This chapter contains Max Hansen, Nathan Wuornos, Annie Wuornos, and Garland Wuornos. Contains a relatively mild description of a death. It is the only chapter under 1000 words.
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Chapter 5: Max Hansen
Max Hansen wakes up very confused. It's dark- so dark- and he can't move anything. He's surrounded by something completely inflexible, unforgiving. He suspects that he can't breathe and it's confirmed when his head starts spinning. He pushes harder against the material surrounding him. Nothing. He gets frantic as his thoughts start to blur, but accomplishes nothing. He's trapped in a prison much stronger than he is.
Max knows that he should be grateful for his Trouble, knows that anyone else would be in unimaginable pain, but he isn't. He'd always hated the idea of dying without understanding why. Being murdered, he would understand- he'd made an abundance of enemies. But this- he has no idea what's happening, or why, and maybe if he could feel the texture of whatever is suffocating him, he would.
And he's definitely dying.
His head is spinning, and without any visual input whatsoever, he's not sure how he knows that. He can't feel the ache in his lungs, but he knows it must be bad by now.
Max wasn't a man to pray. He'd worked under the Rev, sure- first as a spy in the Guard and then openly- but he'd done it for the power, the revenge. The religious aspect honestly made him roll his eyes- why bother with hellfire and brimstone when power is a much better motivator? But now he sends a frantic distress signal to whatever deity might have enough mercy to forgive even him.
He loses hope around the time he loses consciousness.
Not far away from where Max suffocates silently, his predicament is being discussed, unbeknownst to him.
"Max Hansen?" Annie Wuornos asks.
"People are coming back where they died," Nathan replies. "Max… fell into a very large crack into the ground. He died about sixty feet below Main Street. We've filled it in since then, so if he's back… he's probably not having a very good time of it."
"A large crack in the ground?" Annie repeats, amused. "Garland?"
"It wasn't on purpose," Garland grumbles.
"Don't care. High five!" Annie proclaims, raising her hand.
Garland rolls his eyes, but a smile twitches the corner of his mouth as he complies.
Nathan stares at them both in a sort of perturbed confusion before shaking his head and going back to business.
There is not a single person, out of seven and a half billion on the planet, who mourns for Max. There are less than twenty who even give him a passing thought. He is worse than hated- he is forgotten.
Max Hansen dies alone and confused, buried alive in a tomb of concrete.