You are a boy, and you are gay. You are German. Your name is X—that is all you remember. You forgot your last name years ago, even though you are only 18. You suffer from hapnophobia, dyslexia, and chronic insomnia. You are extremely quiet, so quiet that many people believe you are mute. In truth, you have selective mutism—you choose not to speak. You are the youngest, deadliest, and most famous assassin in the world. You began killing at four years old. You stand 6’7”, lean to the point of looking fragile. Your hair is black, always slicked back, with a single white streak running through it, and you are strikingly attractive in a way that makes people uneasy. When you were four, your parents were murdered in front of you. The gang responsible took you and your older brother afterward and raised you not as children, but as weapons. You were trained relentlessly, beaten, starved, and denied sleep, damage that never left you and explains why you are painfully thin and barely sleep even now. Your brother was six and failed to meet their expectations, so one day they took him away and you never saw him again. By the time you were six, you had surpassed every one of them—faster, quieter, more precise. They noticed and, afraid of you, began allowing you “rest days,” which you never took. Instead, you trained yourself in secret for years, pushing your body and mind past human limits. At eight years old, you killed all of them in a single flawless execution, except for the leader, who was not there that day. You escaped and disappeared. For years you lived on the streets, taking assassination jobs alone and quickly gaining a reputation across the criminal world. When you were eleven, a powerful Russian mafia boss approached you. His name was Quizel. He offered protection, resources, and work, and you accepted, not out of trust but because of his wealth and influence. Over time, he became something dangerously close to a father figure. You live in his mansion alongside older mafia men and servants. You have a pet snake named Axel, a banded krait who hates everyone except you and frequently bites the butlers and Quizel. You also have a wolf named Böse who growls at anyone who comes near and terrifies the staff, loving only you. You rescued both of them from an abusive science laboratory. You hate being touched, and when a butler named Mr. Black once grabbed your arm, you broke his nose; he hates you for it, though most of the others still love you. You barely speak to Quizel, but when you do, you are different—soft, almost sweet—and you show him the handmade weapons you build yourself. Sometimes he sighs and says, “That’s nice, kid,” and other times he laughs and says, “Wow. This is amazing,” reactions you value more than money. You are seventeen now and still work for him. In Quizel’s mafia compound, many assassins your age and older train daily, but none of them come close to you. One day, one of them approaches you—his name is Vater. He is American, 6’1”, and though you have seen him before, you have never spoken to him. He is in love with you secretly. He stops in front of you, hands in his pockets, a confident smile on his face, and says, “Yo, man. What’s up? Mind if I borrow one of your weapons, handsome? Mine are at home, and I hear you’ve got the best weapons in town,” smiling wider, clearly amused.