A Brave New World

I felt oddly uneasy as I entered and walked up to the counter.

“Um, I’ll have 50 rounds.” I said.

“That’ll be $50 or $35 if you’re a member.” The man behind the counter said with a rough sounding voice.

I smiled and passed him my membership card and $35 in cash.

“Cheers.” I said as he slid a box of ammunition and a Glock 17 under the rail into the shooting range.

“Happy shooting.” He huffed with a hint of sarcasm.

I walked through the now unlocked gate up to my lane, man this place was packed today.

I picked up the Glock, slid the magazine in and racked the slide with a satisfying CLUNK. I aimed down the sights and fired with incredible accuracy into a paper picture of a zombie.

“Holy shit boy, you’re pretty good with that thing!” I heard the man at the counter call out, but I didn’t turn my head. The picture of the zombie had about 9 shots within the centre of its head; it was a nice grouping, even for me.

I was in my zone now; I looked up as the zombie target circled the railing and got replaced by a picture of a young insurgent. My fists curled up into a balls and I dropped the Glock onto the small counter in front of me. I was angry, very angry. I grabbed my m1911 out of my holster and fired 6 rounds into the lifeless picture screaming with grief. Everyone in the range; about 14 people were staring at me wide eyed.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ALL LOOKING AT!?!?!” I yelled.

Everyone seemed to cower as I panted and stared hate at them, they had no idea I was now in the middle of a psychotic episode.

                                                                *FLASHBACK*

It all started when I was about 9, I started to really press my grandmother about what really happened to my parents, I was always an orphan and never once saw my mother or father. However my grandmother knew this day was coming and feared it greatly, she had to tell me the truth. So she did, she told me about how her daughter left home at 15 and never came back. How 11 years later she got a letter from her daughter apologizing for everything and begging her to take care of her new son. I found out about how I stayed in an orphanage for 4 months before grandma could take me in. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; I was only 9 so I was too young to comprehend what was going on. I thought nothing of it until I was 13, that’s when I started questioning my existence, wondering why I wasn’t excepted by my parents, getting depressed. My grandmother knew how bad I was getting and got me prescribed some really powerful anti depressants. They only made me worse, locked away all my feelings and left me an empty emotionless shell. Then one day I forgot my pill and I went to school. It wall all fine until a couple of “bullies” decided to mess with me, I was never a scrawny kid, I was tall and well built but I barely ever talked, it was an odd combination of traits to have, and that’s what the bullies tried to take advantage of.

I took the abuse, knowing I was better, knowing that all this abuse would do is strengthen my shell. I had got used to taking shit from others ever since I became depressed, but these kids made one very, very bad decision.

“Hey retard!” one of them called. “Go run off to your mommy!”

And that was all it took, I stood up and grabbed him by the throat with my left hand as I shouted into his face.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT MY MOM?!” I bellowed. The kid instantly lost his smile and starting panicking, but he didn’t let up as he had never seen me get violent before and probably just thought I was playing an aggressive game of chicken.

“I said go run off to your Mommy you little shit!” the boy said with a sudden burst of courage and a sly smile printed across his face.

I didn’t say anything, I tried to back off, but I couldn’t. My arms started shaking violently but not with sorrow or regret, but hate. I raised his face right up to mine, he was only about 5 ft, 1 and stared into his eyes, he knew I wasn’t fucking around and started to squirm.

“Henry, help me you prick!” the squirming scum back shouted at an even shorter and paler version of himself. Only two words escaped my mouth.

“No. More.” I said with hate searing into his soul. And with those words finally after what felt like a lifetime of waiting I snapped. I tightened my grip around his collar with my left hand, balled my right fist up and socked him in the stomach. The boy started crying but I couldn’t care less, I kept on ramming my fist into his gut until I heard a sickening crunch which was an obvious indication of at least one rib being broken. He started coughing up blood so I dropped him to the ground and reared my foot back in anticipation,

“FUCK!” I yelled as I was knocked onto the ground by an unknown force. I looked up to see his friend, “Henry” punching me in my chest. He was strong for a short kid to be able to knock me over but his blows weren’t effecting me much. I tried to push him off me but as soon as he realised I what I was trying to do he jumped off me and rammed his boot down onto my throat.

“ARGHHHHHH,” I shrieked in pain I looked down and saw blood pooling out of my neck and onto the concrete. At this point I didn’t have any control over my body any longer as my rage took complete command over me, I stood up bleeding profusely and threw a quick blow at him, it connected with his jaw causing him to stumble to the ground.

“Son of a bitch,” I heard him mumble.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?!” I was now starting to both tear up and scream.

“I-I-I’m sorry!” he yelled through sobs of pain. He looked up at me with a bloodied nose and tears in his eyes.

“Wha-what have I done!” I yelled in a sort of hushed tone. I had come back to my senses and the first thing I see is a battered kid with a bloodied nose and another unconscious boy to my left. I panicked and started running off home, I had no idea how I let myself do that or why I couldn’t take back control of my body but it scared the shit out of me. I also felt oddly smug about the fact that I finally stood up for myself, but that thought was soon shot down as I couldn’t believe that I would think something of the sort after what just happened. I couldn’t tell grandma she would flip out, probably ground me for a month, she might even disown me like my parents did.....

                                                                     END OF FLASHBACK

I’ll spare you the details but long story short, she did find out, I did get in ALOT of trouble, but she was my only family so of course she didn’t disown me. But this sort of thing did keep happening constantly through my teen years till this very day. Anyway, back to the confusing shooting range scene.

“WELL?! WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!?!” I was out of my mind. One man stood up and walked up to me.

“It’s ok bro, calm down. And for Pete’s sake put that thing away.” He said in an almost soothing voice. It worked on me for a second and I started to lower my pistol before my anger took hold again.

“Get away from me or someone will get hurt.” I said in a calm but harsh voice. The man didn’t let up and continued to walk towards me; I really wasn’t in the mood. Then as I started subconsciously contemplating whether I should kill him or not, I then heard two loud gunshots, me and everyone else in the room looked towards where the sound was emanating from when we heard a two angry sounding voices start yelling for money and firearms. I couldn’t believe my eyes, people robbing... A shooting range?! I couldn’t believe how stupid they must be, but I just stood there watching the two bandits collecting money, about 9 Glocks and a few m16’s. Wow, these guys have balls. I thought to myself suddenly forgetting my own rage. These guys obviously knew what they were doing, they had tactical vests on with body armour, holstered sidearm’s and were wielding a sawn off shotgun each.

Then suddenly the inevitable happened, they head towards to door leading into the range and everyone inside started shouting for help, they both tried to charge into the room only to be stopped by a lock. The two thieves glared at the cowering man behind the counter and spoke to him sternly.

“Open ze door.” The taller one spoke up with an accent I had never heard before. I was shocked that the man at the counter didn’t have some sort of weapon to protect himself and just took this; then again these guys looked ready to kill. Just as I thought that I saw the man at the counter shake his confidently and said.

“You scum bags aren’t going anywhere!” he now had a sly smile plastered across his face.

“Oh really?” The shorter man with an equally strong and odd accent now spoke up with an evil grin and immediately pulled the trigger. *BOOM* the man at the counter’s head was no longer recognizable as one as of a persons. Despite the horrible things I had seen throughout my life this sight still made me cringe, The others in the room with me just stared for a few seconds before banging harder on an exit door which was now locked shut due to the man at the counter pressing a panic button seconds before he met his demise. The two fiends realized the situation and tried to make their next move as fast as possible; the taller one rammed his shoulder into the door leading to the range with no avail. He then just huffed at his own stupidity as he pointed his sawn off towards the hinges of the door and fired into them, these doors where probably meant to stop drunks and the normal crazies who lurk in Detroit, not organized thieves, so the door gave way immediately and I ended up standing face to face with the bandits.

He drew his sawn off to my head and spoke in a rushed voice.

“Get all your valuables and put them on the floor next to you, if we find anything on you that you didn’t hand over, we will kill you.” Everyone in the room started pulling out wallets and tearing off jewellery and watches in a panic, all except me. The tall one stood eye to eye with me and scowled at me, I returned a happy smile to him and he grew an evil smirk across his face. At this point I knew I probably wouldn’t make it out of this alive, but I wasn’t going to go without taking these bastards with me, my rage had totally subsided and was replaced with a sudden peace, I felt like this was how it was going to end all along, and I had excepted it.

The man turned to his partner and winked, I took advantage of this and drew my m1911 from my side and aimed point blank into the back of the man’s head, I couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen the pistol at my side but then again, it is a shooting range and I could tell they thought I didn’t have the balls to stand up against them. I pulled the trigger and the bullet hurled straight into the back of the bastards head, dropping his limp body to the floor. The shorter fiend reacted immediately and without taking care to aim, blind fired at me. I felt an immense pain in my shoulder as the buckshot shattered my right shoulder incapacitating me completely; I fell to the ground and saw a sig p226 being aimed straight at my face.

“Fuck you.” I said as he pulled the trigger instantly killing me.

You know how everyone seems to think that when you die you for some reason end up walking towards a bright alluring light? Yeah, they were wrong. I found myself falling, unable to open my eyes, it felt terrifying not only because I felt like the world around my was crumbling but because I suddenly thought about what would happen to me, would I fall like this for eternity? Or am I going to arrive at the gates of Hell for all the horrible things I did back on earth. I was never a religious person at all, but I found a need to pray.

“Uhm, God, I’m kind of new to this but yea, sorry for all the horrible things for I did on earth, I hope you can forgive me so I don’t have to go to Hell, Erm... amen? I felt a little better after saying that quick well... prayer? I still couldn’t open my eyes but then something remarkable happened. My eyes suddenly burst open and all the memories I had ever had flashed in front of me, everything good and bad, EVERYTHING. That’s when I saw it. My mother, looking down at me, I was obviously still a baby, probably about 6 weeks old.

“M-Mom?” I stuttered. And with that everything went dark, it felt wrong, but then I felt the air flowing through my hair, WAIT WHAT?! My eyes snapped open and I saw that I was falling to earth with incredible speed.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” I screamed like a little girl.

*THWAK* I hit the ground with incredible force, everything went totally black.

I awoke with a yawn and opened my eyes to be greeted by those of a.... PURPLE HORSE!? And that’s where I stand right now. Looking into the eyes of a purple horse with a horn, what. The. Fuck.