The cold, moist ground was the first thing to greet John's senses, moss caressing his cheek and the dirt cradling him. A forest of headstones spanned all around John, the largest lying directly before him with a statue of the Virgin Mary drawing the baby Jesus close to her breast. John groaned in pain and grasped his neck, doing nothing to satiate the four punctures in his flesh throbbing deep into his nervous system. His other hand dug into the mossy earth, retracting his hand in shocked disgust to look at his sullied hand. It was then an echoing, sweet voice called out his name, "Joooohn."
The hitman froze, every muscle tense across his entire body from the siren's call. He took notice of the puffs of mist coming out of his mouth, the air around him freezing and numbing the lobes of his ears. "John."
The voice was not as angelic with its second call. It sounded worried, as if uncertain if he heard it, and was just noticeably deeper. This loosened John's muscles, allowing him to push himself up to his knees and rest his hands in his lap. John took notice of the tombstones all around him like a forest. Then he began to notice what sounded like whispers, multiple voices at once quietly talking over one another. He turned his head in all directions to find a source but it appeared they came from all around him. The voices grew louder, John unable to discern what they said despite how much he strained for how quiet and overlaying the voices were. Slowly, they grew to incoherent talking and finally screaming at John. He could only pick out bits of what was said in the group of screaming voices. The pain he caused them. The family member's killing themselves from the grief he caused. The families, lives, and children he ruined with his actions. All laying their cases and laying into John Wick. The assassin merely hung his head and listened, unable to rebut or respond to what he couldn't see or hardly understand. "Joooohn."
The voice again called out to him, sounding almost playful and familiar as he recalled her. John looked up and stared at the Mary statue, his gaze fixated on it and unable to be torn apart. The shouting had ceased, all was deathly silent once again. Suddenly, a hand bursting through the ground of one of the graves brought the screaming back even louder than before, John now able to make out every word they were saying to him. Now multiple hands and heads were poking out from their graves and tearing the rest of themselves free, clamoring after John. John tried to crawl back but had them grasp his shoulders, then his feet, arms, and finally his abdomen. They began to pull the struggling hitman down into the soft, cool dirt, suffocating John as he was drenched in darkness and earth.
John woke up and sat straight up with a gasp, panting for the air his lungs had been denied. The mossy, dark graveyard had vanished. John sit beneath the blue hue of florescent lights and tile ceiling, kneeling on a linoleum floor. Before him was a check-in desk, John clasping his hand on the granite lip to pull himself up. He propped himself up with all his strength on his hands, finding no one at the reception area. He turned to look over his shoulder and found no one in the waiting room. "Joooohn."
The voice cried out in dismay, the pain in the woman's voice was apparent. "Helen." John gruffed, waddling along on his still-awaking legs. John made his way through a pair of wooden swinging doors and found himself in a long, white hallway with a door at the far end. Between him and it lie a pile of decomposing, suited corpses. "Joooohn!" Helen called out, the agony in her voice echoing down the hall.
The reverberating calls of his wife forced John to cover his ringing ears, shutting his eyes, and gnashing his teeth as he fell to his knees. As the ringing stopped, John put his hands on his thighs and began to pant, his heart racing in anticipation. His attention from catching his breath was robbed by the sounds of the corpses picking themselves off the ground. Before him stood Viggo, blood stained down his shoulder and chest from where he was stabbed. On either side of him were Iosef, his forehead and back of his skull vented open from John's bullet, and a half dozen of his henchmen wounded in how John killed them. "Well, Jonathan," Viggo declared, "you can't just quite keep your hands clean of this life no matter how much you try, can you?"
"Viggo," John began, getting to his feet, "you've got blood on your best suit."
"I can only fucking imagine how that got there, John." Viggo seethed, baring his teeth in anger.
"Nah, all of this over some fucking dog, right, John?" Iosef taunted.
Viggo slapped Iosef upside the back of the head with a wet plop, his head flinging forward and drizzling brain matter and blood out of his entrance wound. "No, you stupid child. It's all because of the woman crying out to John right now," Viggo gestured behind him to the door with a wave of his hand, "Well, John, as a man of second chances, you think you'll be able to be there for her this time."
"I was for the first time." John hissed.
"If you say so, John. But there must be so much you want to say to her, so much you've had to marinate on all this time since she passed. What a lucky break, a chance to close that chapter of your life once and for all, John. Go, be with her and you can finally have that closure."
Viggo and his men stepped aside and gestured John along, only to be met with the hitman's glare. "Ah, he doesn't trust us," Viggo laughed, "Wise move, Johnathan."
The gang of corpses stormed at John with determined, hurried strides in a rhythmic power walk. Viggo brought his fist back and threw it at John, the hitman deflecting the blow with his forearm and shooting his elbow into Viggo's eye. Needing separation, John shot up under his arm and grasped him around the chest, turning and sweeping his legs from under him as he tossed him aside. Iosef locked John in a full nelson as he was preoccupied, taunting, "Where are you gonna go now, John?"
John responded by dropping to his knee, taking Iosef down with him before rolling over, forcing Iosef along for the ride and pinning him beneath him. John began throwing his elbow into Iosef's rib until he felt a sudden crack, the crime lord's son releasing him as him moaned in pain. Not satisfied, John propped himself up on one arm and threw a fist down into Iosef's manhood, instantly making him curl into the fetal position and writhe about. Before he could react, John was met with a boot to the back of the head from a bald, bearded man with a pair of bullet wounds in his skull, sending him roll across the floor as Viggo straightened his lapels and cuffs. Viggo took his turn by punting John in the ribs, sending him rolling back to a waiting henchman with bruises around his neck. He seized John by the hair and raised him to his feet, kneeing him in the crotch before crossing his cheek with a hook. John wobbled to his side, a goon with multiple torso wounds kicking him the stomach and sending him stumbling back to Viggo. The crime lord took John in an embrace around his waist before rearing back and slamming John onto the back of his head with a suplex. John rolled through onto his stomach and tried to fight through the daze of his head being slammed as he got to his hands and knees. His efforts were thwarted as Iosef lept onto his head with both feet, driving John's face into the ground and nearly crushing it under his feet. "You just never can make it easy, can you, John?" Iosef spat.
"Get him up, I'm not finished." Viggo demanded.
"Who said any of us were, Viggo?" Avi comforted, glass protruding from his face.
Iosef once more raised John off the ground in a full nelson, Viggo brandishing a pipe as he said, "You know, John, originally I put the blame for everything that happened on Iosef. He took your car, your dog's life, and did both of these things right after she passed. But, now that I've sat and thought, you did all of this John. Your wife left you a fucking puppy."
Viggo unleashed a baseball swing onto John's stomach, cracking several ribs and forcing him free of Iosef's grasp as he gasped in pain. "Your wife's gift to you is the entire reason you did all of this. You destroy my empire, kill my son, my men, and me? And for what? Because she bought you a fucking puppy?"
Viggo brought the pipe down over John's back, dropping him to his stomach before he rolled on his back and left his mouth agape, guttural gurgles of pain escaping his mouth. "You could have just accepted everything you care about will be taken away from you, just like I have. I knew my empire would fall, I knew I'd die, and I knew Iosef would die before me someday. But it had to be you, my right hand man, to do it? Because of a fucking car and a puppy."
Viggo pinned John's throat under his foot, the hitman writhing for any air he could get or leighway beneath his shoe, and pointed the bend of the pipe in his face, continuing, "Well, John, all of what you've done is going to be for nothing but ensuring your death. So don't fret, child, you'll see your beloved very soon in Hell."
"JOHN!" Helen screamed, her voice hoarse and ragged.
With that, Viggo rose the pipe up high and prepared to turn John's skull into pulp. John produced his knife from beneath the sheath hidden inside the site of his pants and, with a flick of the blade, drove it into Viggo's Achilles tendon. The crime lord gasped in shock, dropping his pipe before John grasped his other ankle, retching him off his feet and sending Viggo crashing onto the back of his head. John immediately took the pipe as his own and snapped the knee of the first henchman to reach him to the side. John reversed the grip on his blade and hammerfisted it up into the chin of the corpse, gurgling out, "Again with this shit?"
John shot up to his feet with a kip-up and turned to the corpses, knife in his right hand and pipe in the other. A pair of thugs charged at John, one having his jaw knocked out of the socket by a wicked swing of the pipe and the other being sent somersaulting to the ground with a backhand of the pipe to the temple. John met the next combatant by driving the knife into his forehead, the man still moving and attempting to throttle John. John responded by taking the pipe and slamming it into the back of the knife, driving the blade deeper and deeper into his skull until the man ceased moving. John kicked the man from his blade and ducked a wild haymaker of another thug, the man rolling over John's back and falling on his ass behind him. John turned and swung with all his might on the crook, the top of his head opening like a piñata and spraying the adjacent wall with gore. The pair of concussed and jaw-broken goons began to rise before John, the hitman burying his blade between the left collarbones of the former before pinning the slack-jawed other against the wall. John was interrupted by the last unharmed henchman tackling him to the ground, immediately crying to strike John blindly as he held his hand to his face. John reached out with his other hand in desperation for the pipe, his finger tips drawing it close enough to grasp it. Finally, John drew the pipe in and began bashing the man's forearm with it as he protected his face. John forced the man off of him and sat up, eyeing a terrified Iosef as he shouted, "You're next."
The beaten goon attempted to lock John in a rear naked choke, only for the hitman to grasp his wounded arm in a vice grip and force him to release him. Just as John got onto his feet, the thug grabbed the pipe and pulled himself up, locking up in a bitter tug of war. Finally, John responded by headbutting the man right between the eyes, flinging his head back and dazing him. John took the opportunity and kicked the man in ankles, knocking his feet from under him and sending him plummeting down. John pressed the pipe into his face and the landing jammed the pipe through the man's eye, his body squirming and wriggling in response. John ripped the pipe from the corpse's skull and turned to a wide-eyed and pleading Isoef, "John, let's be reasonable about this!"
He ignored Iosef, ripping his knife from the man struggling to free it as blood spurted from his now-uncorked aorta, the henchman losing consciousness immediately and passing out in a pool of his own blood. "If it wasn't for me, you'd never have gotten into the Tarasov family in the first place! You owe me everything, John, because no one believed in you except me when you were at our door!" Iosef shouted.
John retracted the blade and clipped it to his belt, taking the last living thug by his throat and propping him against the wall. John put the end of the pipe in his opened maw and repeatedly slammed his palm into the the curving end beside him. His body tensed with every slam John made, the satisfied hitman leaving the corpse to stand with the aid of the pipe rammed out the back of his skull. "Do you think killing me will stop anything, John?! Do you think killing me will make her come back or fill that void in your soul?" Iosef taunted as John strolled towards him, producing his knife once more.
John's hand shot out and seized Iosef by the chin, pulling him in as he hissed, "No, but it'll shut you up."
With that, John stabbed Iosef in the side of the neck, the shock radiating across his face faster than John could withdraw his blade and unleash a torrent of crimson. John unleashed another stab, noticing Iosef jump from the pain and shock of another wound. Incensed, John took Iosef by the hair and began to dig his knife deeper and deeper with each stab, ripping it out with more purpose and gore for more stabs. Finally, John hacked through the last strands of flesh Iosef's neck maintained with his skull and his body collapsed to the ground. Iosef's jaw slowly dropped as a steady stream of blood poured from it, the look of horror as present as when John first stabbed him. John let the head crack against the linoleum as he heard Viggo begin to chuckle. "Well, John, you did it. Give your self a round of applause." Viggo mocked, slow-clapping John as he lie on his stomach.
John began to approach Viggo as he continued, "You killed us all over again. And what did that accomplish? Oh, you stopped us from killing you? You get to extend your lowly, empty existence just a bit longer? Or is it you getting to see your precious wife once again."
John stopped at the corpse pinned to the wall, ripping the pipe from it and freeing it to collapse to the ground. "Well, I have bad news for you, John Wick. Listen. Do you hear that? Silence. Absolute deafening silence. You're too late, John, she's gone."
John merely looked vacantly down at Viggo, his emotionless visage making Viggo chuckle once more. "Be seeing you, John."
John returned the courtesy by raising the pipe and savagely beating Viggo over the head with the only sound being the echoing, thick cracks bouncing down the halls slowly growing wetter and softer. Finally, the pipe clanged against the floor and John's panting filled the hall. Viggo's head resembled a splattered blob of flesh, blood, bone, and hair unrecognizable from its original shape. John's breath left his lungs as he heard the same, angelic ring in his ears, "Joooohn."
Without a second thought, John turned on his heel and sprinted down the hall. He burst through the door and found himself in a wider room with the same floors, walls, and ceiling as the hall. At the opposite end of the room lie Helen in a bed, hooked up to numerous machines and bags. Her cheeks were depressed and face gaunt, but her waving, brunette hair was the only recognizeable feature of the flesh-clad skeleton before him. John methodically strolled to her side and pulled a chair up, taking her freezing hand in his as her eyes tracked her the whole way, laboring to breathe as she lived. "Helen..." John began.
Helen drew a deep, sudden breath, her abdomen arching out as she stared towards the lights, her wrists and shoulders contorting to support her position. She exhaled her final breath as her body came to rest on the mattress again, her eyes vacantly staring at the ceiling. John stared in disbelief at his wife's corpse, tears stinging his eyes before cascading down his cheeks. John slipped his arms under her shoulder blades and knees, taking her off the bed and cradling her close as he sobbed into her shoulder. "No...not again." he cried.
John wailed over his wife, the lights in the room flickering and buzzing incessantly. With every flicker, they revealed pieces of reality. The sanitary, white room was a dingy, dank concrete room filled with photos, straw, a chalkboard, and stalagmite-like pillars. Her bed surrounded by the machines and drips to sustain her was merely a dirty, stained cot. And in his arms lie a giggling Scarecrow, slowly working a his syringe-filled hand up to John's neck.
John felt her hand caress his face, the tears stopping and John in disbelief at what was happening. A second chance to say goodbye and all he wished he had said. "Helen! Helen, I'm so sorry." he began.
"No, John," she replied, her voice echoing and monotone, her hand dragging down to his neck, "I'm sorry I ever pretended to love you."
With that, Helen plunged her nails into his neck right over the hold wounds, John baring his teeth in pain as a familiar rush hit his blood vessels and heart. John threw Helen over the bed and onto the ground, falling out of his chair as he grasped his neck and scooted his back against the opposite wall. Helen's hand shot up over the bed, a buzz in the lights revealing Scarecrow's syringe hand. John looked on in terror as Helen crawled over the bed in a spider-like fashion, her limbs contorting over one another before plopping onto the ground before the bed. She crawled the rest of the way on her hands, her legs dragging behind her as she shouted, "Where were you, John? How could you be out killing again when you made me a promise!? A promise you'd leave it all behind for me!"
"Helen, you don't understand."
"Don't understand what? That you lied to me?! You're a pathetic excuse of a man, John. I knew I never loved you because you could never put me before yourself. And you never did, look where you are now, John! Fighting and killing all over again. And you couldn't even wait for my corpse to grow cold before you did it, I had to find out everything. Like you killing the Tarasovs, or killing them again, or going to Arkham!"
John's fear lowered slightly with the curiosity of what she just said, pondering aloud, "Arkham?"
"Well, John, look where it's landed you! Right here with me and I know all of your sins. Welcome home, John Wick, you're trapped in Hell with me for all eternity. And I'll make you suffer like you did to me." Helen declared, drawing her hand back.
John merely stared at her absent-mindedly, another buzz of the lights giving him a glimpse of a prone Scarecrow raising his syringed high overhead before snapping him back into his hallucination. "Let's get started, shall we?" Helen said.
She threw her hand at John as if to slap him, only for the hitman to catch her palm in his, immediately making her squirm in discomfort from his grip. "What," Scarecrow began, "That's impossible! There's enough fear toxins in you to put ten men into catatonia! What are you?"
"Baba Yaga." John replied, twisting Scarecrow's wrist and grasping the back of his head.
John slowly began to force Scarecrow's hand towards his face, the maniac grunting and struggling to keep his ever-encroaching hand away. "Scarecrow," John uttered, forcing the maniac to look John in the eyes, "Be seeing you, Jonathan Crane."
With that, John forced Scarecrow's hand forward and dug his ring and middle fingers through his eyes. Scarecrow shrieked in agony, writhing about on the floor and unable to withdraw his fingers from his eye sockets. John picked himself up from the ground, recovering his pistol from the cot and staring down at the defeated doctor. As Scarecrow rolled about, John rose his foot and stomped onto the back of Scarecrow's head, driving the syringes deeper into his skull and silencing the mad doctor. John took notice of the vent exit on the wall just above his head. John lept up and pulled himself into it, crawling out and thudding his way along as he did. He came to the fork in the paths and to his left was the elevator. To his right were all of the bodies of the thugs he had dispatched, none of them the Tarasovs nor their men but shirtless men with clown paint on their faces.
Take the path to his left, John found himself above a sizable drop to an elevator below. He prepped himself and lunged out for the cables, swinging around wildly from the momentum before carefully lowering himself, one arm-length at a time. John hopped over the elevator's edge and opened the door with a press of the button. Upon entering, he was immediately greeting by Joker's mocking tone, the clown cheering from over the tv, "Well, I'll be damned, if it isn't Johnny-boy! How's it going, pal? I see you took care of Croc but you appear to be down a man. Let me guess, you pushed him to Croc and ran for it, huh?"
"Let's just say he and Scarecrow won't be a problem to what I'm here for." John answered.
"Oh, really now? A two-for-one trip? Interesting," Joker laughed, John pressing the button for the entry floor, "So, John, I say you and I have formed a bit of a rapport, you know? Me throwing you to Szasz, Croc, and Scarecrow, though that last one was an accident. You killing them and all my guys so far. So, as a friend, let me ask you this. Why the hell are you in my asylum?"
John merely answered with a cold stare, Joker understanding as he said, "Oh, for me? You shouldn't have. Well, John, you're last useful trait keeping you alive was my curiosity at what on earth you were doing here. Now that I know that," Joker drew off, producing another detonator, "I don't need to concern myself with what you're doing. So, John, how's about you stay down there and think about what you've done. Here we go! Three...two...one..."
With that, Joker pressed the button with his thumb, John lowering his stance to brace for a blow. However, nothing happened and Joker laughed maniacally, mocking John, "Oh, man, you should have seen the look on your face. Ohhhh, man, priceless comedic gold. But come now, Johnathan, what fun is it to just put baby to bed and let him cry himself to sleep in the bowels of Arkham? No, I'm interested in having a brand new plaything all to myself. So, John, you're still only going where I want you to go and if you just so happen to survive wherever I send you or die, I benefit from either the lack of competition or killing my would-be assassin. Be seeing you, John."
With that the tv went to static as John rose from the depths of the building. His elevator shambled to a stop back at the entry of the Intensive Care Unit. The elevator swung back with a harsh thud that rocked John about on the inside. The doors began to dent in as something struck them, the doors themselves finally ripped back to reveal the hulking Bane responsible. He clasped his massive hand over John's chest and hurled him into the room separated by a row of bars, his side empty while the other teemed with cheering inmates. "Well, Mister Wick," Bane called out, "Shall we?"