It was an average Wednesday morning until I got a letter from an unknown address. I carefully opened it, as I was a dangerous person, it very well could’ve been poisoned or something like this. Dozens of people wanted me dead.

Luckily, it was nothing dangerous. I checked out the picture that was attached to the letter. It was a photo of a man, probably in his mid-60s with gray hair and a clean-shaven face. He wore classical clothes, it looked like a person from the 19th century. It looked a bit uncanny, I’d say. His eyes were so big, and his overall facial structure was… strange. Then I read the letter.

Dear Marilyn Hayes,

The tales about your talent are well known to me. I’ve heard you only need a name and a few days at maximum to eliminate your target. This time, your target is Lord Maximilian, I’ve attached a picture of him. He lives in an old castle a few miles from Harwich. It’s full of servants, so you have to be careful. Kill everyone if you have to. Don’t underestimate Lord Max and his staff. As soon as he’s dead, I’ll immediately pay your well-deserved payment of 2 million USD. Good luck, Mr. Hayes!

Yeah, it was nothing special. Just an average bounty hunting job. The only extraordinary thing was the payment. I’ve never got such a high-paying job. 2 million dollars is a lot, even for a dangerous bounty like this. I could afford an early retirement with that much money.

So, anyway, I made a cup of coffee, then prepared myself for the job. I found my black, hooded jacket that I usually use for this kind of stuff. It had dozens of inside pockets, I always put the necessary items there. A pistol, a throwing knife, a regular kitchen knife, a curved dagger, two frag grenades, and a few milliliters of cyanide.

I was ready to go. I smiled as I hopped into my car. It was time to get rich.

It was a three hour drive straight to Harwich. I wanted to ask the locals about this Lord Maximilian before I would try to break into his castle. I also had to find a store, ‘cause I forgot to bring my cigarettes.

“Ah, yes, Maximilian,” said the guy who owned the store when I asked him about Max. “The old man is a descendant of some British count, the guy’s crazy rich, he stays in his castle all the time, I haven’t seen him since the last decade.”

“Interesting,” I said while packing away my pack of cigarettes. “I heard he has a shit ton of servants.”

“Those servants do anything around the castle, they probably wipe his ass, too,” the guy laughed.

“Yeah, haha.”

Around 9 PM, I parked my car about two hundred feet from the castle, near the edge of a forest, then walked the rest of the distance. The building was, indeed, beautiful. It was also fucking huge. There was a large sign in front of it. It was already dark, but I could still read the hundreds of years old letters. Harwich Castle, Thirteen Colonies. So yeah, it basically just confirmed my theory that it was fucking old. Even older than I thought.

I felt like I was a dwarf as I approached the front doors towering over me. I was a bit optimistic trying to get in there, but it was an old castle, there was no other way I could break in.

I was surprised when I pushed the large door and it opened. I expected it to be closet, but it was a pleasant surprise, maybe except for the fact that it gave out a loud creaking sound, so probably the whole building heard me getting in.

I slowly closed the door behind me. The hallway was dark, empty, and cold. There were no lights. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but I started walking slowly and quietly, maybe looking for a servant to give me information about the whereabouts of Maximilian. Everywhere I looked, I saw more and more corridors and stairs. That place was a labyrinth.

I stopped as I heard someone walking on the floor above me. I checked my weapons, then approached the stairs right in front of me. I slowly walked up the stairs, trying to make no sounds in the meantime. I progressed slowly, making one step at a time. I saw light at the top of the stairs.

As I reached the top, I noticed the corridor was fully illuminated, and at the end of it, there was a guy in formal wear, igniting the torches on the wall. Probably a servant, I thought. The guy heard my footsteps and looked at me.

“Uhm, can I help you, good sir?” he asked with a confused face. Strangely, he had a British accent.

“Hey,” I greeted him, still walking closer and closer, so I could kill him if I had to. “I’m looking for Lord Maximilian. I’m so sorry for bothering you this late, but I suffered a puncture while I was driving here.”

I just need to get a bit closer, only a bit closer, I kept thinking.

“No problem, sir.”

“Can you tell me where is Lord Maximilian right now?” I walked closer and closer. C’mon, stay there, and don’t try to run away.

As I got closer, I noticed those strange characteristics on the man I saw in that picture of Maximilian. Those large, round eyes and strange facial structure… Maybe he’s the old man’s son or something?

“Lord Maximilian is sleeping,” the servant said. I noticed a little smile on his face. But as I got closer, his face became stranger and stranger. I was only a few feet away from him. “His bedroom is on the top floor, but I think you should come back tomorrow, he doesn’t like when we interrupt him during his sleep.”

Great, he’s on the top floor, that’s enough information, I don’t need this stupid guy anymore. I grabbed my dagger from the inside pocket of my jacket, and quickly stabbed it in the servant’s neck. He didn’t even flinch. Blood didn’t come out, there was only some weird dark-purple energy vibrating around the wound. He smiled like a maniac.

“Well, well, Mr. Hayes,” he said. His voice was deeper than before. “You’re rude. I want to help and you want to kill me?”

His face immediately changed into something terrible. I pulled the dagger out of his neck and jumped back. He turned into some sort of monster. A skinny creature with purple skin and red eyes. His teeth were long and sharp. I thought I’ve lost my mind. What the fuck is happening? Is it just a nightmare, right? Right?

The creature jumped at me with a loud scream. I rushed to another corridor and tried to open a random door, but it was locked, and I still heard it running behind me. I tried another door, and luckily, I could open this one.

I slammed the door shut behind me, just as the terrible creature tried to follow me inside. I held the door with my back, but I could feel that the creature on the other side was much more powerful, so I didn’t have much time. The room I was in was large, and it had about six other doors, every one of them leading into another room. It’s a fucking labyrinth.

In the meantime, my mind became less and less clear. I often forgot what I was thinking about, I forgot how I got there, it was strange, and I started to panic. Maybe I’m crazy?

So because of that, I don’t exactly remember what happened afterward, but I think I choose a door in the room randomly and rushed inside. I think I ran through a few rooms, and the next thing I remember is jumping inside a closet to hide. I was probably in a bedroom.

Half a minute later, the creature arrived in the same room. I sat quietly in the closet, shaking, while trying to hold my breath. I heard the monster laughing outside. It walked around the room for a few minutes. Don’t find me, don’t find me, don’t find me.

After a while, the sounds stopped completely. I was sure he had left the room, but I still didn’t have the courage to leave the closet. I felt safe there. And my mind still wasn’t clear, and I couldn’t tell why. It felt like I was on drugs, I was unable to focus. My heart almost stopped when I heard a woman’s voice from outside.

“You can come out now, good sir. Come, I can help you. That thing is not here anymore.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you everything. Please, come out.”

I carefully opened the closet door, holding my hand on the knife in my inside pocket, ready to defend myself if necessary. It was a young blonde woman, maybe in her early 20s, in old handmaiden clothes. She had an innocent smile.

“Everything is okay now, good sir,” she said.

Good sir, I thought. The servant called me the same. I also noticed the same strange features and those big eyes on the woman’s face, but I just couldn’t focus, everything was so foggy.

“What was that thing?” I asked.

“A shapeshifter. Terrible, isn’t it? But it’s not here anymore, you don’t have to worry.”

“A shapeshifter!? Holy shit, I must be dreaming.”

“I’m afraid it’s real, good sir. But I can help you escape.”

“But… but I can’t escape. I have to kill Lord Maximilian,” as soon as I said this, I almost punched myself in the face. Fucking hell, I shouldn’t have told her this.

“I see. Well, maybe I can help with that too,” she smiled.

“No offense, but I’m not sure I can trust you,” I said, but I couldn’t argue anymore. My mind… I don’t know what was happening. It felt like a dream, or rather a nightmare, but I knew it was real. Focus, focus, focus.

“Let’s see how I can earn your trust,” she took off her clothes, slowly, then approached me. “Come on, don’t be afraid. Just lay down there,” she pointed at the bed.

My mind was still unclear, and for some unknown reason, I did what she said. I slowly walked to the bed and lay down. The woman came closer, and with a quick move, she put both of my hands into a handcuff, then tied it to the bed, just above my head. Hey, I’m not into this kind of stuff.

As my mind became clearer and clearer, I noticed more and more uncanny features on her face. The smile that looked so cute a minute before now looked creepy and malicious. For fuck’s sake, that’s the same fucking shapeshifter.

I tried to jump out of the bed, but the handcuffs kept me there. The woman smiled.

“Oh, now you wanna escape? How cute!”

As she said this, she transformed into the same purple-ish monster again, and then turned into an old man. Lord Maximilian. Luckily, the thing transformed itself with clothes on, otherwise, it would’ve been really awkward.

“You want to kill me, bastard?” Max asked.

“I’m a fucking hitman, that’s my job. But if you pay me more than my current boss, then I’ll kill him for you.”

“I don’t need you to kill someone, moron. I think you need a punishment for this. Yeah, maybe your arm will do it. Don’t worry, I’ll kill you anyway after that, but I want you to suffer.”

“Listen, you don’t have to- hey, hey,” I shouted as I saw him grabbing an old axe from the corner of the room. Before I could say anything, he chopped my right arm with that fucking thing. My screams filled the whole building. I think I blacked out.

When I woke up, I looked at the remains of my arm, and it looked like the old guy had taken care of the wound. But why?

“Because I don’t want you to bleed out. You’ll suffer for months. Or even years, now where is that old saw? It should be here.”

Max turned his back to me and went into the corner of the room, searching for the saw in an old wooden chest. Yeah, there was no way I’d wait for that. My right arm, or at least what remained of it, hurt like hell, but that meant only one of my arms was handcuffed, so I could move more freely.

I turned to my side, so I could reach my inside pockets with my handcuffed hand. What the fuck should I use to kill this thing?

I grabbed a frag grenade, then pulled the pin. 1…2…3! I threw the grenade as far as I could with a handcuffed hand. It landed at the end of the room, about a few feet from Maximilian.

As the grenade exploded, a shrapnel hit my foot, causing extreme pain there, but somehow I managed to ignore it, maybe because of the adrenaline. Max, on the other hand, was full of shrapnel, his skin was torn apart by it, then transformed back into that fucking monster, but its skin was torn apart too, so it looked even more terrifying. Didn’t matter, he was still alive.

“Bastard,” he screamed as he ran back to the bed and grabbed my neck. He unlocked the handcuffs, then raised me in the air, holding me only by my neck. Whatever it was, it was fucking powerful. This is the end. He’ll snap my neck, and I’ll die.

But he just threw me through the window, the glass cut my face multiple times, and I have no idea how many feet I did fall.

I couldn’t even stand up from the pain, so I crawled for at least an hour before I reached my car. Finally, it was over. I decided to retire, and never accept a job like this again. I’m not a hitman anymore.

I immediately drove to the nearest hospital in Harwich. They let me out the next day. I told the doctors I stepped on a butterfly mine in the forest, which caused my injuries. I don’t know if they believed it.

When I went home, my wife immediately greeted me. He was obviously worried. I can understand her. She was happy when I told her I’m not doing this anymore. But then I noticed it, oh, for fuck’s sake, she had those big eyes and strange features, too. Where’s my real wife? Fucking Lord Maximilian killed her… He wants me to suffer.