Inside the Asylum, John's body was, as usual, lying on the soft medical bed in his room, his limbs still cuffed to the bed's railings.
"Grrgh...!!" John furiously tugged on his cuffs, screaming to be set free of them.
"Someone, get these bloody things off me...!!!" He screamed again.
The fierce and chaotic battle between the warden, his soldiers, and the high demon, had consequently raised alarms that echoed throughout the entire Asylum, so John knew that the less-than-ideal thing to do was to remain cuffed to the bed's railings while the entire place fell apart.
But without the keys to the cuffs, his wishes were more or less non-existent and irrelevant.
The battle that raged-on above the fore walls of the Penitentiary had been quite disastrous that the one in charge of the Asylum had been forced to issue a ward-wide evacuation protocol, compelling every worker present in the Asylum to effectively guide all patients to a nearby safe house; A safe house which had been formerly established by the government to specifically tackle situations similar to the one they were currently experiencing.
These safe houses included Bomb shelters, Earthquake enclosures, Hurricane bunkers, and so on. And not until this very moment, the government had no practical use for these unique set of buildings.
***
Even though John's deduction concerning his current situation hadn't been far from the harsh reality of it, he still needed to break free from his restraints and seek shelter at the nearest safe house he would eventually find.
He continued tugging on his cuffs in hopes of wearing them out enough to break free of them, but the metallic cuffs only mocked him with their extreme durability and tensile strength
As a consequence of his relentlessly struggle with his restraints, the smooth skin of John's wrists and ankles were soon marred with countless ligature marks and bloody abrasions.
However, his struggling came to an abrupt halt the moment the windows to his room were blasted to tiny bits, paving way as a massive RPG tore through the air across the room before exploding with a devastating bang, ultimately emitting a searing hot wave of crimson flames that engulfed the entire room.
Though John's bound body was technically and dangerously close to the RPG's point of impact, he was fortunately spared of the fiery devastation preceding the explosion of the massive bolt; This particular fact he utterly owed to his bed for mitigating a massive bunch of the damage he would have received if he had been without any form of shield.
Despite the massive concussion he received after forcefully slamming his head into a nearby wall in his room—due to the propulsive force accompanied by the explosion, John was still able to form a few coherent thoughts, ranging from how he had survived a close-range bomb explosion to how he suddenly possessed twenty fingers instead of ten.
However, one thing stuck out from the rest of his thoughts. And it was the one thing he had been trying so hard and long to achieve for the past few minutes:
His wrists and ankle cuffs were now untethered to the bed's railings, as the latter had already been destroyed due to the unfortunate explosion.
Even though he still had one cuff hold on each limb, John thought that his current situation was as best as it could possibly get.
With that, he bolted towards the large hole on the wall made by the RPG's explosion; a hole once occupied by a chic wooden door that served as the entrance to John's room.
But before that, he made sure to arm himself with the largest metallic bar he could source within the rubble of ash and charred stones — to buy a bit of security insurance in case he happened to stumble across a foreign entity.
He wasn't particularly aware of the nature of the threat waiting to greet him as soon as he stepped out of the Asylum entrance doors; he was only certain that whatever and however it may be, the situation outside the confining walls wasn't in the least pleasant.
So he had to be prepared in some way.
**
He eventually made it outside the mental facility, but was quickly struck dumb as he witnessed the events that unfolded before his very eyes:
The turrets mounted on the fore wall of Axegate Penitentiary, which was originally twelve in number, were now down to three — although one out of the three seemed to be at its last gasp, because its walls were now adorned with countless veins of cracked concrete.
However, the remaining turrets and their occupants never stopped firing at what seemed to be a floating man in the sky.
'Where the... what the... What's going on? W–What is that thing? And how did it get here?'
John's sporadic thoughts were quickly expelled the next moment because a singularity appeared right before him.
**
Although unarmed with the knowledge of the nature of the singularity event, John didn't feel waiting to see what would happen next was the ideal thing to do, so he slowly backed away from the singularity, created a considerable distance between himself and the object, before bolting away with full speed.
However, he didn't make it that far because a figure emerged from the singularity and quickly spotted John's charging body a few meters away.
It was completely obvious that this new entity had made John its primary target because, in the next second, its image seemed to multiply in the tens through speed-cloning.
Then, immediately after that, the clones started spreading out in multiple directions, obviously attempting to block and cut every possible escape route accessible to John.
***
Oblivious as to the nature of what had emerged from the singularity he had been distancing himself from, John kept running, unwilling to let up till he arrives at the nearest safe house because he had managed to vacate the Asylum's premises.
Fleeing the premises of the Asylum could be considered a fortunate precedent on John's side because, most people who ran to flee the Asylum were unfortunately caught in a crossfire between the warden, his remaining soldiers, and the high demon who relentlessly threw one devastating spell after another.
However, as he took a turn into another street, he stopped dead in his tracks as he came into view with the entity that had been targeting and diligently stalking him.
After noticing John's presence, this entity moved gracefully towards John, its large scythe gleaming with an otherworldly dark radiance, its face an embodiment of a bottomless abyss, its arms, legs and fingers a symbol and representation of death.
"You have got to be kidding me." John tightened his grip on the large metallic bar he had fortunately armed himself with.
And with one determined horizontal swipe, he swung his makeshift bat across the Grim reaper's head, consequently generating a dry sickening bone crack as the bat made contact with its target's head.
Without hesitating, John redrew his weapon and bolted in the opposite direction, away from the reaper who didn't so much as flinch after getting smacked in the head with a metal bar.
But as he made another turn into a blind alleyway, there it was again; another reaper, looming and waiting patiently for him, as if it knew that he was going to make that turn.
John's feet progressively skidded to a stop as he stared at the Grim Reaper with an expression drowned in disbelief.
'There are two of you...?'
'I am definitely not terrified right now...'