The Axeman sat idly on the hospital bed, scratching at something dried and red on his jeans. How long had he been here? Somewhere deep inside his mind it had registered that there was blood all over him, but only enough for recognition to take place. It was warm and sticky. He didn't experience the typical emotions that most people would under similar circumstances, and he was aware of this. Aware that his sanity at some point had slipped away, he was no longer the rational human being he once was. The blood didn't bother him. He was The Axeman.

The Axeman looked around the room he was sitting in: a hospital ward. It was dimly lit. Most of the standard florescent lights had gone out, leaving just a few to cast a yellow flicker that lit up a corner of the room. There were several empty beds, but a few still had bodies in them. Bodies that were no longer technically intact held together by blood-soaked sheets. Had he done that? The Axeman couldn't remember. He couldn't even remember making his way into this hospital. When his memory lapsed it was like waking up after a long sleep. He touched his face. The mask was still there. He remembered that. The executioner's hood he was wearing protected him, helped him remember. He looked to his right and saw his axe lying next to him on the bed; it looked peaceful in the dim light, belying its awful purpose. Sirens drifted up through the open window and The Axeman surmised that he was on an upper-story. The darkness outside told him it was nighttime. Somewhere distantly he heard gunfire, and screaming. If he had been his former self these things might have surprised him, he might have gone looking for a telephone to call 9-1-1. But he was not his former self, he was The Axeman, and the sounds of violence and the smell of blood seemed natural to him. They seemed good.

The Axeman stood up from the hospital bed and began to move about the room. There was pain; he realized that not all the blood on his body was foreign. He was bleeding from a wound in his side, and he held his hand to it while he limped from bed to bed inspecting the bodies that were lying there. He could clearly see the gashes made by a large sharp object, like a maul. But it seemed right. He came to a curtain and pulled it back, a huge unnatural looking plant lay halved and decimated. Why on earth would he chop up a plant? He stood in front of the plant for several seconds, trying to grab onto a memory that kept eluding him. It was the name of a movie. In the movie, aliens were taking over the earth by killing people and creating alien clones that hatched out of plants… no not plants. They called them pods, or was it spores? But this plant wasn't exactly a spore, or a pod, or whatever they were called. The Axeman knew this, but he couldn't stop thinking about the movie, and it maddened him that he couldn't remember the name. Somehow it seemed important.

The Axeman's musings were interrupted when he turned and noticed a figure lying at the entrance of the room. It was a dead man. The blood soaked carpet made a "squish" sound when The Axeman approached. The blood had issued from a gash on the top of the dead man's head, streaking his bleached blond hair with crimson. He was wearing a navy blue jacket, and a light blue shirt and a striped tie tucked into jeans. On the right breast pocket of the shirt there was an embroidered nametag that read, "Jim." The Axeman reached into the pocket of his own jeans and pulled out a small golden subway token. He felt the hard flat metal, turning it over with his bloodstained fingers for several seconds. Somewhere deep down The Axeman knew where he had gotten the coin.