MAX:

Max Payne wakes up in his Jersey home yawning, his hand falls on a soft lump next to him on the bed. He softly wraps his arm around his wife placing his face in her blonde hair. He kisses her gently on the neck, she slowly turns around to face him. He smiles at her, and she wakes up, smiling back at him.

He jumps out of his bed slamming into the wall behind him, knocking an empty picture frame to the ground, sending it crashing against the floor. Suddenly he wasn't in his home, he was in a dilapidated house in the Red Light District of Liberty City. He had seen the face of his dead wife, it scared him so much, because it took him much longer than it usually did to remember that his wife couldn't be there. The woman he had seen was dead.

Max presses his index finger and thumb into both eyes trying to get a grip on himself. Now he sees the woman more clearly. She has brown hair, she's attractive but she doesn't look anything like his wife. His head moves around like he's looking for something, he's not he's thinking. He's thinking 'How did I wake up in my apartment with a strange woman?'

"...Max? What's wrong with you?"

He gets a flash of memory:
"Give me another drink!" Max screams to the bartendar who happily gives him one, he watches this event unfold similarly more times than he can count.

The next memory is of the attractive woman in a very seductive pose. He gets a quick flash of the woman throwing her head back. Then the room appears normal again zipping back into reality.

"What the fuck is going on?" Max asks himself.

The woman appears very worried about him, "Are you okay Max?"

"I don't remember you..." he says very matter-of-factly, "I was drunk." he was trying very hard not to sound rude, instead it came out exactly the oppisite of how he intended.

She picks up her shoes and pants off the floor, and gives him the finger slamming the door behind her.

"Goddamn!" he says, his head swimming, he stumbles into the bathroom. He looks into the mirror, for some reason it doesn't reflect his whole face, he only sees faded parts, like he's looking through a window instead of a mirror.

Slightly uneasy he makes his way downstairs, walking past the scratched and graffitied lobby he approaches a brand new shiny blue Stinger, his rental car. He gets inside turning the key in his ignition, as he does he glares out the right-side window of his car, watching droplets disfigure his view of the outside world.

TAPTAPTAP Max nearly jumps through the roof. He looks outside as the dark figure moves it's hand away from the windshield glaring into the car. Max rolls down his window, rain pours in from the outside. Max keeps his eyes fixed on a hispanic man standing in the rain outside his car.

"Who are you and what the fuck do you want?" Max says hung-over.

"Carlos? Remember, I talked to you yesterday?

"Oh right, right yeah. Sorry about that man, I just woke up and already my day's been crazy."

"Hey no big deal man, you drink like an Irish motherfucker man. I never seen anyone drink like that before!"

"Yeah, it was bad judgment brought on by alcohol... You should probably get in the car."

Carlos runs to the passenger side opening up the door he slides smoothly inside, like it's his ride.

"I thought you'd never ask." Carlos rubs his hands together, it's so cold he can see his own breath. "Woo man, this is a nice car. I'd love to get me one of these. Okay Max, you know where we're goin' now?"

Theres a slight pause, "...No."

"We're goin' to go see this guy named Roy. Connected motherfucker, weirdest criminal you ever met in your life."

"Why's that."

"He was tellin' me about this prison break that he made one time... They used to walk all the prisoners through this little hallway, the prison itself was attached to a firedepartment. Okay?

"Okay..."

"Yeah well, one day he saw the door that lead to the fire department, and somethin' just popped into his head and he said 'wonder if it's unlocked.' Mothefucker walks right out the door."

"What?"

"I'm serious homes."

"That was his great escape? He walked out the door?"

"It worked didn't it? Besides he was the only person smart enough to try it."

"So why are we going to see him?"

"See what he knows about Liberty City Survivor. Trust me if you are trying to stop any kind of crime ring, and you don't talk to Roy, you're not gonna' make it."

"Yeah, okay." Max says stepping on the gas.

Murder and human weaknesses:

They arrive at Roy's home in Staunton Island. The home is white with blue trimming, it hardly looks like the place for any kind of criminal, idiot or mastermind. The tiny house looks like it could belong to an old woman, even the flowers are nicely planted. It doesn't even look like it would exist in Liberty City.

"You've got to be kidding me."
"I kid you not my friend." Carlos says pulling his gun out.

"On the way down here you said that Roy wasn't dangerous."

"Uh-huh."

"So why the hell are you taking out your gun?"

"Oh. It's to scare him... I also forgot to tell you about Roy's best friend Jeff."
"What about him?"

"He's a psychotic motherfucker with a fetish for knives."

"Yeah it kinda' would have been good to prepare me for that." Max takes out his Barrettas, he examines them, then he discards them both settting them on the dashboard. He reaches around the seat of the car yanking on something.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to get my...." he yanks hard, "goddamn.... shotgu --"

'BLAM!' The shotgun goes off, tearing a clump of spiked holes through Max's new car. Afterwards the only sound is the flapping of terrified pigeons, Max and Carlos breathe a sigh of relief.

Then Carlos tries to hide a smile, "Oh shit! You fucked up your car dog."

Carlos steps out of the car and onto the sidewalk, Max follows closely behind, gripping the shotgun in both hands. Spontaneously a man comes out the door of the house. He has long hair and glasses, he looks like a hippie, he's even dressed like one. Both Carlos and Max have no trouble noticing an unusually huge amount of blood spread across the hippie's clothes.

They raise their guns, "DON'T MOVE!" the two of them continue to scream at the hippie, who raises his hands in defense.

"STOP! STOP! DON'T SHOOT! STOP SHOOTING! I'M GIVING MYSELF UP!" After some screaming Max and Carlos decide to stop yelling.

"Don't shoot anymore! I'm not a part of this! I don't want to get hurt..."

"Who's this guy?" Max asks Carlos.

"Roy."

"- Holy shit! Carlos. When I heard the shot I thought it was the cops. You got to help man, Jeff's gone fuckin' crazy!"

Max takes the lead he opens up the white screen-door to the house, then he slowly turns the golden doorknob. He swings the door open, inside is a man, in his very early twenties, wearing a black snow-cap dressed like a skateboard punk. The man flips out when he sees Max.

"I didn't kill her! I DIDN'T kill her! I found the bitch like this. I swear to god THE BITCH WAS ALREADY DEAD! I DIDN'T KILL HER!" He continues to repeat the last sentence, seemingly to fool himself and not Max.

Max's eyes drift towards the left side of the room, on the couch is the torn open body of a young woman, blood covers almost every inch of her and the couch is dripping with it, soaked from top to bottom. It is very contrast to the white cotton covering.

Max pumps a shell into the shotgun.

"You're NOT pinning this shit on ME!" The man bursts forward swinging his knife it comes at Max in slow-motion streaking blood through the sky, it floats like a cloud over Max's head as he ducks avoiding the blade. Max feels uncharged and everything becomes normal, his right foot comes forward slamming into Jeff's stomach. It is quickly followed by a violent shotgun blasts that rips a gaping hole through Jeff's body, he slams into the wall behind him and blood seems to spray from the wall as he slams into it. Painting an explosion-like affect on the white behind him. His blood drips onto the smooth hardwood floor towards the hemp carpet.

The man's death is followed by a long silence, which is broken when Max turns his head.

"Carlos?"

"Huh?" Carlos seems a little freaked-out.

"You ever seen anything like this?"
Carlos shakes his head, then turns toward Roy. "Roy? What the fuck happened here?"

"I don't know." he says almost on the verge of tears. "She was his girlfriend! HE WAS FUCKIN' CRAZY!"

Carlos looks at the bodies, then pushes Roy out the door, Max follows.

"Roy, we need to know some shit. About this, - would be good - but about something else especially."

"Goddamn..." Max says, reflecting on one of the weirdest and darkest days of his life.