"Get outta here! You're not a real centrist!"

"Yeah, go away! You're like the opposite of who we want on our team!"

"I couldn't care less about someone like you."

Their scathing words marked him as he ran, tearing off his ushanka and clutching it to his chest, sobbing. Was he not good enough? Was he just not meant to be?

"You're an abomination. A freak. A wacky."

He wasn't meant to be.

He turned down an alleyway, running just for the sake of running, running in the hopes that he could run away from the voices tearing him apart.

If only he could.

He stopped, arm against a wall of some graffitied building or other, panting. Tears streamed down his cheeks still, staining his hat.

He slammed it to the ground, foot raised. He was so stupid so so so stupid to think he could be a real ideology like the centrists or the extremists and he was about to grind that stupid hat into the dirt when a weak straining voice interrupted-

"Tankie? Is that you?"

He whipped around. What he'd mistaken for a trash bag or a pile of rags, covered in needles and drug paraphernalia in general, was a person. A very bedraggled person, messy hair poking out of their hoodie and something dark staining the sleeves. Their eyes were wide open, dilated to the point where he couldn't tell where the iris ended and pupil began.

"Or are you Nazi? Naaa~ziii, what are you doing with Commie's hat?" The figure giggled, then gasped in pain. "Nazi, it huurrtssss…"

"Who are you?" he demanded indignantly, picking up the hat and dusting it off self-consciously. Acting like he'd done nothing with it a second earlier. Did this person know Commie or Nazi? Two of the four fabled Extremists?

"No idea, no idea. Anarkiddy? Useless post-left?" They giggled again. "Won't matter for much longer!"

A dark substance was beginning to pool around the person's arms. He gasped, realizing it was blood, and threw up a little in his mouth. This person was seriously injured.

"C-commie, it hurts…"

He shook his head. Snap out of it. He'd not gone to Boy Scouts all those years for nothing.

He ripped the hoodie into strips, causing protests that quickly faded in strength. Either the person had realized he was trying to help, or there'd been too much blood loss.

He really, really hoped that it wasn't the latter.

Deep lacerations marked the person's arms, wounds from a razor that was lying, bloodstained, in the figure's left hand. Was this done on purpose? Was it- did this person mean to do it? No, he resolved. Nobody would ever want to do this to themselves. No matter their lot in life, there was always a reason for someone to keep going.

He grabbed the strips that he'd cut up, binding them tightly around the person's arms. At first, tourniquets. Then, bandages. He tied them off triumphantly, admiring his handiwork.

Whatever had happened to this person, they would survive.

I'm Lil' Nazbol. And I just saved a life.