Max Payne- Chapter 4: A Second Chance To Fail

The world that I knew left me, I was a stranger on a dark path to destruction. I had killed them, all those officers in the name of love...how could I do this? Why would such a thing drive me to this point of rage? It didn't matter now, I couldn't feel anything, I felt dead, I hoped that I was..for a very long time I've hoped someone would just end it for me. I have been given the opportunity more than once, but I never accept it, even though I ask for it. It's a subconscious thing, I suppose...

I was out of joint, not thinking straight, no rational thoughts crossing my mind. I couldn't break away from it. I squeezed my eyes closed tighter, hoping that I wouldn't have to face the destruction I caused. My body felt cold...not wet, not bruised or bloody, but cold now. The radio Officer Jones was speaking into no longer chimed into my brain, all I could hear was someone breathing and distant sirens.

I opened my eyes to something I couldn't believe.

"God...I turned out to be such a damsel in distress..."

...It was Mona, still alive, at the exact point that she died. I saw her life fade away before my eyes once more. This had happened before...I knew I wasn't hallucinating, this was real, it had to be. I felt her body go cold, and I rose to my feet as she did so. I looked around, the bullet still lodged into my head, bullet wounds in the chest...I pushed on my stomach and I collapsed in pain. I sat, unable to rise again, pain overcoming my abdomen. I couldn't help but breathe quickly, my heart racing. What did this all mean? How is it that I'm back here? Have...I been given a second chance? A second chance to make things right?

The police arrived on cue, but I wasn't quiet about my being here, this time. I would fix this.

"Hey! Back here! I need a medic!"

"Detective Payne! You're alive! Oh my god, guys, Payne is..."

"Just get a fucking medic in here, NOW!"

"Al-alright! Medic! Let's hurry it up!"

She would come back, and I would make sure nothing happened to her. I wouldn't leave her, I wouldn't abandon her. I wouldn't let her rot...I won't let her die. The medics came running through, stepping over bodies and crunching their boots on the glass and bullets. They arrived and I hurried them over to Mona.

"Please, her body went into shock and it just shut down! Do SOMETHING!"

The medic placed his ear next her mouth, checking if she was breathing. Then he checked her pulse, soon after placing one hand on her nose and the other to hold the mouth open, placing his lips to hers, he breathed into her, vital life. He retracted from her face and placed the palms of his hands over her heart, and counted at every thrust. 1, 2, 3. Still no pulse. He breathed life into her again, then thrusting his palms against her chest once more. 1, 2, 3. No...she couldn't be dead. The medic tried one last time, breathing into her, thrust his hands against her chest, checking her pulse...it was gone, she was gone. The medic looked at his watch, and over to one of the other medics.

"Estimated time of death..."

"NO!" I interrupted, shoving the medic aside before he could declare, officially, her death. I rolled up my sleeves and pressed my lips to hers, figuring that by me doing it, it would be different. It would have meaning. I breathed into her, and began thrust at her chest like the medic did. No pulse...

"Mona? Come on, MONA! FIGHT!" I slapped her across the face, her lifeless body not reacting. "Don't die on me...you helped me..."

The medics had to pry me away from her, I was unable to understand what happened. I thought it would work, I thought I could save her...but just by me being there, I sentenced her to death. No matter what I did, she would have died. I whiped my eyes, tears staining my cheeks, as Officer Holloway led me to his squad car. I couldn't speak...I felt as if someone had torn out my vocal chords and stabbed me in the heart. It was unspeakable pain, pain that I probably deserved. I sat down in the car, my legs sticking out the side. I reached into my coat, I need painkillers, I needed something. It didn't matter what. To my "fortune", I found a few left. I popped them in my mouth and began chewing them, the taste was horrid.

"Detective Payne...How, how are you still alive?" It was Officer Jones...the man that had taken me in before, but that never happened now, I guess.

I knew the answer. But I wasn't as upbeat about the situation as I had been before, I fell back down to the pits of my soul.

"Just...just take me home."

"Detective Payne, I really think that you should get to a hos.."

"No. Take me home, I need to sleep...in my own damn bed."

"Al-alright. I'll take you home."

I moved my legs into the car, Officer Holloway closing it after me. I slumped down into the seat, it was just like before, except I wasn't in custody...I was free. But the cost was too great to bare. I closed my eyes, trying to drift off into the world that constantly welcomed me with open arms.

I had been given a second chance...a second chance...to fail.

The world was twisted and bleak, I felt that old feeling coming on, a feeling all too familiar. I was lying in bed, no one apparently in the room. But as I sat up, my wife appeared, a warm smile on her face. She always did have a beautiful smile. She was holding my baby daughter, just as beautiful as she was the day she was born. The room began filling up with other familiar faces. Vlad, Jim Bravura, Winterson, Nicole Horn, Vinnie Gognitti, Alfred Woden...and Mona. They were all smiling, as if they were happy to be even in the same room as me. I gave a slight smirk back, but it soon faded as everyone pulled out some type of gun from behind them. All pointed at me.

"Max, you killed me. How could you?" said Winterson, cocking her pistol.

"You should have minded your own damn business, but now I have to do what I have to do." said Horn, inserting a clip into her Ingram.

"I helped you...and this is how you repay me?" said Vinnie, holding up a Sawed-off shotgun.

"You didn't even try to help me, Payne. After everything I've done for you." said Alfred Woden, holding up a M4 Carbine.

"Max, dearest of all my friends...I wanted to be the hero. Why couldn't you let me be?" said Vlad, holding up a Kalishnikov AK47.

"Stay with the badge, Payne...that's all I ever asked..." said Jim Bravura as he withdrew MP5.

A slight pause from the group, then Mona came forth, her eyes lighting up with the sunlight outside.

"Max..." said Mona as she reached for her Desert Eagle, "love is a thing I hardly have ever felt. My whole life was tainted with hate, pain...something I thought you could really, genuinely understand. I loved that about you Max. I loved that no matter how much either of us went through, how far we drifted apart, how hateful or aweful we were to eachother...that in the end, we always came back to the middle. We always came back to meet once again."

Dream Mona seemed like more of a poet than anything else, a poet with a broken heart. The weather outside became darker, and gloomier as her speech pressed on, only making her disdain increasingly imminent.

"...I didn't know where to turn so many times. Should I go back home? Should I keep running? No matter the trouble, my mind always came to you. It came to you because I knew you were the kind of person I could count on helping me. I thought you were the greatest thing to happen to me...I suppose I was wrong. I couldn't count on you then, and I still can't now. You would think that you would learn from all of this, Max. From all the "payne" that you have caused the world. Your wife and child die, you avenge them by destroying a criminal empire, and they rest in peace. All is well, all is finished. ...Why don't you quit, Max? Why continue being a cop? Because of it, it's brought nothing but more to you and others suffering. Vinnie, Bravura, Winterson, Vlad. ...Me..."

I saw a single tear roll down her pale cheeks, her face twisted into agonizing sorrow. Something I hadn't seen since my wife had been murdered. Lightning struck outside, soon after followed by thunder.

"I try and help you, but you do nothing but shun me, push me away. I give all I have to give, I help you, I save your life...hell, Max, you made me fall in love with you! You've ruined my life and countless others...you've destroyed what was left of justice. You don't deserve what I have to give."

She held up her Desert Eagle, the barrel aimed dangerously at my forehead. She began crying, causing her arm to weaken.

"You don't even deserve to die, to be relieved of your anguish. You don't deserve this bullet."

And at that, they all left, Mona standing there by herself now. She gave me one final look in the eye, her eyes glassing over with more tears, and she went out through the doorway. I placed my hand over my eyes, massaging the part of my nose right in between my eyes. Then...I felt a tear splash on my shirt. No...not a tear. Then I felt more, it started coming down on me hard...not tears. Too fast, too many.

"Rain"