooded figure continued. "So you think me to be a fraud." He waved his hands, and the pitch black floor disappeared.

Her heart jumped as she anticipated the fall. But instead, it was almost as if she was standing atop a piece of glass. Beneath them, the room were she had been mere moments ago lay in ruins, and two charred bodies could be barely identified apart from the soot and ashes. Social workers and police worked to clear the scene, snapping photos and applying caution tape.

As she hovered above the bustling figures, it all seemed so surreal. She knew that they couldn't see her, but she still couldn't help but wave her arms in hopes that someone would spot her. Perhaps… perhaps this was just a prank. Yet already, she was struggling to convince herself otherwise.

But seeing one of the police officers pick up her silver dagger from one of the charred bodies and place it in an evidence bag, Code X sank to the floor. The head was blistered red and tinged black, but she knew that it was none other than the body she had known for 23 years.

So this was it.

She offered the hooded figure a sad smile. "Take me to hell."

His head crooked to the side. "What if I won't? I thought you wanted a second chance?"

Despite better judgment, she glared at the hooded figure, all the fear from earlier dissipating now that she knew she had already died.

He chuckled. "I have better plans for you. Proper punishment if you will."

"Take me to hell," she repeated. At this point, all she wanted to do was to move on. Whether it be being punished for her crimes or reincarnating as an ant, she was done with this life.

"How many years do you think you owe to the Underworld?" He deliberately didn't answer her question. "Ten? Twenty?" Pacing slowly around Code X, he took his sweet time before announcing his edict. "No, you owe 51 years to the Underworld. 51 whole years."

A scroll of parchment materialized in his hands, and he tossed it to Code X. "Here, take a look."

Ling Yue - 4 years

Mi Rongliang - 6 years

Su Huan - 12 years

Pu Liu - 14 years

A'shina Qi - 16 years

These names were all vaguely familiar to Code X.

Then it hit her. These were the names of people she had once brought death upon. Visions of their deaths flashed before her mind, memories she had long tried to suppress, and she grimaced at the thoughts.

"It's simple." He snapped, and a powerpoint appeared out of nowhere. "You understand the concept of karma, correct?"

Without waiting for her to respond, he continued. "These people all were sentenced to gruesome deaths in this life because of their wrongdoings from a past lifetime. So if they were good people in their past lives, they never would have been sentenced to these horrible fates in this lifetime. And boom…issue solved."

Code X could barely hide her amusement and judgment as the powerpoint ended with a clipart smiley face. "So what is my punishment exactly?"

The hooded figure slid closer to her. "You're to go back in time and rewrite their lives, making sure that they turn to good and not evil. Then, when fate corrects itself again, you'll be off the hook." He put a hand over her shoulder. "It's as simple as that, no issue at all for a master assassin like you."

"So you want me to travel back in time and rewrite these people's fates. And in doing so, I'll rewrite mine as well and return back?"

"Bingo! I knew I could count on you!"

The hooded man shoved another piece of parchment and a pen into Code X's hands. "Just sign here, and you'll be on your merry way!"

Code X's suspicions grew by the second. Something about this man simply did not sit well with her. "But what about these years?" she questioned.

"Just the time you owe the Underworld for each one of them. Or to be exact, the additional time they would have lived if you hadn't killed them." He brushed it off casually, almost too casually. "It'll be an easy mission, and you'll be back in no time. Just sign here."

Code X wanted to object, but somehow, her hands moved almost involuntarily. Against her wishes, her fingers curled around the pen, and the pen left a trail of ink on the paper.

Signed: Code X

And in the next moment, before she could even cap the pen, she was hurling down a dark tunnel.

"Oh, and there's a catch," the hooded figure chuckled, snatching the parchment out of the air, but Code X was already out of reach. He took off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of fiery crimson eyes. "But no one reads the fine print anyways."