Strikesnake
A/N: just something a little different. Don't own characters.
Life Beyond its End
I sit here in the shadows of my life, and watch the car pull up to the kerb. A click, a woosh, and out he steps, steeped in black and cockiness. A smile plays my lips as the sun peaks over a building, blinding him, just as I planned, a petty pleasure.
"Erm, a Mr Boltler"
He's wrong, but what should I care? Reaching out I take the case and, with a click, the lid swings up. Twelve pieces lay, nestled among the fine silk. Oh, fine silk, that takes me back, years back. But no, too much of that, my life is gone.
A curt nod, and off we go, neither cares where goes the other. I climb, and climb, further up, but slowly, now my age and many battles all clamour for attention. Still, I fight back, and break out onto the roof. And then to the edge, and onto my knees. Open the case and the pieces slide together with ease; I always buy good quality. And there's the car. The windows, dark and tinted, are stupidly close in the telescopic lens. I only have three bullets, I only need two.
A hole appears in the tinted glass while the first crack echoes round the buildings, bouncing off glass and steel. For a long moment nothing appears to have happened. I am still and ready. The tyres squeal in protest and my mind dully registers the sound, eyes locked on the car, which now weaves over the road like a raft on choppy seas. Many more tyres squeal, as half the motorway break to a halt, horns and cries pound my senses but I concentrate and wait. A new noise is created. A dull reverberation of metal and the sharp screeches and twangs that follow. The car has buried itself in the central partition, as though trying to hide.
The wait begins again. This is the one moment were anything could happen, to tip the balance either way. And just in case something unexpected happens, I have a third bullet. But no, the back-left door is opening, slowly, and I see one shoe slowly emerge. It's a small shoe, it looks like a child's, but that makes no difference. I take careful aim and wait, finger pressing on the trigger. He rises and the breath I draw at seeing her sends my bullet whizzing into the road behind her. At this he runs, but my mind is elsewhere, years back. Before …
Artemis, young and full of life. This child looks so like him, all dressed up in a tailored suit. True, the hair is a different colour and Artemis was so much, well, paler; many people said he looked like a vampire. But he had been taken from me, my skills had not been enough, and he had made so many enemies. Artemis was my principle, my friend and the closest I had to family, his death ended my life.
That was how I started wasn't it. Holly tried, at the funeral, to console and dissuade me, but my life spiralled down and out of control as I sought revenge, and no matter what I did, who I killed, my life was still ended and would never return. And one day, there was nobody left to take revenge on, and so I wandered, lost and alone. I longed for merciful death. My heart was hard and empty, and so I was found, and put to work…
I hang my shoulders and sigh with despair, at my life, at the world, at terrible consciousness. Returning my gaze I see him, still running, toward an overpass, toward safety. In a few seconds it will be too late. A third crack pounds my surroundings, and down he falls, a metaphor of my life, beauty driven to the ground.
The gun spirals as it falls, and I watch it, every time, and wonder. Should I follow it?
A/N; hope you weren't too depressed!!