Built to Slaughter

THE PAST

RAYO GRIFFIN WOOLRIDGE.

There was one thing I really liked about my job; it was picking out my victims. I loved being able to read through their past, examining every minor detail about them, and finding out exactly how to get them to do what you want. I liked to taunt them, after all, where’s the fun in simply killing them straight away

Of course I didn’t consider myself as a murderer; I only killed those who deserved it, the abusers, rapist, killers, and the scammers.

I never killed the innocent people; I wouldn’t lay hands on you unless you did a crime.

I started training when I was about 7 years old my dad taught me how to be tough as I am right now and how the world can be so cruel. In the middle of my training I met the boys named Walter and Maxwell, not knowing yet that they are going to be my lifetime best friends, my dad recruited them from the orphanage.

After all the training we endured we finally started our job when we turned 13 years old. My father is the one who taught us how to pass the test. Our job is fairly illegal, but we work underground.

Nobody knows who we are, not even our name, our contact information, or address; it appears that we are not born into this world, and our identity is unknown. Our job is to kill people who have committed a crime but have never been imprisoned because they provided false information in the judge's court or paid the judges, people who simply got away like pretending they are innocent and his father didn’t like that. As a result, his father established the Black Crystal Association, an organization dedicated to fighting for justice.

But right now I’ve changed; I stopped working in the field I just kept doing the paper works because something happened three years ago that is still buried in my mind until to this day.

"Hey, griffin” Maxwell’s taunting voice rang out as he appeared in his best friend’s house “Where are you!”

I had my own home; I moved out when I was eighteen, and now I am twenty and living alone. I was never lonely though, because my business partners were constantly in and out of the house, if it wasn’t them, it was one of my victims.

“At the bedroom” I shouted, as I hear his footsteps walking up the stairs, then in seconds he was at my bedroom door leaning to the side while crossing his arms over his chest.

“What max? Here again to convince me to work in the field again?” I scoff facing him, his blonde hair is messily tousled on top of his head looks like he has just gotten out of bed, “I thought told you and my father that I only want to work at home for like a thousand times now”

“I know man but we need you out there bro,” Maxwell says softly, his eyes flickering to the floor before glancing up at mine. “Look I know that since Walter died you never want to work in the field anymore”

“But it has been three years bro you need to move on, I know we lost Walter, but he’s always here to guide us, would Walter like this if he’s seeing you slacking off, If he was here he would punch you in the face you know that,” Maxwell said his voice is sincere, I chuckled at the thought, definitely Walter would do something like that.

“Yeah I know,” I said turning my back on him, for three years all I’ve been doing is paperwork because I never wanted to work in the field anymore because of what happened in the past.

Three years ago

A harsh winter wind blew out of a midnight sky. The cold was like that, seeping through our two layers of clothing. We are out here for our mission at Antarctica to find the mass murderer who killed 150 innocent people.

But eventually, we fell onto one of their traps me, and my friends were captured by the enemy, we are locked up outside to make us suffer from the cold. We’ve been here for a whole week; the whole team has no idea where we are right now because they remove the trackers that were injected into our arm. The mission is we are supposed to locate the enemy base and go back home to tell our team how and where to attack and go back again here at Antarctica to eliminate every single one of them but eventually, we ended up trapped

The day before they got caught

8:30 pm

“It’s freezing in here,” Walter said gritting his teeth; they are in the middle of the woods searching for the enemy’s base.

“Well, it's Antarctica dude what do you expected?” Maxwell said while kicking a bunch of snow at Walter’s face.

Walter stopped in his tracks gave an icy glare at Maxwell and then he smirked, he then started to kick a large amount of snow at Maxwell

“Oh it is on,” Maxwell said and then started forcefully throwing a snowball at his friend, Walter did the same thing.

“Hey kids knock it off,” I said in a serious tone, in our group it’s safe to say that I am the mature one unlike those two, they always like to play around in every mission that we’ve been through, but those goofballs are the most important people to me because they are my best friend.

“Ahh, the old man is back again ruining our fun,” Maxwell said “Why don’t you join us little Griffy “

“No, remember what we are here for this is serious,” I said in a serious tone, but then a snowball fell right in front of me, I looked into my friends I saw Maxwell and Walter gave me a challenging look while holding a snowball in his hand.

When a snowball explodes in front of my face, I know the fight has begun. I dive into the nearest tree and begin to duck and cover, building a stack of snowballs while keeping my head down. My black leather gloves gathered snow as if they wanted to be a snowball themselves, Already, the snow has deep chilled my fingers to the point where they no longer want to bend. But, cold or not, a snowball fight is a snowball fight and I’m not going to let these fingers ruin it.

So far I’ve made 15 snowballs in a small amount of time; soon an icy ball slams into my side, and another whistle through the air just above my head. It’s a good thing that I am hidden behind a tree or else I would be defenseless. My face is filled with a silly grin as I take my first snowball and whip my arm back to send it to them, jackpot I hit Max right in the face. I let out a devil's laughter and the fight intensifies they began throwing snowballs at me nonstop. The best thing I can do now is to tamper with releasing all their snowballs and then when they run out I will come and sneak behind them and throw all of the snowballs I have left. When no snowball was flying through the air I take that as my cue and began to go to their hiding place and attack them with my big ass snowballs.

“FINE STOP YOU WON,” His friend said while shielding their faces from the snowball using their hands, right now their whole body was covered with snow making them look like a snowman

“We surrender master griffin,” Maxwell said raising his hand then started to wave it pretending like there is a white flag he was holding

“The only thing missing is a carrot” I teasingly said, and then I helped them to remove the remaining snows in their faces

“HA HA HA very funny” Walter rolled his eyes at me, after they cleaned themselves we decided to camp here for the night because it’s very dangerous to go on a journey at this hour. We began to set up our tents, mine is a blue one, and Max is a green one and red for Walter. Max wanted to make a bonfire so we can have a light and to make it warm somehow but I didn’t agree because the enemy might locate our location, so instead, we take out our flashlights and a very thick blanket.

It was past midnight and everyone was asleep I could only hear the sounds of the wind roaring into the air, I, on the other hand, can't sleep, of course, someone has to be awake, we are in the middle of the woods, and god forbid someone might kill us in our sleep I am scared because we would be defenseless.

I don’t know how long has it been but my eyes are getting heavier every second, I decided to stop fighting it and finally close my eyes and let sleep take over my body.

I haven’t slept long enough because I started to hear my walkie-talkie going off like crazy creating a loud static sound, I flutter my eyes open checking the time on my watch, I huffed knowing I only slept for 30 minutes, I walked outside checking if the two are awake but they aren’t, man those two could sleep in a world war. I took the walkie-talkie with me and started to walk away a bit far so I wouldn’t wake those goofballs. As I got far enough I changed into our original frequency 58.4, I remembered dad said to always change the frequency to 65.5 before we sleep so father could make a loud static alarm when he needs something urgent and also when we aren’t talking about the mission he always reminds me to change frequency, so in case something happens the enemies wouldn’t find out. I click the talk button and started to talk

“Yes dad, what do you want?” I groaned

“Wow hello to you too, someone is cranky,” My father said I can hear him laughing at the other line “How are you boys doing? Did something new happen?”

“Well you can’t blame me you wake me up at a bad timing,” I said “We are fine, nothing new happen, we are still in the middle of the woods or something we don’t know because we keep walking north just like you said and still no clue maybe you guys messed up and put us in the wrong place”

“Hmm maybe you are right, but according to Max he got something from north Antarctica and Max is our best hacker so I think it’s right,” My father said confidently I can hear some shuffling in the other line “Don’t worry I’m going to go check it right now again and I will come back to you at morning okay?”

“Copy,” I said nodding even though he can’t see it “I’m going to go and head back to our camp now dad goodbye”

“Goodbye son,” My dad said and the line goes static again, so I turn the volume down and started to head back to my tent

When I was walking back to our camp I hear some footsteps, not just one but many, instinctively I hid in the nearest tree, c*****g my head to the right to see what is happening, my eyes widen in horror as I saw my best friends kneeling while the enemy put a gun on top of their heads, their hand-tied to their back and a duct tape in their mouth, the enemies are wearing a red mask and a black combat uniform there are 6 of them the other three is closely monitoring my best friends and the other three are checking out our tents, looks like the place father gave us is right after all, but we didn’t know that the enemy is this near to us, this is bad, I have to get out of here and warn my other team.

I cautiously walked away not far enough from them to hear, I went back to the place where I talked to my father, I take out my walkie talkie and then started to push the red button that dad told me to push when our situation around us got worse because this red button tracks down the exact location where we are right now and alerting everyone in the team.

After pushing the button the walkie talkie goes off again creating a static noise

“s**t” I mumble to myself, scared because it might blow my cover “god I wish they didn’t hear it”

“Rayo?!!” My dad said in a concerned voice I can hear mumbling on the other side I guess everyone is very worried right now “What happened?”

“Help dad, Max and Walter have been captured by the enemies,” I said quietly trying not to cry because I need to be strong in a situation like this, I was actually a bit scared it’s very dark right now and I’m all alone.

“Don’t worry we are coming to get you okay? Just stay where you are right now” My dad in a calming voice that made me at ease at some point “As long as the tracker isn’t gone we can find you”

“Okay da---“I was cut off when someone grabbed me by my collars, I was caught off guard I can hear my dad worriedly scream my name at the line

“I found the other one!! He was talking to someone” A male voice low and deep shouted “You’ve got nowhere to go now, kid”

“No!!” I tried to fight by elbowing his stomach but then he punched me right in the face before jabbing something in my neck, I feel a warm liquid being injected into my body, my body immediately grow limp I tried to fight but my body has lost control. I used all my last strength to try to turn the frequency so they wouldn’t found out who we are working for, my vision is getting blurry but I successfully removed the data of the walkie talkie, I also remembered that my dad told me when a tough situation happens there is a small green button located at the middle of the walkie talkie that will vanish all of the data of the walkie talking.

“Dad always so clever he always made these out of the world inventions” was my last words and then within a few seconds, I fell unconscious.

-

I opened my eyes. It was very dark and I have no idea where I am right now. I barely remember what happened and how did I got here.

I tried to move but found my arms were chained to a wall above my head, and I was slowly remembering what had happened. I panicked, trying to move around and scream but my mouth was taped shut. Then I heard a small whimper at my side, that’s when relief washes over me. My best friends were chained in a wall the same as me, they both gave me an “are you okay look” and I immediately nodded my head.

The next thing we knew, a light was turned on, hurting our eyes for a bit, we looked at each other frantically, but then I tried to give them a “Calm down look” when they get what I meant they relax for a bit. I looked around the room it was built in all in metal. No windows, no vents. No escape at all. There are tables with more chains, knives, grenades, and guns on them, I saw the other table have things too but I couldn’t make out what it is.

“Look what we have here” An intimidating man in his ’30s spoke with a neutral expression on his face, he’s wearing a black suit, He had manly, peppered stubble, his hair was colored black and his eyes are blue. A face that looks young and innocent. Looks could be really deceiving, he had three bodyguards surrounding him and at the back more guards are holding out their SCAR-L guns in front of them I’m guessing he’s the boss aka murderer, I looked at him giving him the most disgusting look but he just smirked at me.

He looked at one of his guards and commanded to take the tape out of our mouth; he then obeyed and harshly takes off our tapes making us wince in pain

“f*****g bastard” I whispered but the guard heard it facing me again and started to punch me in the face busting my lips open, I can already feel the blood dripping from my face, I can smell it, it smells the way it tastes I hate it, then he began to punch me in the stomach I was coughing blood at this moment, he did this again and again but then he stopped because my friend shouted.

“Stop hurting him” Walter begged tears were falling down his face “Just stop please”

“He deserved it for being a b***h” The guard said angrily “Do you want to be beaten too huh little boy?”

“Okay stop now Gerald, we don’t have to fight,” The boss said quite amused at what’s happening, I badly want to punch that smug face he was having right now, The guard immediately gets back at his post “Now let’s get to the business by the way you can call me Wesley, Now I’m going to ask a question, why are you here? Who do you work for huh?”

“We don’t know we just came here to camp at the mountain” Walter tried to reason but the boss doesn’t look happy at all

“So camper now has these kinds of stuff?” He said raising his eyebrows, then began snapping his hands at his guards gesturing to get the table full of our gears and stuff “I don’t think campers happen to have grenades, guns, and trackers”

“Now I’m mad I hate liars” Wesley started walking close to us, I can see his emotions change I can see it from his eyes, angry eyes tell me his brain is in a different mode now. God we are in trouble “Check their bodies; take their clothes off except for their boxers”

The guards obeyed, they removed our jacket and started to rip our shirts and pants, I tried to struggle but the boss said ‘don’t fight or else I’m going to get beaten up again. After undressing us the guards take the metal detector from the table which I saw earlier. Crap we are going to get busted these guys are smart.

They started to check out foot first then going up, every part of our body was checked nothing was spared, everything was going fine until the metal detector goes off beeping like crazy when it got into our arms.

“See I knew it, you guys are a spy,” Wesley said his blue eyes flash a shade darker as he registers the truth “Slice them up now”

The guards walked again at the tables taking a large knife, I looked at my friends seeing them tense up makes me so worried after all we are just kids, we can be afraid too, but we are built to be like this fighting for justice. This is the first time we’ve been captured by the enemy, usually, we always win but this time it’s different we are fighting a rich, smart and a cunning guy who has purely evil intentions for the world.

“Don’t worry, it’s going to be alright, just don’t fight it okay?” I whispered to my friends trying to reassure them at some point and they just gave me a sad look that breaks my heart into million tiny pieces.

“What are you waiting for?” work faster you morons I’m not paying you to slow around” Wesley huffed, growing impatient every second “Start with the feisty one, I want to hear him scream”

“You are a f*****g psychopath” I screamed at him, I can see his jaw physically tense from my words “Come here and fight me like a man not with your stupid guards you b***h, you are a coward”

“Rayo stop, stop triggering him we don’t want you to be hurt anymore, you look worse enough please try to remain calm” Walter pleaded at me “You are the one who said to calm down and don't fight back but look at you”

“Enough of this shitty empathetic show, if you guys aren’t going to do it I’m going to kill them myself including all of you,” Wesley scoffs walking towards the guard pushing him away, he then started to unlock my chain, I was about to try and punch him but one of his guards handcuffed me. Dang it

Wesley started to grab me by my hair yanking me off the ground then dragged me over to a metal chair I saw earlier, the guards took the handcuffs off and gripped my arms tightly so I wouldn’t try to do anything, they sat me down into the chair then started chaining me to it, they did the same to my friends, we are now all chained in different chairs.

“Let the fun begin shall we,” Wesley said leaning down to meet my face then began smiling widely like a creep, he now hold my arms out, putting his knife up to my arms, I closed my eyes in anticipation, next thing I knew a stinging sensation formed on my arms, I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter, biting my lip to refrain from screaming because I don’t want to give him satisfaction, as blood trickles down my arms, his cut was getting deeper every second, then after he made a huge cut on my arms he placed the knife down, and began to insert his fingers into my large open wound, I couldn’t take the pain anymore, I began screaming, it hurts so much as he kept moving his hand inside my wound trying to find the tracker, the pain felt like a sharp-toothed creature eating me from the inside until he took his fingers out revealing a small red tracker shape like a medicine.

“See, I was right,” He said while smirking, he dropped the tracker on the ground and began stomping on it cracking into tiny pieces “If you told me the truth earlier no one would get hurt, Now moving to your friends”

“No, sorry please,” I said in a weakly voice now the pain is taking over my body, everything hurts “Please don’t hurt them”

“Too late for that now,” He said, I tried to fight him by kicking him but he quickly dodge it, I use all my powers to try and reach him moving my chair but his guard pushed me away making me and the chair fall, I hit my head on the ground, making my head dizzy, I heard Wesley saying something to his guard but I couldn’t quite comprehend, the next thing I knew, the guard leaned down on me and injected something on my neck again, I can faintly hear my friends calling out my name but I couldn’t move or talk within seconds my body loss consciousness

The last thing I heard was my friends screaming for help.

TO BE CONTINUED…