A day at the end of the life. Rated R

[Therin]

The day was...empty. The wind was flat. The light was faded. The colors around me were bleached, drained of all their life. Skeletal trees screamed at the sky as I walked home. My head was down, my hand gripping the brim of my cap to keep it from blowing away in the wind. The other hand was shoved deeply into my trenchcoat pocket. I was staring at the gray sidewalk, lost in thought. A part of my life had left me. It was gone. I was abandoned again. My thoughts were dead: Three lines of an old song repeating endlessly to the rhythm of my footsteps. Suddenly, I was stopped. I looked up slowly, coming out of my reverie, removing my hat from my head and stuffing it into my right pocket.

Huge black boots, probably steel-toed, and probably too big for the feet inside them. Disgustingly baggy dark blue jeans, held up casually by one hand. The hand was covered by the sleeve of an immensely poofy, dark red down coat. The other hand held a pistol of some sort. The skin on the back of the hands was a deep, African American brown. So was the face. The black hair was covered by a deep blue ski cap. It had a bobble on top. With red, white, and blue threads.

The mouth spoke roughly. "Gimme ya wallet, bitch."

I stared silently back at him. My face didn't change. My eyes bored into his.

"Gimme da money, or me an ma homies gonna pop a cap in yo ass, white boy."

My eyes didn't leave his.

"I give you till t'ree, mutha fucka."

I smiled. "If you can count that high."

He started back for a second at that, then pointed his gun directly at my forehead. "One. Gimme yo money, ho."

I smiled wider. At this point, I no longer cared.

He narrowed his eyes and continued his count. Playing chicken of wills."Two. I hit t'ree, Ima shoot. Ma homies shoot too."

I gave no reaction.

"T'ree"

I ducked and launched myself forward under the deafening gun blast, slamming into him as one of his "homies" screamed in pain. Bad planning. I drove him backward into a tree, then dodged around it just before I heard more gunshots. He screamed. More bad planning. I took off into the woods, deep brown leaves crunching beneath my boots, light and dark bark, mottled by the bright light filtering through the branches, whipping past my face as I jinked around and between trees to dodge gunfire. I paused to look back through the trees. I caught glimpses of green and black, but heard only the snapping of leaves and branches. They weren't worried about their companions, who might of might not be hurt.

The first probably-gang-member died when he snuck around a tree and blew a hole in the back of my coat. My coat was hung on an outstretched branch of the tree. I stepped out from behind another tree, shirtless and in khakis, and clubbed the back of his head with a short limb. He staggered forward and I clubbed the backs of his knees. He fell, presenting his face to the sky, and I rammed another, smaller stick that I had broken sharply through his eye and into his head. He screamed loudly and shortly, and twitched a few times, firing the gun in one spasm. I felt a shock of pain in my shoulder and stumbled back, dropping the short limb that was still in my hand. My left arm went to my shoulder, and came away bathed in bright, shining crimson. I changed my plan and grabbed the gun out of the hand which was now still, then walked slowly and a little bit unsteadily off through the woods, leaving a trail of blood drops from a stream that ran down my limp right arm.

The second tried to catch me by moving silently. He found my boots in a clearing and bent down to examine what looked like blood splattered around them. I stepped up in his footsteps, placed the gun to his head, and pulled the trigger, watching expressionlessly as blood and brains misted the air pink for a while. I took his gun and some other things, and left him there, lying in his and my blood in a spot of bright sunlight, which reflected earthy browns from the leaves and dirt. He was in his underlayers, surrounded by the singing of birds who didn't give a rat's ass one way or the other whether I died or they did.

I did give. I wanted them dead. Every last one of them. After that, what happened to me was inconsequential.

The other three were back by the sidewalk. One was still functional, kneeling over the "leader" and cursing under his breath. I walked up beside him, slowly because I was dizzy from bloodloss. When he turned to say something to his returned comrade, I blew a hole in his face. Then I emptied the two guns in my hands into the three bodies around me, not even blinking as the muzzle flashes blinded me, lost in memories. Then I fell over and blacked out to the far-off screaming of sirens. I never knew whether I was to be arrested, or saved. But I didn't care. All I could remember was the bright, vibrant colors and scents and sounds that had surrounded me in those minutes, before I ceased to remember at all...