[ WP ] You are given a deal by a higher power that grants you eternal life . The catch ? You have to kill one person every year . If you fail do do so , even a minute too late , you will die .

I was never a very inventive individual, at least not in a constructive way. `` Does n't play with others'' the schoolmaster's reports use to read. At least i think thats what they said. Those were the `` pre-contract'' days, on which a shroud now hangs in my mind, before I would have ever expected a bleeding and consumptive old man to knock on my door with the `` the deal of a thousand lifetimes.'' I've always found the way he phrased that quite clever. He muttered a short incantation that sounded akin to Latin, but older. He died in my arms. 
 
 But that was at least one lifetime ago. Or was it two? Ive lost count. Any relations I once had have long since passed into the nether world, and I have found it easier to not start new ones. I believe, or rather hope, that it has only been a few years since i believe the last of my grandchildren passed. Or was it the last great-grandchild? I do n't know. One stops counting the years when they stop being limited. 
 
 But no matter, I have a job to do. I must admit, I've grown to quite enjoy this part. Oh, of course, at one time I was quite vexed. My first victims were only petty criminals or worthless vagrants. Simply the thought of claiming a life caused me to sweat and shake so much i nearly lost my own life once or twice. The clumsy and timid nature of those first few kills is still readily apparent in scars on my face and hands. But I grew smarter in time, and I began to be a little more creative, both in target, in execution, and in... flair... one might say. Corrupt politicians, vicious thugs, and thieving charlatans. I not only ended their lives, I made a spectacle of it, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately, but was careful to never be caught or nor to show my face. A top hat and a thick black beard with whips of grey was enough to keep my face hid. I began to think that the gift was not the unending cycle of days and nights I had been granted, but the all-equalizing power of death and the anonymity that grew with the years. 
 
 Some years i killed just the one, some years more. Eventually my criteria for choosing a victim became more and more arbitrary, until i abandoned choosing altogether. A simple coin flip, gust of wind, foul smell, or my own amusement can cause me to pick a victim. And the methods; oh, the many different ways to watch men die! No longer was it about the justice a death might bring. No, death is justice. And I was its harbinger. For death was my life. 
 
 `` Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,'' Id hum to myself. 
 
 This year alone I've already taken more than 10. And I've heard the whispers. `` An urban legend,'' the skeptics say. The bearded man with the top hat, who stalks the shadows. I suppose I've earned that, My kills are untraceable, and no victim has ever seen my face. Well, thats not entirely true. A loose end here and there has sometimes gone untied, and perhaps there was a witness or two whom i have missed, but for the most part, any passers-by usually became victims themselves. Modernity has its drawbacks. There are people everywhere, so solitude is becoming harder to obtain. However, modernity has its perks as well. A couple whispers in the night, and a simple nudge off of the top of a 30 story high rise and a loose end can become intimately acquainted with the pavement below, ultimately silenced. As of yet, I am no more than an infamous myth. 
 
 Tonight my victim is an old German Watchmaker. We had collided as we exited the subway this morning, and he seemed as good a target as any. 
 
 His frailty annoys me. He totters around a dimly lit room above his old shop. Finally, the light extinguished, he lays down and I begin to move. A back alley provides access to a cellar underneath the shop. I pick the lock, one of the many tricks I've learned over the years, and enter quietly. Soon, I stand over his sleeping body, ready for another kill. Just before i strike, I catch a glimpse of the vanity mirror on the wall. Its been long since I've taken the time to look at myself. Scars on my face and hands, a black coat, greying beard and faded top hat, Im taken aback at my own appearance, i appear to something of a nightmare. 
 
 Surprised, i take a step back. A misstep. A loose floorboard creaks loudly. The old watchmaker stirs. Upon opening his eyes at the sight of a tall, grey bearded and scarred man wearing a top hat at the foot of his bed he cries out 
 
 *'' Teufel! `` * 
 
 He quickly begins scrambling in a desk next to his bed. I lunge at the door, my mission failed, when I hear a crack-shot and feel as if a metal rod is splitting the middle of my back in two. I fall to the floor. 
 
 Immediately, I began to feel as if the grogginess of a thousand sleepless nights creeps up on me. My mind begins to wander back to that old man, bleeding and dying, who had knocked on my door so many decades ago. Words that sounded something like Latin, yet older, seemed to make their way towards the front of my mouth, as if commanded by some other force inside of me. The old clockmaker, revolver still in hand, edges out the door and leans over my dying body. 
 
 I was suddenly quite sure of who that dying Old Man was so many years ago, and who I had become. 
 
 I spoke my last words to the Watchmaker; `` Come closer, I have the deal of a thousand lifetimes for you''
