Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of this work of fiction (other than the warehouse) and am making no profit, monetary or otherwise, through the writing of this. Warehouse number 9 and the events which occur within its walls are fictitious. Any similarity to actual warehouses or events which take place within them is unintentional.
A/N: Inspired by the following writing prompt on day 10 of my NaNoWriMo donation poster: "Write a story from the point of view of the building in which it takes place." (Daniel Jose Older)
Bullet holes don't patch themselves, and blood stains are murder to get out of the walls and cement — there's always a trace of it left behind, no matter how hard one scrubs at it.
Sighing, the warehouse echoes the sounds of gunfire, and flinches as yet another bullet scores one of its wooden planks. Another bullet misses its intended mark — a short, blonde police detective — and embeds itself into the warehouse wall, causing the wood to crack and splinter. A piece flies out and catches the blonde detective on the cheek, drawing blood.
More bloodstains, the warehouse laments. It feels some sympathy for the blonde, given that it has many scars made by bullet holes peppering its walls and floor.
The warehouse wants to stop the gunfight, but, given its limitations in positioning and inability to do much more than settle and groan, it can only stand by and watch, and wait until it's over. This isn't the first gunfight it has borne witness to, and it doubts that it will be the last gunfight that will take place within its wooden walls. Very few people cared about what happened within the walls of an abandoned warehouse, after all.
The blonde police detective swears as another bullet whizzes by his head and blows a chunk of the warehouse's wall off instead. Another splinter of wood flies out of the wall, and the warehouse can almost feel the pain as it lodges itself into the detective's shoulder, almost as damaging as a bullet would have been itself. The warehouse groans in sympathy, ignoring another bullet wound near one of its rear facing doors.
The detective drops his gun, and the warehouse feels a moment of panic before the detective regains his hold on the weapon, hand shaking with pain and perhaps adrenaline. It's hard to tell what the detective is thinking as he holds his gun. There's a grim, determined look on his face that the warehouse admires, though it is slightly worrisome. It is the look of a man that knows he is about to die. The warehouse has seen this look before, and it has never boded well for the men who've worn it.
The warehouse shouldn't have favorites, but in this case, it wants the drug and gun dealers out of its walls, and apprehended by the police. The warehouse wants the blonde detective to beat the odds and survive.
The stench of meth and cocaine are soaked into the walls, and the warehouse wishes that it could rewind time, and go back to the good old days where criminals let it be in favor of conducting their illicit business elsewhere. The warehouse wishes it could revisit its glory days, when shipments from all over the world were unloaded and stored within its walls, waiting to be brought to stores and sold.
It's tired and there's a sense of loneliness in the wooden planks themselves. The cement flooring is cracked and stained with more than just blood.
The blonde detective cries out and clutches at his side. It's so sudden that the warehouse is shocked and fearful for the blonde when it sees a man dressed in black, heading toward the downed detective. Worry climbing the walls, the warehouse shudders, and shakes, and the man in black loses his footing, no doubt attributing the warehouse's movements to an explosion, or an earthquake, never mind the fact that Oahu isn't known for earthquakes.
Falling, the man in black gets off another shot, but this one buries itself into the cement flooring, making the warehouse quiver in response as cement chips fly out toward the warehouse walls. The warehouse silently cheers in victory when one of the cement chips hits the man in black's eye, effectively blinding him for the time being. He won't be shooting at the blonde detective any time soon. The warehouse shudders, and a loose beam falls on the man in black's head, knocking him out, maybe even killing him. The warehouse doesn't know, and doesn't care.
The blonde detective's partner, a man with a look of murder in his steely eyes, and a hard look on his face, enters the room, guns blazing, bullets flying as he makes his way to his downed partner, and assesses the damage.
There's a lot of blood. Too much. It seeps between the fingers of the blonde detective's partner, and into the cement, dripping, dripping, dripping. The warehouse soaks up the blood, the cement floor drinking it deeply and incorporating it into its very being. The blood of the detective will forever change the makeup of the warehouse as had the blood of those who'd died within the warehouse's walls before this day.
The blonde detective isn't doing very well, and the warehouse can only watch from its walls and windows, helpless to offer any practical help. It feels impotent, yet thrilled that the dark haired man had returned for the blonde, because it remembers now, seeing them together. They'd been here, within the warehouse's walls, before, in another gunfight, years ago, and the warehouse knows that, if anyone can help the blonde, it will be the dark haired, tattooed, man.
The sound of sirens reverberates against the walls of the warehouse, and the warehouse watches as the living, yet bleeding, criminals are hauled away, including the one that it had beamed, and a pair of EMTs (the warehouse recognizes them from before) make their way into the building to attend to the wounded detective.
The warehouse sighs in relief when the EMTs stabilize and then roll the bleeding detective outside, and get him into their waiting ambulance, the dark haired man following quickly. He's holding the blonde's hand. It's a touching moment, and the warehouse feels itself getting warm as it continues to watch the tender moment before the doors of the ambulance close, shutting of its view of the pair, and reminding the warehouse of the bustle of activity that's still taking place within, and outside of its walls, as the drugs and guns are taken stock of and the criminals hauled off to hopefully never darken its walls again.
The warehouse knows that there will be further investigation, and then a quick cleanup before it can rest again, until someone new decides to trespass and include it in their activities — nefarious or otherwise.