He Had Failed Her

Everything went wrong. Logan knew it even before he heard the roars of the hungry dogs behind him. He had never been the fiercest or the strongest, but the feeling of helplessness that surged through his spine the moment an enormous arm locked him in a strangling choke-hold around his throat was nothing like he had ever felt before. His heart broke at the thought of failure after getting so close.

Logan was never a pacifist, growing up the way he did it was not only normal for him to throw a punch or two, it was encouraged. But all that had changed when his Lucy was born five years ago. The moment he held her in his hands for the first time was the moment he decided he needed to stop fighting, that he must become a better man, for Lucy's sake. That instant seemed like a different lifetime ago.

It's not that his resolution to play it safe didn't work, it did for however long it did. Even when things went to shit and he found himself in a jail cell for a simple misunderstanding, he had decided to play it safe. To wake up in the morning, single file with all the other inmates towards the mess hall, avoid unnecessary contact with anyone throughout the rest of the day until it was time to get back to his cell at night, where he would promise the photo of Lucy under his pillow that he was one day closer to getting back home to her; that was how he made it work.

He had gotten so close, but none of that mattered now. He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment he was subdued, he just found the side of his face pressed into the muddy ground by a heavy boot on his neck. Tears trickled across the bridge of his nose freely into the wet soil under his cheek. There was no reason to play it safe anymore, his Lucy wasn't waiting for him to make his promise every night, but by getting caught trying to escape prison he had failed her once more, and this realization scorched a hole right through his heart.

Tonight It Wasn't Scary…

He had spent nine of his twelve- month sentence without incident, but the past fifteen hours in his solitary confinement cell following his failed attempt at escape had been the most agonizing moments of his life. His body ached and his heart throbbed as each memory from the last few days leading to his decision to escape flashed across his mind's eye. He tried screaming, but his shouts couldn't dull down the trauma of his brother telling him his Lucy was no longer there, that she had been taken from them by an animal behind a wheel.

He didn't know how many more hours had passed when he noticed the black concrete walls of his cell inching towards him, that was when the only sane decision that appeared to him was banging his head as hard and as many times as he could against them. But each smack appeared to make the walls creep faster, and the visions got more vivid. Flashes of his brother shaking, avoiding his gaze as he delivered the news, flashes of anger, fear, sorrow, and betrayal surging through his veins, how he couldn't help but feel hatred towards his brother for being the one to tell him he had failed to protect his Lucy. Drenched in sweat, tears, and blood, Logan's exhaustion finally gave out. The walls had finally got to him, squeezing what little air he had left in his lungs. His knees bruised as he fell on the rough black concrete under him.

He woke up to the screeching of the heavy metal door of his cell as it slowly slid open, the room seemed to get darker when it opened.

"Pssst! Yo!" A rough voice called for him, "It's time to get out!"

"Wha-" Logan mumbled, his throat ached unbearably at the tiny syllable.

"It's time to get out," the voice repeated pleadingly.

Logan got up, his world still spinning around him. "Get out where?" His head seared with pain as if a thick steel nail was being hammered through his skull, "Who are you? Where are the guards?"

"Ain't no more guards left."

"What?"

"Errbody's gone home!" The man said with a toothy smile, and he ran off.

Logan needed a few minutes to register the world around him, except it didn't. Nothing was making sense, he could hear the distant sounds of a prison chaos, shouting, laughing, and fighting. He didn't know what the inmate who had opened his door meant by "no more guards left", but it seemed true. Logan stepped out of the solitary cell block and into the yard uninterrupted, which is something that was supposed to have been impossible.

He had no way of telling what time it was, but the cool wind slapping across his face could only mean dawn was close. His concussed head was still pulsating waves of pain through his eyes and neck, but he pushed forward. He stood in the same place he was caught trying to escape, in front of the main prison gates. The other night they seemed colossal, immovable slabs of steel that had no mercy to offer. Now they were shrunken, the rust creeping across their frame was more obvious tonight. Tonight the gates weren't scary, they were pathetic – and they were open.

The first breath of air on the other side of the gates was the breath of a man who had been drowning for days. It healed all the pain that plagued his mind and body since his brother had told him Lucy had been taken from him by a local scumbag that was untouchable. Everyone in town knew what had happened, but the animal had enough influence to grant him a warrantee to hurt the five year old daughters of a voiceless thug who had been shunned away in prison for some petty crime and walk away without question. But that was no longer the case, he had a voice now, a free man on a mission.

Logan never needed his brother's insisting pleads to not attempt to approach someone as dangerous as that man. Because it was a very simple fact: ever since that first time he had set eyes on Lucy, Logan had no plans on having a life without her anyway.

He started noticing the eerie calm of the world a few hours into the long road leading towards the city. By that time the sun had fully fixated directly above him, he couldn't quite make out what it was, but something was just not right with the world.

The terrible explosive groan of the jet was both deafening and startling, it was the first sound he had heard since he had left the prison other than the rustle of the leaves under his feet. The noise had caught him off guard, he was nowhere near an airport, and the sound of an airplane was certainly out of place. He scanned the sky ahead trying to find where it was, it took him a few seconds to see the unmistakable glint of a military fighter jet zooming through the cloudless sky above the distant city. Logan couldn't help but feel anxious, he didn't understand what was happening, but he knew this sight was ominous to something terrible that was happening.

Do You Know Who I Am?

The city had been abandoned. There were no more than the distant cruel rasps of crows in the air, some cars had been left abandoned in the middle of the road, and the glass fronts of almost every shop had been shattered, revealing rows of dark and empty aisles inside. Logan's heart sank at the thought that the person he was hunting had left too. He had no plans for a life without Lucy, but he had no plans for a world where the animal that took her away existed either.

The door to his home was unlocked, he stepped inside with a broken heart. It wasn't his home anymore, he had to summon the energy of every molecule in his being to not remind himself that this home was now devoid of his daughter's existence. He headed straight for the kitchen, ignoring everything but the small box he kept above the cupboard where he had his gun.

Armed and without a backup plan, he headed for the only location he knew of the man who had taken his world from him, praying to every God he could think of that he was still there.

The place was a large mansion at the very edge of town, and had been boarded up and barricaded like a military checkpoint. Logan was anxious, his grip on his gun boiling through his sweaty palms as he made his way through what seemed like an unmanned warzone. Makeshift barricades of piled up sandbags and sheets of metal lined the path at random intervals.

He found the entrance obstructed by a puddle of blood that pooled gruesomely in front of the door. A crow stood in the middle, pecking at something fleshy floating around at its feet.

Logan didn't stop, he made his way inside. The sickening metallic odor of blood instantly invaded his nostrils, overwhelming all his other senses. The sight was revolting, four dead bodies scattered the large hall in front of him amidst pieces of broken furniture and viscera. Gagging, Logan had to lean against the bloody wall for support as he made his way further into the manor.

"Did- Did you hear that?" The voice of a panicking man rang through the walls of the house.

"Shut the fuck up you idiot! Go check it out!" A harsh voice replied impatiently, the authoritative tone couldn't camouflage the fear within.

The voices were coming from upstairs, and were followed by the loud uneven thuds of someone with a lot of fear and no choice coming down. Logan didn't hesitate, he didn't bother with paying any caution, he merely made his way towards the stairs and shot his gun at the man clutching the handrails for dear life. He watched the man's body tumble pathetically down the remaining stretch of stairs.

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE WHO'S THERE?" The harsh voice cried out.

It was when Logan finally made it to the top when the shots came, an extended arm reaching behind an open door directly in front of him was blindly shooting in his direction. The rain of bullets hit everywhere around the staircase, Logan had to jump for cover behind a long concrete column to his right that barely concealed his body. It wasn't enough, Logan felt the searing hot pain of a bullet penetrate his side. He gasped for breath and fell to his knees. The extended arm kept shooting until the pistol ran out of bullets.

Logan got up and examined his wound, the bullet had scraped his side in a large gash that was pulsating pain through his core. He limped his way towards the room in front of him, gun outstretched. He stepped into the room and immediately saw the man who had taken everything from him. It was a pathetic sight, the man still had his useless gun in his hand. "You're making a mistake," he said coldly.

Logan didn't stop, he held his gun and pulled the trigger. He didn't see the large baseball bat that came smashing at his wounded side with such a force that sent him flying. Gasping for breath, Logan tried to make sense of what was happening. Through the fog in his eyes he saw the silhouette of what appeared to be a giant standing above him, the baseball bat was still in his superhuman sized palms, raised and ready to strike again.

Logan didn't think, he had no time for to die now at the hands of this nameless goon. He still had to make sure his target was dead. He raised his gun and shot, and saw the giant falter backwards when the bullet hit his large belly, but he wasn't down yet. Logan shot again, and again. He lost track of how many times he pulled the trigger, he kept at it until the goon's lifeless body finally collapsed.

Logan staggered drunkenly to his feet, he saw the man he came for sitting with his back against the wall, blood poured freely from his shoulder. "What… What do you want? Who are you?" He croaked.

"You killed her," Logan was shaking. It had all come to this moment, he stood on top of the man who had killed his daughter. Here was the man who had taken the only anchor that held him in place ever since she came to his life.

Logan pulled the trigger and nothing happened, the pitiful click that came out was insulting him, mocking his cause that brought him here. He collapsed to his knees, he was sobbing now. "You killed her," he pleaded, "You killed my Lucy!"

Through his closed eyes he felt something hard rub against his knee, it was the giant's baseball bat. Logan threw his gun and felt its smooth wooden surface between his fingers. He held it and got up, he wasn't crying anymore.

"You're making a mistake," the animal repeated, "You'll regret this."

Logan took a step closer. Looking into the man's soul through his own dead eyes, reading his fear, relishing in it.

"Do you even know who I am?"

Logan was silent.

"I'm Neg–" He didn't get to finish. The full force of the baseball bat had come crashing into his skull.