Uh, for those of you wondering where the last section of the previous chapter went, I cut it out because I decided it spoilt the overall tone of the story too much. There are many places for Mary Sues to be called into existence solely to die, but I figured that this fic wasn't one of them. I'll keep this happily depressing. ;P Marvin the Paranoid Android would be pleased.

Chapter Three

It started to rain, a drizzle at first: small raindrops that glistened brightly in the light of the streetlamps before they fell and burst on his skin. Neo ducked his head down to keep the rain from getting in his eyes and picked up his pace a little.

The streets were quiet that night. No sound broke the stillness save that of the increasingly heavy rain pattering down onto the roads. Above, the sky was a dull dark grey, rainclouds obscuring the moon and stars.

Neo splashed through a puddle and hurried towards the first building he saw, pushing aside its glass door and entering, his shoes making wet prints on the tiled floor.

Inside, too, was quiet. The place was a cafe of sorts with several people positioned around the half-dozen tables or so. One was asleep in a corner, his head resting against the wall and an empty mug on the table in front of him. The lighting was dim; a sole fluorescent lamp hung behind the counter. Another was near the entrance, but it was for some reason turned off.

A low hush of voices filled the room and mingled with the snores of the sleeping customer. The young bartender was leaning over the counter, holding a conversation with another man. A short laugh escaped him and he went on talking.

Few people noticed the newcomer. If they had, they didn't care much about it.

Neo found an empty table near the entrance and sat down. He rested his left arm on the cool surface of the table, spreading out his fingers. If he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the blood rushing through them with each beat of his heart.

The bartender finished his conversation and went up to Neo.

"Would you like anything, sir?" he asked in a cheerful voice that stood out starkly, almost jarringly, against the mood of the place.

"Nothing at the moment, thanks," Neo replied.

"So you're just going to sit there, huh?"

Neo thought this over and decided that it seemed a pretty good idea. "Yeah."

"Are you feeling all right?"

No response.

The bartender gave a good-natured shrug. "All right then. Suit yourself." His eyes narrowed slightly in concentration. "You know, you look familiar."

The smallest of cynical smiles flashed briefly across Neo's face. "Do I?"

"Yeah... but then again, maybe not. I can't really tell in this kind of light. The bulb there blew, you see. I keep saying we need to fix it, but no one ever listens... My name's Sam, by the way. What's yours?"

Keanu, Neo thought darkly. "Thomas."

"Ah. Where're you from?"

Neo wished that Sam would stop asking him random questions. "Some way away," he replied.

"Out of town?"

"I suppose you could say that." Out of world, more like, he added silently. Neo gazed at the streams of rainwater flowing down the glass entrance, casting reflected ripply light patters onto the adjacent wall.

He could feel himself getting weaker as the foreign universe enveloped him, rejecting his presence. He didn't belong here. The universe could tell, and it wanted him out.

Neo doubted he had strength enough to walk far... and even if he did, where could he go? He had nothing in this world.

"So what brings you here?" Sam asked.

Neo shrugged half-heartedly. He wasn't in the mood to talk. He wasn't in the mood to do anything. He just wanted to sit in the chair and do nothing. It would be nice if he could lie down somewhere, maybe sleep, but that was a luxury that would be rather hard to come by at the moment.

"Don't want to talk, huh?" Sam asked. "All right, I can take a hint." He went off back to the counter, leaving Neo to himself.

So this is it, he thought. I'm going to die here.

He knew he should be grateful that he had the opportunity to think that. By right, he should have been dead by now, killed by Smith in the final battle for humanity. That he had had these extra few weeks of life was in itself something to be thankful for, for life, even at its worst, is at least better than death. Where there is life, there is still hope, there is still chance.

This had been, in fact, his third chance at life; it would be his third death, and probably the most peaceful.

That was when the overwhelming urge came over him to get up and do something. He wasn't going to die sitting in a chair. That was a stupid place to be found dead in. He was going to walk, walk until he could go no further, until the last joule of energy had been sapped from him...

This was his last chance to see the world. He'd been blinded before, and now he could see again; why waste it?

Neo got unsteadily out of his chair and headed out of the door, out into the rain. It was much heavier now, and water splashed mercilessly down on him as he made his last journey down the street.

He was flanked on both sides by short, dark buildings, few with a light on in their windows. From one of them, the faint strains of piano music floated down towards him.

The rain drenched him thoroughly, waking him out of his stupor. For the first time in days he felt truly alive again; not only alive, but free. This death would be on his own conditions for once.

Water sloshed around in his shoes and he kicked them off, pulling off his sodden socks and continuing barefoot down the road. It didn't matter any more. Nothing mattered any more. This was his last walk.

For a moment, Neo considered stripping off his clothes as well... then he decided against it on the grounds that if he was going to die, he was going to do so in a decent manner.

Junk littered once side of the road, all of it wet now. Empty food or drink packets, old newspapers, cigarette boxes, sweet wrappers, plastic bags... Neo bent down to examine one pile and picked up a cylindrical object. It was a spray-paint can, probably chucked there by some graffiti artists. He shook it and listened. It wasn't quite empty yet, and Neo kept it with him.

Step by step down the road, his bare feet starting to hurt. Walking, stumbling, he came to the end at last. It was a dead end: a plain brick wall with several trashcans in front of it. Had the road gone on, it would have made no difference. He could walk no further.

Neo slid down to the ground and rested his head against the wall, looking out at the road he'd just walked down. Somewhere out there was the rest of this world. A world where he was fictional, a world where he didn't belong.

This would be his final resting place.

They found him the next morning at the end of the road. The scientists sent out people to dispose of the body, and said what a waste of money it all had been, pity he had to run away like that.

Some particularly impudent members of the public that witnessed Neo's removal had the audacity to question if he was human. They were given a brief education with regards to how fictional characters are not human, no matter how much like them they might be, and of course they weren't real. Every child knows that. It's what adults tell their kids when they don't want them jumping out of windows wearing a cape with their underwear outside their clothes.

Some people were eventually convinced. A few of them were those who had, long ago, tried jumping out a window wearing a cape with their underwear outside their clothes, only to land themselves in hospital with several broken bones and a wiser outlook on life.

Fictional was fictional, fictional wasn't real.

Soon the street was cleaned and the people went away and the sun came out and dried up the wet road.

It was only one or two who spotted a sudden splash of colour in a low corner of the wall that had remained fairly dry despite the rain. There, in the shaky hand of one on the brink of death was spray-painted three words:

NEO WAS HERE.

the end.