The Seer
I do not know why I received this miraculous gift. That is, if you can call it a gift. Some would consider it a terrible curse. Either way, I do not know why I was chosen nor do I know who chose me. All I know is that I was never to be normal again. Not since that night.
My name is Nicholas Conners. I live in New York City
That night happened in the summer of '63. It was a dark night; the only light that illuminated the desolate streets that lay ahead of me came from the few lamp posts that haven't yet been broken by stray bullets or bored kids. That night was foggy. The thick mist that hovered over the city made it hard for me to see far ahead, and the lack of lights didn't help. As I shuffled my feet against the uneven concrete, thinking about god knows what, I noticed a black car creeping out of the heavy fog towards me. I had no reason to suspect that it was coming for me, but my stomach clenched up nethertheless. The clenching slowly and steadily turned into a sharp pain when the car pulled over next to me and I saw who lowered the backseat window.
It was Anthony Backarella, the sole man who controlled both organized and disorganized crime in Hell's Kitchen. He was the king of criminals, the mastermind behind destruction, and the hand that controlled the puppets who did his dirty work. He was powerful and untouchable. He was hungry for my blood.
"Well if it isn't the brave Nicholas Conners. Mr. Brass Balls himself. Do you know who I am?" he asked, in his deep and raspy voice.
"Yes," I whispered, mortified by what was happening.
"Of course you know who I am. You must know who I am. It were your fingers, after all, that typed my name in the same sentence as the name of a respectable and deceased police officer... it was your mind that chose the adjectives that described the crime that you claim I committed... your hands that handed the finished article to your editor for printing."
"I... I...," but my words failed me. My knees started to tremble as I saw Backarella's arm extending out of the window. In his hand he was clutching the gold handle of his .44 Magnum that had taken countless lives at the squeeze of its trigger. My trembling became uncontrollable and sweat started to profusely drip down my forehead.
"Did I sound like I was finished? I should warn you, I’m not too fond of interruptions, especially when I am speaking. Now, did you really think I was gonna let you slip by with that article you wrote two weeks ago?”
"Yes," I whispered, mortified by what was happening.
"Of course you know who I am. You must know who I am. It were your fingers, after all, that typed my name in the same sentence as the name of a respectable and deceased police officer... it was your mind that chose the adjectives that described the crime that you claim I committed... your hands that handed the finished article to your editor for printing."
"I... I...," but my words failed me. My knees started to tremble as I saw Backarella's arm extending out of the window. In his hand he was clutching the gold handle of his .44 Magnum that had taken countless lives at the squeeze of its trigger. My trembling became uncontrollable and sweat started to profusely drip down my forehead.
"Did I sound like I was finished? I should warn you, I’m not too fond of interruptions, especially when I am speaking. Now, did you really think I was gonna let you slip by with that article you wrote two weeks ago?”
“Please, Mr. Backarella,” I pleaded. “That article I wrote, I didn’t say you were the one responsible for the death of that cop! I only said you are one of the suspects! I didn’t accuse you of anything! Please, Mr. Backarella!”
“Shut your mouth fool,” Backarella snapped. “Whatever you meant to imply means shit. The bottom line is that you associated my name with the murder of a sergeant and had it published in the god damn newspaper! I will not stand for that kind of slander!”
With those last words, Backarella raised the Magnum to my forehead and after a brief pause, just long enough for him to smirk, he pulled the trigger. My body fell to the floor and a pool of blood started quickly gathering underneath my head. The last thing I heard was a hearty and booming laugh of amusement, muffled by the aftershock of the Magnum’s roar, and the car slowly driving away.
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I opened my eyes several hours later, but found that I couldn’t see right away. It took quiet a while for my eyes to adjust to the bright light that was engulfing the area where I was. As my eyes started to focus, I started recognizing things around me. There was a chair and walls. I was inside somewhere. A room with white walls. And then my concentration was broken by a voice that startled me. “Oh, look who’s awake! Thank God, we thought you weren’t going to wake up at all, Mr. Conners. An angel must be watching over you!” said a nurse.
I gaped at the woman like an infant gapes at his mother. I could not believe what my eyes where seeing. “No, the angel is watching over you,” I wanted to scream but my voice would not permit it. All I could do was stare at the nurse, trying to figure out if I was hallucinating or if I just went plain ol’ crazy. Kind of floating above the nurse or maybe even just standing behind her, I wasn’t really sure which, was this being. It had the shape of a person but whether man or woman, I couldn’t really tell. This creature, whatever it was, had no face. It was just a blank body, with no distinctive features of any kind other than its human-like shape. The light that illuminated this room so brightly came from this bizarre and strange creature, whose presence radiated a deep and comforting warmth.
The nurse continued talking to me, blabbering about something or other, but I was entranced by this being behind her. This creature was speaking to me.
“You have been spared to carry out a great deed,” it spoke to me. Its voice was so strange. It’s almost as if it had two voices, both a man’s and a woman’s. “You have been given the gift of sight. You shall see truth as it is in itself.”
“… And last week we had a patient that wasn’t nearly as lucky as you, died from what appeared to be a flesh wound from a stabbing…” went on the nurse, not realizing what was happening right behind her.
“Go find the evil one. Find him and avenge. Avenge yourself and avenge the fallen one.”
A few seconds passed but the whatever it was didn’t say anything else. I was shocked. I have neither seen nor imagined anything like this.
“Avenge who?” I asked, bewildered that I was trying to communicate with this entity. “What are you talking about? Who are you? What are you?”
“Mr. Conners, and you alright?” asked the nurse, with a hint of a nervous tremor in her voice. “Would you like me to call a doctor, Mr. Conners?”
“I’m talking to that!” I finally managed to tell the nurse, pointing at the thing behind her. She turned around but did not see what I was seeing.
“Are you sure you’re ok, Mr. Conners?” the nurse asked again.
Then, the creature spoke again. This time, its voice was loud and deep, booming throughout the whole room. “It must be done! You must accept your fate and you must find he who tried to kill you. When you lay eyes upon him, you shall see his evil. When you lay your eyes upon the eyes of his evil, you shall see the past and the future. Now go! Take this and go fulfill your destiny!” It raised its arms in the air and a dagger appeared right above its head. The creature guided the floating dagger down towards me and placed it gently on my chest. The nurse by now had her back turned to me, checking the machines that were monitoring my increasingly fast paced heartbeat. She did not see this. I took the dagger in my hand and studied its long, thin handle. It was made out of a sleek and shining metal, incrusted with sapphires and emeralds. The blade was curved and sharp, ready to penetrate almost anything that it encountered. Although it looked as if it should weigh a ton, this dagger was light as a feather. I slipped it underneath the sheets so that the nurse wouldn’t see it. All of a sudden, I felt very drowsy. “I gave you something to relax you and help you sleep, Mr. Conners” said the nurse. “Hopefully you’ll be making a little more sense when you wake up again. Good night!” She left my room and I drifted into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
The next time I awoke was early morning. The clock on my bedside table flashed . I got out of the bed and stretched my legs a little bit. I noticed a bathroom straight ahead of me, so I slowly made my way towards it. I went straight to the sink and turned on the cold water. I ran my hands underneath it and splashed it in my face. I looked up into the mirror and what had happened to me the previous night game flooding back into my memory. The hole in my goddamn forehead, bandaged at the time, was an instant reminder of Backarella and his Magnum. Suddenly, I understood what the angel, or whatever it was, had told me. It told me to find the one who tried to kill me and avenge myself. I have to find Backarella and end his life just like he tried to end mine. I stormed out of the bathroom, found my blood stained clothes hanging in a small closet and vacated my room. I went to the bed and found the dagger folded up in the crevice of the sheets, just where I left it right before I fell asleep. I slowly pushed the door to my room open, checking for any guards that might be watching. The coast was clear, so I headed for the first staircase I saw and began to descend the fourteen flights. I saw nurses and doctors and patients pass me by on the staircase. I watched them with the same bewilderment that I gaped at the nurse with. They all had their own angels behind them. Except one.
I saw a man that had a deformed beast limping behind him, rather than a warm kind-of-human creature like everyone else. Then I remembered what the nurse’s angel told me… “When you lay eyes upon him, you shall see his evil. When you lay your eyes upon the eyes of his evil, you shall see the past and the future.” I can see this man’s evil. That’s what it must be. The glowing warm beings watch over the good while the demons stalk the evil. I approached the demon that was sulking after this strange man and stared into its eyes. The things that I saw! The beast’s eyes where playing a movie, a montage of all the horrible and evil acts that this man has committed. I saw the horrible things that he had planned to do in the future. He was on his way to steal morphine from the drug supply room and give it to young boys who were pressured into selling drugs for lazy, despicable vagrants such as the man to whom this demon belonged to.
I broke the eye contact with the beast and continued on my way, contemplating what I have just seen. It seems as if these beings are manifestations of a person’s true nature. Those who are truly evil are followed by beasts and shadows. Those who are truly good are accompanied by divine creatures and warm light. I was confused and perplexed. I knew exactly what was going on now but I couldn’t even believe myself. It all seemed so surreal, almost like a dream. No, I don’t feel pain in dreams. This can’t be a dream because I feel an agonizing, throbbing pain in my forehead where the bullet had penetrated my skull. I soon forgot the pain, however, when I stepped outside of the hospital and saw how these manifestation had materialized themselves.
I looked up into the dark sky. It must have been past already, but the city was still shrouded in shadow and darkness. The sky was a deep, dark purple with giant black whirlpools replacing clouds. Some horrible serpent-like creatures swam through the sky, slithering between the whirlpools like they were pools of water and the beasts were some sort of evil water snakes. It was really a horrifying sight, one that almost knocked me off my feet. I gazed down towards the street level and I saw nothing but chaos and havoc. Demons and other fiendish monstrosities were everywhere, filling the streets as if the city was some sort of demented zoo. I lowered my head down and began to proceed towards the tallest skyscraper in this god forsaken city, the one whose penthouse office was occupied by none other than Mr. Anthony Backarella himself. The closer I got to the building, the tighter my grip got around the handle of the dagger that was hiding in my pocket. I was ready. Almost.
I stopped at a thrift store that I spotted on the corner of the block that I was walking down. The owner was just opening the shop up and I decided to stop by and pick out a more suitable attire, one that wasn’t covered in my dried up blood or smelt like I was rolling around in garbage all night long. I found a trench coat, a hat and a sheer black mask. I threw all the money I had in my blood soaked pockets at the woman behind the counter, but before I turned around to walk out of her store, I noticed an interesting object laying on top of a pile of random little knick knacks on the counter. It was a small evil eye pin. “It watches over you and protects you from evil. It is said to repel curses that people place upon your head”, the woman explained to me. “It’s a little late for that”, I replied chuckling at my own joke. As I was extending out my hand to place the pin back from where I took it, the woman offered for me to keep it. “We live in dark times”, she explained. “Everyone needs a little protection from evil”. I though to myself how a little piece of metal would protect me from the horrible evils that I saw this morning, but I thanked her anyway and walked out of the store while dressing myself. The last thing to be put on was the mask. It was perfect. All black, so one would only be able to see the shape and contour of my face. It was sheer so I was able to see through it perfectly well. But no one could my face. I crumpled up my old clothes and chucked them into a garbage can that was on the street. As I was turning towards my destination, I heard a clanking that made me look down on the floor. It was the small evil eye pin, it must have fallen out of the pocket of my pants when I was throwing them away. I picked it up, thinking about how much this pin and I had in common. We can both see evil in a way that no one else could. I decided to attach the pin to my mask, right over my third eye of a bullet hole. Now I was ready. Or so I thought.
As I walked down the street towards Backarella, I caught sight of my reflection in a store window. I did not recognize myself. I had no idea who this shadow was that was standing where I was supposed to be. There is nothing of me in me anymore. At least not in my appearance. That was when anxiety suddenly took hold of me, and my heart began racing out of fear. I was realizing what I was about to do. I was about to walk into the office of the biggest crime boss in New York City
As I was walking home, telling myself off for letting my imagination get the better of me, I heard screams coming from an alleyway. I slowly crept up to where the alley began and peered from behind the wall. A nurse, the one from the hospital, the one who was taking care of me, was being wrestled to the floor by some crazy guy. He had a smile on his face and looked like he enjoyed the fight that this poor woman was putting up. Nasty little imps were dancing around the struggling pair, cackling and clapping their long, scrawny hands together. She was screaming for help and her otherworldly guardian seemed to be in as much pain as this poor woman. I didn’t feel warmth and happiness coming from this creature that I first encountered back at the hospital, but rather it was almost as if I felt its pain too. I had to do something, but what could I do? I just decided that I’m no hero, so it would be stupid of me to go blindly running into this alleyway, hoping for some miracle to aid me. Coldness was creeping up into my heart, filling me with sadness and despair. No, I had to go find help. I had to do something to help this woman. I felt her pain deep down inside myself. I ran down the block, trying to find someone who would come to the rescue, but no one was around. I was completely alone, searching the desolate streets for a savior. I couldn’t leave this poor nurse on her own though, it wouldn’t be right. I started to run back towards the alley, not knowing what I was going to do. Moments before I ran up to the alley, my planning of how I was going to help the nurse was interrupted with the realization that I didn’t hear any screaming. My heart dropped, knowing that the silence was a sign of something really bad. All of a sudden, the coldness that my heart was feeling before evaporated and left me with a feeling of nothingness. I peered around the corner of the wall from where I was watching the attack a few minutes ago. There was no struggling, no fighting, no movement whatsoever. I proceeded down the dark alley, hoping to god that someone came to save the nurse while I was looking help. Those hopes went up in flames when I almost tripped over her dead body, laying mangled against the wall. Her clothes were torn and her face was cut open. Blood was pouring out of the multiple stab wounds that were scattered throughout her body. Her skirt was pushed up and her underwear was ripped off. This sight made me sick to my stomach. This was my fault. I should have done something sooner. The light surrounding her that was shining so brightly earlier this morning in the hospital room was fading into a dull mist before extinguishing all together. Her creature guardian was no longer there.
Not knowing what to do, I sat next to the nurse’s body for almost an hour. I was thinking about the harshness of life and how the innocent are usually the ones who suffer the most. The war between good and evil is completely unfair. Goodness can overpower evil, but evil can destroy goodness. Maliciousness will always conquer precisely because it is malicious and will go to any extent in order to pursue its evil goals. In this sense, goodness is powerless over evil. Unless someone was to defend it. Someone who is not himself all good, but fights to preserve all goodness. Someone who is willing to use the malicious tactics of evil in order to fight for the good. Someone who will risk their own goodness for the sake of goodness. I will be that someone. I cannot let an innocent life, like the one of this nurse, to be taken in such a heinous way. My fear resulted in her death. Never again. I must get back on my path. I cannot go home. I have no home to go to. Backarella took that life away from me. But something returned a different life to me, on the condition that I take my revenge. This is my mission. This is the purpose of my second life. I cannot deviate from this path. I must finish what I set out to do.
I rose from the floor and took one last look at the nurse’s body. I wanted to remember this disturbing image forever, so that it can serve as a reminder of what happens when cowardice takes over. I left the alleyway and started to walk down the street that I was following before I change my course. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of the building. I looked through the glass walls and saw security sitting behind the desk that was stationed in the middle of the lobby. I stood there for eight minutes trying to figure out how to get past the security guards before I was assisted by some hoodlums shooting off guns by the other entrance into the building. The two security guards that were on duty equipped themselves with their weapons and proceeded to chase the hoodlums away, giving me the perfect opportunity to slip by unnoticed. I entered the elevator and pushed the topmost button. The elevator delivered me right to Backarella’s office door. I could hear classical music blasting from behind the giant oak doors. Perfect. I was undetectable. I turned the door know as slowly as I could and gently pushed the door open.
Backarella was standing behind his desk, at the far end of his office, with his back to me. He was looking down at the city. What a lovely view it must be for him, one who is not cursed to see the true ugliness and evils that reside in those streets. He was puffing on a cigar, just staring off into the distance. The entire room was crawling with demons of all shapes and sizes, rearing their ugly heads in my direction. They were slithering all around him, whispering in his ear and nudging him with their long pointy fingers.
And then I saw it. After that moment, I understood what I had to do. I understood what I was avenging. That nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach started to freeze over with a frost that spread through the rest of my body like an infectious disease. I saw the demon, the one that was whispering in Backarella’s ear the night that cop was killed.
I slowly crawled towards the beast, careful not to be noticed or heard by Backarella, and grabbed the monster by its protruding horns. Staring deep into its eyes, I saw what really happened that night when the sergeant’s life came to an end. He had it. He had the evidence that he needed to put Backarella away forever. He was pure of heart and he wanted to make a change. He dedicated his life to wipe Backarella out and break down the foundation of all the crime rings in this city. Then, Backarella found out. How he tortured that poor soul. Even if the cop survived, he would be a vegetable for the rest of his life. He was beaten, electrified, beaten some more, cut, beaten again, raped. He died after four hours of this, from loss of blood. That bastard Backarella was disappointed that he died so soon. He was disappointed that he didn’t get the final satisfaction of pulling out his Magnum, adding to the collection of lives that it has taken.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I looked away from the beast’s eyes, feeling hatred and anger and vengeance. I looked at Backarella’s back and felt my blood begin to boil. I released the demon’s horns from my grip and turned to face the man whom I was about to kill. I was sent here to avenge, to finish the job that the cop has started. I started to advance towards him, and that’s when he heard me. He whipped around, reaching for the Magnum, but my hand was already wrapped around the back of his neck and the blade of the dagger was pressed against his throat.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” bellowed Backarella. “Do you know who I am?!” “Of course I know who you are,” I replied. “It where my fingers, after all, that typed your name in the same sentence as the name of a respectable and deceased police officer... it was my mind that chose the adjectives that described the crime that I claimed that you committed... my hands that handed the finished article to my editor for printing. The same hands that will bring justice to this city. The same hands that will bring about your death and the end of your sadistic reign."
With those last words that I whispered into his ear, I glided the crooked blade of the dagger across his throat in a single smooth, sweeping motion and I felt his warm blood trickling down my fingers. Backarella started choking on his own blood and trying to grab me, but failed when his strength started to whither away. With every drop of his blood that was spilt, a demon shrieked in agony as it began to decay in front of my eyes. I let go of Backarella and watched his limp body drop to the floor. I watched him die. I watched him die and felt satisfaction. He was no longer untouchable. He was dead.
With those last words that I whispered into his ear, I glided the crooked blade of the dagger across his throat in a single smooth, sweeping motion and I felt his warm blood trickling down my fingers. Backarella started choking on his own blood and trying to grab me, but failed when his strength started to whither away. With every drop of his blood that was spilt, a demon shrieked in agony as it began to decay in front of my eyes. I let go of Backarella and watched his limp body drop to the floor. I watched him die. I watched him die and felt satisfaction. He was no longer untouchable. He was dead.
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I made my way out of his office and found an emergency staircase a few feet away from the elevator. I kicked the door open and began to ascend the stairs to the rooftop. When I reached the outside, I took off my hat and pulled the black mask off of my face. The cool breeze felt good on my sweaty face. I sat on the edge of the rooftop, looking over the city that was still shrouded in darkness. I looked at my watch. It was . The sun should have been shining right now. I will never see the sunshine in this city ever again. I looked up in the sky and I still saw the serpent beasts swimming through the dank purple sky. I looked back down onto the streets and saw the demons that were crawling around. This city is corrupt. There is too much evil in this world to rid of. It is an impossible mission that will never be accomplished.
So here I sit, on the rooftop, overlooking the evil that was slithering around below me, knowing that there is nothing I could do. I can never rid the world of evil. It will never happen. But it doesn’t mean that I can’t try. This is the questions that now I must ask myself. Knowing this, that evil will never die, do I embrace my gift and use it to destroy as much wickedness as my lifetime will allow? Or should I ignore this curse and continue to live my life while having to witness these manifestations until the day I die? I thought and thought and thought, fingering the mask in my hand as I pondered.
My concentration was broken when I saw a dim light from the corner of my eye. I whipped my head around, preparing myself for one of Backarella’s goons to attack me in revenge for killing his boss, but no one was there. Rather, this light was coming from something small that was running alongside the borders of the rooftop. It was a rat with a warm glow surrounding it. I got down on my knees to greet this unexpected visitor. He slowly approached me and sniffed my extended hand, still glowing with the same light that I saw in the hospital. Go figure, a rat with a pure soul. It’s amazing how something so small can have more goodness in its little body than an entire city filled with people. Purity is so rare. It must be protected so that it doesn’t perish in this evil world. No matter how unavoidable evil is, goodness must still conquer. Goodness must illuminate the darkness caused by evil. This world needs a protector, one who can guide the light of benevolence.
Then I stood. I walked to the edge of the rooftop and once more looked down at the darkness encompassing the city that I called my home. I knew what I had to do. I pulled the mask over my face and placed my hat back on top of my head. My name was Nicholas Conners. That was in the past. Nicholas Conners is no longer here. I am someone new. I am forever different. I am the guardian of the light. I am The Seer.
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