Click (Micro-Fiction Monday)

He waited up high, in a tree, an old pistol loosely clutched in his hand. The branches were dead, rotten, and crumbling. They wouldn’t hold his weight for much longer. Luckily, his target was almost right beneath him. There were no leaves to cover him, but that was okay; the thick cloud of polluted air did the job nicely.

Just about there, now. Three more steps. Two. One...

He dropped, silently, from his perch, his feet colliding with his target’s back. The target cried in pain and dropped to the ground. The attacker was satisfied at the cracking and crunching of the target’s bones beneath his boots.

He hopped off of the fallen traveller, and stuck the pistol in between his teeth as he yanked the worn backpack right off his shoulders. The target groaned, rolling in pain, as the attacker rifled roughly through his belongings. Some old photographs, a dirty teddy bear, an empty water bottle. He threw the bag down in disgust and yanked the pistol out of his mouth. There was nothing he could use.

Frustrated, the attacker kicked his fallen target, hard in the gut. The man gasped, clutching his side. “What kind of survivor are you?” the attacker spat. “Not a crumb of food, or a drop of water...pathetic.”

“Please,” the man croaked. “Let me...have my things. They’re all I have left of my family!”

The attacker dropped to his knees, waving the pistol carelessly in the air. “You miss your family?”

“Yes...” Relief washed through the man’s eyes.

His gun clicked. “Then allow me to reunite you.”

~~

Until later,

- Justyne