This one's twice as long as the others, folks. Inspiration hit me like a goddamned sledgehammer. Enjoy.
.
.
.
"Death is inevitable. Our fear of it makes us play safe, blocks out emotion. It's a losing game. Without passion, you are already dead." - Max Payne, Max Payne 2
.
.
.
"5 people, 6 locations. What is this, a fucking shopping list?"
Looking at the words written in the hidden back of the papers, the woman huffed in annoyance.
Homeless camp, you know where. Talk to Tom. Greying black hair, usually in a wool beanie. late 50's, African-American, sits on a couch next to the sidewalk. BE HONEST.
Liquor store, Forum Dr. Ask the clerk about her best customer. Black hair, early 30's, African-American. BE JOYFUL.
Dollar Pills, Strawberry Ave. Look for a clerk named Johnathan. Brown hair, late 20's, Caucasian, usually restocking. Say 'RS7IT' and he'll talk. BE BORED.
Gabriela's Market, on the corner of Forum & Strawberry. Ask the clerk about what happened a couple weeks ago. Bald, mid 40's, Caucasian. BE CALM.
Vanilla Unicorn, Elgin Ave. Look around for 'Chastity' and ask for a private conversation. Black hair, late 20's, Caucasian. Works at night. BE YOURSELF.
Crusade Rd. parking lot. I'll know if you skipped a location. Follow the order exactly. Let it tell my story, A.O.
- A.K
"Attention, all passengers. We have now arrived at Strawberry."
Hearing the tram operator's voice, she shoved the note back in her pocket and got up, exiting the vehicle.
'Hopefully this isn't some fucking goose chase... No, she wouldn't do something like that at a time like this.'
The large woman, after taking the stairs down, proceeded to walk across the street and into the homeless camp, passing by a worn toll booth and entering it through a big hole in the fence.
Looking around, she saw a myriad of different faces; lonely, sad, angry. Some people gave her looks of disgust and envy, others pleading or not looking at all, the ones ignoring her mainly doing so because of the state they're in. Some were disabled, having an eye, leg, or arm missing here and there, though very few. The most noticeable of the bunch, though, were those who were in a catatonic state, either by the drugs they were taking, or the horrors they'd seen.
Eventually, after completely passing through the first homeless camp, she reached another road, and yet again walked across towards a man fitting the description Alexandra had given her in the second homeless camp. Seeing the woman walking towards him, Tom sighed and snuffed the flame of the barrel in front of him.
'Be honest... I'll try.'
Loosening her posture after reaching Tom, she spoke to him.
"I'm here to talk about-"
"Zanna. Already know. Saw you yesterday, kid. Weren't exactly subtle."
He gestures towards the couch opposite him.
"Sit down."
She looks at the decrepit couch, barely put together.
"I'd break it."
"Wouldn't change much."
After a second, she shrugged, sitting down. The couch creaked, but didn't fall apart.
A tense silence broke out between the two, but after a couple of seconds the woman finally spoke up;
"From what I understand, Alex has lived in this area for a long time. She doesn't seem to have changed much, but that doesn't lessen my worry for her. Everybody thought she was dead, and for good reason. But suddenly, I see her alive, and though not well, still moving like nothing ever happened. With what I saw at the scene of her supposed death, though, that shouldn't be possible. We found fragments of her Fibula and Tibia bones scattered on parts of the sidewalk... What happened to her over the years I've been out of her life?"
Tom, taking the wool glove off of his left hand, started to speak.
"I ain't gonna sugarcoat it" he says, lifting his left hand. Opening his fist, you could see a scar wound; specifically, one from a bite, spanning from his wrist to in between his middle and pointer finger.
"It wasn't pretty."
He lowers it down to his lap.
"I was a surgeon once, you know. Worked out of CGH in Liberty City, specialized in limbs."
He looks down.
"Took everything I had to complete Med school and get in there. Years of my life were spent for the specific purpose of helping others. It's ironic, then, that one of the patients I saved turned out to be someone I shouldn't have."
He looks back towards the woman.
"My last surgery was being done on a man who had nearly lost his right arm. By all rights, it should have been irreparable, but somehow I was able to stitch it back together, nerves and all.. Too bad that I later figured out the man I saved was a child predator. Normally that wouldn't be an issue, as saving someone, no matter the crime, is my job, but the parent of one of his victims happened to work with the school I graduated from. He got the school to revoke my medical license, and my life crashed from there. I moved out here because I thought 'Fuck it. If I'm going broke, might as well make it a good time', and proceeded to blow the rest of my money on whiskey and women. My reputation and monetary gain was already shot, so there was no problem with me draining my life away."
He leaned on his hand, arm resting on the armrest.
"I was gonna kill myself, but a couple days before I could prepare a great takeoff to neverland, I heard and explosion a couple blocks away from this location. I went sprinting towards it, though not very fast. I was already 50, after all. But when I reached the crash, I saw one body and a trail of blood leading down an alleyway. I knew the man couldn't be saved, so I followed the trail, and beside a dumpster, laying on the trash bags, was Zanna... I..."
He takes a second to compose himself.
"She shouldn't have lived. Both of her legs had multiple wounds in them, mainly her lower. There were bones sticking out, piercing multiple places along her skin. Her arms were, miraculously, fine, though her hands had stones and glass in them from dragging herself along the ground. Those weren't even the worst part though..."
"...I refuse to speak of the rest of her injuries..."
The woman's fists clench at that.
'...Someone else must know.'
Calming herself, she continues listening, cringing at the thought of Alexandra's wounds.
"There was a shopping cart nearby, and, most likely because of adrenaline, I was somehow able to get her inside it and start strolling down the alleys. Before I moved, though, she... spoke."
His eyes widened slightly.
"I have absolutely no idea how she was able to get a word out, seeing as..."
"...She had a punctured lung. One of her ribs was poking out through her back in the same location..."
He held his hand to his face, and the woman's eyes shot fully open.
"I found out later it was only a small puncture, but even then, she shouldn't have been able to speak. Yet she somehow did."
He releases his hand from his face, smiling and chuckling slightly.
"She wasn't even grunting in pain, no emotion on her face. Her first words were 'O-. Give up.' They were whispered, but I heard them clearly."
"...I don't think I've ever pushed something so fast in my life, but somehow, through sheer luck, the wheels didn't catch on anything."
The man sat up.
"One of my... Hobbies... is collecting old medical supplies. Reminded me of what my life once was. Guess I was lucky, then, that I had most of the supplies I needed to operate, though most of them needed to be disinfected using fire."
He chuckled again.
"Her second words were 'Cauterize. Fuck the pain.' So, using thick mittens, I used some of the still-hot tools to start my work. She didn't make neither a sound nor a face throughout the entire 2 hour operation. Honestly scared me a bit. Though, at one point, she did bite my hand, but I think that was on instinct."
He closed his eyes.
"She wasn't able to move for a few years. She barely spoke, but I was able to understand what she wanted. Was sick for even longer. She couldn't even talk for the first year. Every time she tried, only air would come out."
He slouched into the sofa.
"I... To this day, I still don't understand how she lived. I've said it multiple times now, I know, but you must understand, she shouldn't be able to even move her entire body, let alone her legs. As you saw, though, she's fine now, although she does walk with a slight limp. Hard to notice, she's good at hiding it, but it's there."
"There was one thing I did notice, however, that was odd, and strikes me as such to this day..."
He looked straight at the woman.
"Every once in a while, I'd notice her personality take a drastic change. I'm no psychologist, but... It was as if they were taken from her, one by one, until nothing remained."