In the silent corridors somewhere in Europe—beneath the treaties, the think tanks, and the trembling hopes for peace: a clock began to tick.
It wasn't the kind of timepiece that tolled hours or minutes. It counted fates. Measured silence between heartbeats. Tracked the distance between breath and death. And above it, carved into an unmarked door, three letters glowed faintly in red:
Project O.Y.A.
One Year of Assassination.
Twelve operatives. Twelve months. Twelve targets that the world couldn't afford to let live.
Above the surface, the planet spun faster toward the brink. China staged naval war games near Taiwan as U.S. carriers loomed on the horizon. Russia pressed further into Eastern Europe with quiet boots and loud rhetoric. Intelligence reports flickered with warning signs—AI-run defense systems, deep-fake declarations of war, cyberattacks dancing on the edge of catastrophe.
Every world leader played their hand with nuclear-tipped bravado, convinced that deterrence was still the game. But the game had changed.
Someone—something—had decided peace was no longer a matter of diplomacy. It was a matter of subtraction.
And so they were summoned.
January, the mind-breaker, watching the world with eyes that saw lies before they were spoken.
February, the seductress on the wire, already slipping through a foreign embassy like a whisper through silk.
March, who smiled as he built bombs from bottle caps, because chaos spoke a truth no speech ever could.
April, wearing a face she borrowed from your childhood, your spouse, your god, stepping into your memories like a ghost with a knife.
May, laughing over comms as a high-value convoy driver slumped behind the wheel, a single bullet ending an empire's breath.
June, fists and reflexes forged in war labs, body shield and blade for those who walked beside him.
July, hammering blueprints in a bunker lit by sparks and fury, crafting weapons the world had never seen and would never survive.
August, who could rebuild your mind or dismantle it mid-sentence, her smile both a cure and a curse.
September, the invisible thief of secrets, already deep inside a satellite feed, watching presidents sleep.
October, the toxin artist, slipping through shadows with poisons that left no trace but a smile carved by paralysis.
November, the machine who dreamed in silence, her synthetic soul awakening, wondering if she could feel the lives she ended.
December, the tactician who led them all, Orion Vale, alone in the war room, fingers tracing maps not of cities but of consequences.
Twelve assassins. Each a master of death. Each given a target whose life could ignite the end of the world. Their mission wasn't sanctioned. Their existence wasn't acknowledged. And their morality wasn't negotiable.
Because this wasn't about justice. It wasn't about revenge. It was about stopping World War III before it started.
And sometimes, to stop a fire, you must burn the matchmakers first.
This was not a war fought in trenches, but in shadows.
This was not diplomacy.
This was elimination.
Welcome to the year the world was saved...
One kill at a time.