Hmm. This fellow was a hoot. Every time he is back on his feet he looks as if he's ready to get himself incapacitated again. Well, I am not going to do anything should he get himself into a pickle again, I swear this – hey!
"Young man, please cooperate... ouch!"
A stout middle-aged man in a white uniform laid on his back on the cool grey tiling, a pair of handcuffs inches away from his right hand. His taller, sturdier and browner counterpart stood a foot away, back arched, arms shielding his face and half-expecting the same fist to connect with his wide jaw, which was in dire need of a proper shave.
"We only want to bring you to the police department to ask you a few questions..."
"Oh? Is handcuffing without prior notice standard procedure in these lands? I thought I would be entitled to at least a 'you're under arrest' before the cuffs."
"Please don't make things harder than they already are... but you're definitely ending up in the Southern Penitentiary for what you did to Jonathan here..."
Green girl merely loosened her pose.
"I don't know if grown men in nurses' outfits handcuffing young men would stand very well against the jury. I'm willing to risk it that you have no jurisdiction to arrest me, am I right?"
The tall man in white stuttered in protest, but what she said was true. Hospital security personnel shouldn't even be allowed to carry handcuffs...
"Well, if that's it, I'm leaving."
"... you win there, but I've grounds to hold you until the Black Maria arrives. The blue boys should handle you properly, you pedantic puncher... stay here, both of you."
Green girl's eyes narrowed. Now she was the cornered one; how would she worm her way out this time? She sighed and lowered her head, looked at me, then outside at the parking lots. Just for a moment she looked as if tears were going to burst from her, her mouth curving downwards and eyes watering, but she blinked it all away, her face now depicting only intense calculation. She began moving towards her captor.
The man in white mumbled away into his transceiver, cautiously eyeing green girl's advance before hastily cutting off the call when she was within striking distance. She raised her right fist, but I shouted out – the lightning-speed punch connected with its target still, but with lesser force. The man only stumbled backwards, rubbing his sore left cheek.
She darted away, lithely dodging close-by onlookers and into the rain, her dark green figure blurred away by the torrent. I looked back at the two men, one still out-cold and the other stumbling about the tarmac. I'll be in trouble if I don't get out of here. After what has already happened, and this, it's only natural that I end up on the wrong side of the prison gates. I had to... I must get away!
I attempted to run through the growing crowd of onlookers, but the spectators had become participants. I was immediately pulled back by the front line and floored. The crowd boxed me in, and hurled insults at me. The front line began inching towards me, towering above me as the crowd turned unruly, and verbal abuse turned physical. I was beaten left, right and centre – wait, I'm not an accomplice! I'm just a panicking bystander!
Amidst the rain of water and of blows and kicks, when it seemed like my rib cage was on the verge of caving in, came the sound of an engine as it drew near and stopped. It took a few loud pulses from the siren and some authoritative shouts for the crowd to release its prey, just so the police could do the same.
The burly hospital security man lifted me by the collar, and threw me straight into back of the van. I curled up and clutched at my wounds. A grim man in blue came to the back to look at me properly – I raised one hand and pleaded with him to listen, but he merely slammed the doors, leaving me in a damp, brown metal compartment. My weak body lurched forward when the van began to move, tumbling down onto the dank and smelly floor.
Warm liquid trickled down my arms around my chest, and pooled by my side as I laid down, the pain too overwhelming to resist. Now I'll end up surely behind bars, hopefully only for something that girl did... she... she... I'll bet that was her diversion to get herself out of this city. If they were lenient I might still see the light of the day... let's not think about otherwise...
I know that girl, and the motorrad she travelled on. They can only stay so long in one land – three days, was it? Since she was so desperate to get out of the hospital today must be her third day here. Huh, her principles took its place over a fellow human's life.
I groaned and rolled onto my back. Perhaps I do deserve this ending. I was just delaying things any way. My journey was never a walk in the park. My automobile ran out of fuel just kilometres out of city limits, and I got mugged of my cargo while pathetically trying to haul everything away. In desperation I remembered stories of a nearby city on the mountain east and began my mad ascent. There I ran into a bear which continuously terrorised me, ultimately destroying my campsite and leaving me with the little provisions I carried with me and the clothes I wore then.
Heh. God works in weird ways indeed – escape the frying pan and one ends up in the fire; escape even that and one ends up in the fires of His wrath... it's a funny time to think this, I chuckled to myself – it came out as incoherent blurbs as I began to black out yet again.
... even in the fleeting moments in between consciousness and non the pain reverberated in the static fuzz. Not from the beatings, the humiliation or the end, but by her betrayal. There must be something that she silenced in herself before her mad dash away; her warmer, worn-out face that betrayed the usual cold steel facade, the eyes that nearly burst into tears and that mouth curved downwards. What was she thinking about then...?