Author's note: Took me a long time to finally get down to writing this. This is the last chapter for 'An Evening in Harwood'.

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Epilogue

            Night now had a death grip on Liberty City. Cleaning the blood off his hands, Joe stared blankly at the blood flowing down the drain. He had crammed all the Diablo gang members' bodies into their vehicles, torched them and sent the cars rolling into the sea.

            He sat down heavily in the cheap armchair in front of the TV and sighed. The katana was nicely tucked into a corner of his little hideout; the beautiful wooden scabbard seemed to match the peeling wallpaper very well. Just another instrument of murder in his ever large arsenal.

            Thoughts slowly crept into Joe's mind as he watched a rerun of Liberty City Survivor on the tube. How long had he been killing? How many? When did it all start? When will it end? He only had an answer for the last question: never.

            As the contestants battled it out with assault rifles on the 21-inch TV, Joe began to reflect on his life. He had never known anything else other than what he was doing now – killing, getting paid, landing in hospitals and killing some more. It occurred to him that that was probably all his life will ever be about.

Another survivor was blown to pieces as Joe's mind continued to wander. He suddenly felt something. It wasn't remorse, for he had never any loved ones, thus would never know how it felt like to lose somebody. It was something else. He realized it was associated with watching the rerun of Survivor. It was boredom.

It dawned on Joe that his life was just plain old boring. There was nothing to break the monotonous cycle except for a fuck or two from a whore from time to time. Even those were passionless and machinelike. The only thing that'll break the cycle would be a bullet between the eyes or a nice, comfortable electric chair.

Joe got up and switched the television off. He dragged himself to his bedroom, kicked off his shoes and got into bed. As he stared at the ceiling, his mind continued its output of thoughts. Why hadn't he realized how boring his life was before?

The answer didn't take too long to come. It was killing. Killing took his mind off everything. It had helped him to live for all these years and it will continue to do so in the years that will come. A smile broke on Joe's face, the first in a very long time.

With that smile on his face, Joe switched off the lamp by his bed and went to sleep.       

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The Unreviewer (for chapter 2)

Tobias – Yes, perhaps it did have a little rushed feel to it. But I'm glad you thought it was good.

Funkless – Glad you can see the tragedy in Joe's life. Hope you like this chapter just as much.

Cck – Ah, so sorry. I didn't quite hurry up with this chapter. Here it is anyway. I hope you enjoyed it.

My most heartfelt thanks go out to all who review this fanfic.

Special thanks to EmyLyii for beta-reading.