magine for a moment a world where every single person, upon reaching the age of majority, is issued a license to kill. The rules are simple: you must declare a number from zero to fifty, granting you the legal right to execute that exact number of targets. Then there are those who opt for the "unlimited" tier—an unrestricted body count. But it comes with a lethal catch: once fifteen years expire, a permanent bounty is placed on their heads, and there is nowhere left to hide from death. After all, anyone willing to slaughter without limits outside the bounds of war is no longer considered human. You can even register specific names on your docket. But in a world like this, you must always be prepared for the fact that someone out there might just write down yours.

A young woman sat on the stone steps leading up to a modest, one-story house, weeping unconsolably. A heavy handgun was clutched in her hands. The autumn wind whipped through her short blonde hair, scattering dead leaves around her trembling frame. The front door swung open, and a pleasant-looking woman in her early fifties stepped out onto the porch. "Linda, sweetheart, why are you sitting out here in the cold?" Linda lifted her tear-stained gray eyes, their depths completely hollowed out by a crushing devastation. "Aunt Lucia..." she choked out, before dissolving into heavy sobs once more. Lucia shifted her gaze to Linda’s hands and gently, mindfully pried the weapon from her freezing fingers. "Did you finally use your license? Oh, don't tear yourself apart like this, baby. Taking a life is never easy on anyone." Linda shook her head violently, her teeth chattering. "You don't understand! I didn't use it! I couldn't do it!" Aunt Lucia’s thinly plucked brows knit together in confusion. She took the girl by her wrists and forced her to stand up. "Right! No use freezing to death on these cold stones. Let’s get some hot tea inside, and you can tell me everything. If you feel up to it." In the hallway, she helped Linda out of her damp coat and led her straight into the kitchen, pulling up a chair close to the hearth. Aside from her modern electric range, Lucia owned a genuine brick wood-stove. She loved baking artisanal bread and pies in it, keeping it lit on bitter autumn days just like this one. Pouring a steaming, fragrant blend into a large ceramic mug, she handed it to the girl, waiting until Linda took a few grounding sips before speaking again. "Don't beat yourself up over it. It happens to more people than you think. Cashing in a license isn't a walk in the park, and plenty of citizens end up letting theirs expire. They just can't bring themselves to pull the trigger." "I served in the military. I did a contract tour in a combat zone. I’ve put bullets in people before, Aunt Lucia," Linda fired back, her voice turning stone-cold. "And every single bit of that hell was just a rehearsal so I could finally cash in this damn license." Aunt Lucia sat down opposite her, absentmindedly flattening the edge of the linen napkin beneath a small bowl of cookies. "You know, when you were a teenager, I was terrified you’d put Martha on your list." "Why?" Linda asked, her eyebrows arching in genuine surprise. "She used to beat you black and blue when you were a kid. Constantly. She humiliated you. That kind of trauma isn't something you just forgive and forget," Lucia said with a heavy shrug. "People have signed death warrants for a hell of a lot less." Linda wasn't rushing to drink. The hot ceramic felt incredibly grounding against her numb, stiff fingers. "Of course I remember. And I hated her guts for years. Even now, the memory hits me out of nowhere, and... it cuts deep. But everything changed back then. You remember, don't you? Mom and I had that massive screaming match because I chose art school over business college. All her grand plans for my future went up in smoke." "And you walked out on her." "Yeah. And then, right on my birthday, those absolute monsters broke into her house—Sam Kinch, Jim Socker, Corey Flynn, and Joe Gals. They beat her senseless, burned her skin with a hot iron, and threatened to violate her just to get their hands on her cash. It was like some twisted, cheap horror movie. And then Joe Gals slit her throat. The bastard even came back to finish the job when she tried to crawl out onto the porch begging for help." Aunt Lucia choked back a sob, fumbling in her apron pocket for a handkerchief. "She hung on for forty agonizing days in that hospital! She’d still be alive today if she hadn't been paralyzed by the sheer terror that Gals would track her down to finish her off. Her heart just gave out under the stress. Fear killed her," Linda said, her voice completely detached as she squeezed the mug so hard the ceramic groaned under the pressure. "I registered their names on my docket." "You wanted to execute them yourself," Lucia stated, not even bothering to make it a question. "For Martha." "Because she was my mother! I didn't care what had happened between us anymore. None of it mattered the second they touched her." Linda ground her teeth, her jaw tight. "More than anything, I wanted Gals dead. He was the one torturing her while those other three freaks just stood there and watched," she said, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "I used to daydream about beating the living daylights out of him. Burning his pathetic face piece by piece. And then putting a bullet right between his eyes. But the other three? I wasn't even going to grant them a quick death. I wanted to serve them notice. Let them know they were on my list. I wanted them to live every day knowing their numbers were up." She let out a crooked, bitter smirk. "Good thing our wonderful legal system thought of everything. You can't use your license against someone who already put you on theirs. You can't put a contract hit out on them, or get a third party to slide them onto their own docket. How convenient for the prey. I was going to bide my time, dropping hints every now and then to remind them they were in my crosshairs. I wanted them to drop dead on their own. From pure, unadulterated terror." A heavy silence settled over the kitchen. Then, Linda slammed her mug onto the wooden table. "And now I can't even exercise my legal right to kill!" she nearly shrieked. "And it’s not because I choked! It’s because I’m too late!" "Too late? What do you mean?" Aunt Lucia blinked, thoroughly bewildered. Linda brushed away the angry tears welling up in her eyes again. "Because Kinch, Socker, and Flynn got hammered last night, lost control of their car, drove off a bridge, and drowned in the river. And Gals... Gals got gunned down this morning by some random 'unlimited' hunter." "Then why on earth are you crying, child?" Aunt Lucia asked, shaking her head. "Providence did the dirty work for you. Justice was served." "Because I wanted to be the one who did it!" Linda shrieked, burying her face in her hands as she broke down into heavy, uncontrollable tears. The End