(Note: This is my first attempt ever at writing a story, any help / criticisms would be appreciated)
I never expected to survive very long, not in this business. And I was right. It was relatively easy at least, fast.
City of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
1/25/2013 4:54 PM
I was in situated in the rear passenger side seat of a nondescript black Honda Civic Coupe. Me, the driver, along another passenger providing escort. Our Honda was the tail of a three car convoy, all of which the same make and colour. We were just a precaution. The person who we were escorting wasn't exactly the most loved individual in this city but rival cartels had been quiet as of late, the city's murder rate at a record low.
We were pretty much there just to ward off any would-be revenge seekers.
It had been a long drive, having started at about ten AM but we were finally nearing our destination. I was lazily staring out my right side window, my mind occupied with thoughts about finally getting to stretch my back and take a much needed piss when I was abruptly thrown face first into the aforementioned window. Black dots covered my vision as the sound of glass breaking and metal being torn filled my ears. After a few seconds my mind caught up with my senses as I opened my eyes, my nose blazing with pain; blood pouring from it onto my shirt. Looking left I could see that the driver was in far worse a shape, half his body crushed and torn between steel and his seat, red pooling around him.
“Fuck!” I heard, in exclamation from the seat in front of me as the other occupant came to.
“You all right?” I asked as he unclipped his seat belt.
“Yea, let’s just get the fuck out of here; I can’t be here when no police arrive.” He responded, his door creaking as he exited the car.
Suddenly a succession of explosions sounded, bursts of red flying from his back as he fell against the open car door before slumping to the ground, dead.
I ducked low as the distinct sound of automatics firing ripped through the air. Through the half of the windshield not covered by twisted steel I could see the other Hondas getting peppered with rounds, glass shattering as holes punched through their fibreglass sides.
Shit! This wasn't a car crash!
Crouching as low as I could I drew my black Taurus 1911 as I quickly opened my door and took cover behind the rear wheel.
Hearing crunching gravel I leant under the rear of the car to see two pairs of black panted legs headed towards the front of my car.
‘Fuck, here we go.’ I thought as I aimed for the closest leg. Firing I feel the familiar jerk as the gun jumps in my hand, a plume of red exploding from the leg along with a scream of pain. Falling the leg owners upper body comes into view, instinctively catching himself from hitting the ground. His dark brown eyes meet mine as I fire again. In slow motion his cranium erupts into a splash of red and white as his face folds inward, the bullet ploughing its way though before exiting the rear of his head along most of his brain in another burst of red.
As time sped back into motion I heard cursing from the other side of the car as I again took cover back behind the wheel.
Glancing under the car I spotted legs quickly moving towards the front. I took a quick shot but missed by a inch as they vanished behind the front left tire. More cursing. Abruptly a face appeared beside the wheel. Two squeezes of my finger and he jerked back, hands clutching his throat, a shrill gurgling sound emitting from him. Five rounds fired, 3 more in the mag.
Crunch! Shoes meeting gravel.
Behind! I spin around coming down on one knee to try and make myself harder to hit as my gun sights up with a third man's chest. Bang! Bang! Bang! Gun recoiling hard I empty my mag into his chest, the last two landing in the heart area as he stumbles back before falling onto his ass. ‘No blood, Kevlar’ I thought as he raised his gun back to me. I lurched forward in a attempt to bat it from his hands as a horrible ripping pain filled my stomach, followed by another, and another as my body suddenly went limp. Collapsing at his feet my senses were filled with nothing but pain, feeling as if red hot knifes were being ripped through my chest and stomach, over and over….
I struggled to breathe as every inhale and exhale became increasingly difficult, feeling like I had to lift half a ton just to take in another lungful of air. Throughout all this my jumbled thoughts were racing in mortal terror, thinking about how fucking stupid I was not to expect kevlar and go for the head. Or for that matter not wear kevlar myself; But mostly I was thinking of dying. I've never really believed in a religion, in a after life. Was this the end of me? Was there really going to be nothing? No more thought, no more feeling? I was filled with fear at the thought, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. Even thinking was becoming difficult, everything seemed to come to me slower. Feelings, along with pain seemed to be dulling fast, drifting away...
Soon I felt nothing, even my fear seemed to drift away as a incredible cold filled in its wake, as if I was completely submerged in ice water leaving me with nothing but one last last panicked thought....'I wish I could start again'
..........
Beep...beep...beep.
..........
Conciousness came back slowly, along with all feeling in my body. A spreading of warmth from my chest outward as my mind dragged itself from its groggy state.
The first sound that greeted my roused conciousness was a continuous beeping to my right, a heart monitor.
I... was alive.
I felt myself smile as emotions I hadn't really felt in a long time poured out from me. Relief, happiness, elation. But those quickly left me along with my smile as my total reality dawned on me... I was caught. With my record I would looking at quite a bit of jail time. I could only hope to be expedited to the US for my former crimes there. I didn't think I could survive in a Mexican jail. I don't think I would want to survive in one.
Escape, It was my only hope. I didn't even feel any handcuffs chaining me to the bed....
'For that matter why am I not feeling any pain? How long have I been out?'
Slowly opening my eyes I was greeted by the sight of the heart monitor, the thing looked to be a rather ancient module, probably not even legally allowed to be used in any reputable US hospital. That's Mexico for you....surviving off of discards and discontinued models.
Casting my eyes around the room I noticed something rather strange about the walls and floor. Probably just my vision not having fully returned to me yet but they seemed to appear.... soft looking? They just seemed to have a texture to them that lead me to that kind of conclusion. They didn't look like any kind of wall panels I had ever seen.
Ignoring the strange walls I turned my attention back to my immediate area which didn't consist of a whole lot; no mini TV for me. There wasn't even a window, besides the heart monitor the only thing in this room was one of those L shaped hospital tables on wheels, the ones that you slid next over the bed to eat off of.
All in all it seemed like a regular if a bit on the cheap side hospital. Seemed...
As I again wondered why I was feeling absolutely no pain from what was at least three bullet wounds I brought a hand to my chest as I looked down.... one problem.
"M- My hand!"
What I had thought for a split second to be a strange looking cast was nothing but a stump. My fingers..... along with the rest of my hand were gone. In its place was a round white cylinder that ended so suddenly it was like rest of it had been chopped off with a very sharp knife.
Lifting my other arm I could see it was the exact same for that one.
"W-what di-did they do to me, m-my hand wasn't shot!" Looking downward I could see that the rest of my body was the same uniform white as the stumps. And it wasn't clothes.
"W-what the hell!"
Violently shaking in fear and confusion I started to hyperventilate, the heartbeat monitors beeping speeding up with it.
"H-have t-t-to get out o-of here"
Throwing my weight to one side I attempted to stand up from the bed only to fall down to the floor, the heartbeat monitor flatlining as its connectors were ripped from my chest. Catching myself with my front stumps which surprisingly didn't hurt. I tried to stand again, once again falling forward when I was about three fourths of the way up.
I suddenly heard what sounded like several pairs of feet rushing towards the door in front of me, no doubt drawn by the shrill screeching of the heartbeat monitor.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to see the people who operated on me, them having for seemly no reason amputated my hands and feet along with doing.... something to my skin.
'Not like I have a choice' I thought, just as the door opened.
"What the fuck!"
Whatever I was expecting, it definitely didn't match up with what came through that door. It wasn't human, instead what came in was some sort of quadruped; a good foot or so taller than me, Yellow in colour with orange hair.
"Sweet Celestia, what language." It talked! It fucking talked!
"W-What the hell are you!" I screamed as I backed away from it, searching in vain for something to use as a weapon. The only objects in the room being the heart monitor and table, both being too unwieldy to fit the role.
"What? What do you mean? Calm down dear, no ones going to hurt you." She'?' said slowly advancing towards me.
Behind her I see two more quadrupeds enter the room, one substantially taller than the others.
"What seems to be the matter son?" The larger dark gray one asks who I assume is a male by the deep voice and size difference. He also seems to be wearing a white doctors coat, except it was tailored to fit a quadruped. Noticing my aggressive stance and expression he leans towards an pure violent coloured female and whispers something in her ear before she nods and hurriedly exits the room. As she did so the yellow one moved closer, something I didn't take to lightly.
"Get the fuck away from me!" I said, swinging my right.. stump towards her. I was too far away to hit her but she flinched back anyways.
"Hey! There's no need for that, we're trying to help you. Just tell us what's wrong"
"Y-you are! What t-t-the hell are you?" I was starting to hyperventilate again.
"A doctor. I'm here to help you, now listen to me. Just calm down."
The violet one came back, a syringe held aloft in her... wing? I hadn't really noticed till now but the other two also seemed to have wings, only they were still furled at their sides.
The male opened his own wing, taking the syringe from the other; somehow grasping it with the tips of his feathers... as impossible as that seemed.
"This will help you calm down, just hold still son." He murmured softly as he drew closer, nurses coming at me from his sides.
As my glare settled on him the violet one to his left sprang forward surprising me. I snapped a quick right at her face as she moved to tackle me, a satisfying meaty thud sounding along with a gasp of pain from her and ones of surprise from the others. I moved in to follow it up with a heavy left hook but was quickly tackled to the ground by the dark gray one.
"Get the fuck off me cocksucker!" I screeched as I did my best to batter his head with my limbs... failing to make much progress there I fell back to option #2.
"AHHHHH!" He howled in pain as he backed the hell off, missing some meat off his front left leg; syringe clattering to the floor.
"Oh dear Celestia!" The yellow one exclaimed, her hooves'?' over her mouth. Now that I mention it, they did kind of look like horses, minus the strange human like faces.
Seeing my chance I quickly grab for the fallen syringe. Though forgetting I no longer had fingers I only manage to knock it towards the one that had first attempted to tackle me. Grabbing it she faced me with a dangerous glare on her face, ruined by the quickly darkening bruise around her tightly shut left eye.
Glancing towards the others I could see that neither of them would be a immediate problem, the so called doctor was preoccupied with wrapping his coat around his deeply bleeding leg as the yellow and orange female seemed to be stuck in a state of disbelief. I just had to deal with miss evil eye here.
As if reading my thoughts she started steadily advancing towards me, syringe held in a threatening manner. I couldn't engage her directly, she had both a weapon along with reach over me. So I had to take her by surprise.
Slowly backing towards the bed I waited till she got within a arms length, then as fast as I could manage I wrenched the cover off the bed and onto her, it didn't manage to cover her but it distracted her enough for me to bat the sharp needle out from her wings grip. Taking full advantage of her surprise I swung both of my limbs repeatedly at her face and any place else I could reach. Evil eye didn't exactly take it laying down though swinging her own front limbs at me, planting quite a few painful hits. My face and chest area throbbing in pain I started to put more of my weight behind my hits as I somehow managed to wrestle her to the floor before I felt a sharp jab of pain in my hind quarters. Spinning in place I saw the yellow female quickly backing away from me, syringe gripped in wing; the plunger all the way down.
I managed a entire three steps towards her before falling to my stomach, darkness encompassing my vision as I slipped back into unconsciousness.
Cloudsdale General Hospital
Chief Medical Officer Healing Breeze's office.
Three hours after incident.
"And then he bit you?" questioned Healing Breeze, a powder blue pegasus and Cloudsdale General's current CMO.
"Yes ma'am, took a pretty good chunk out of me too." Showing the bandaged leg in question. "I can most certainly say I didn't expect it, though I never expected him to outright attack a nurse either for that matter..." Responded Rightful Storm, one of the hospitals leading paediatricians; with over 20 years of experience to his name.
Sighing, he continued. "So...nurse Dawn will be taking the rest of the week off after she's done receiving stitches and I sent Autumn home for the night. She seemed pretty shaken after what happened and I can't blame her... I've just never really seen such aggression before, especially from a colt his age; which I place to be somewhere between eleven and thirteen. The closest thing I've encountered to that nature was a adult griffon and even then he never resorted to such brutal physical violence.... I've also never heard of such injury's as the ones the surgeon described to me. Obviously something's wrong here, do we have no indication of where he came from? Or who he is?"
"Somewhat.. From what little I've gathered from the front desk staff he was brought in by a local off duty royal guard. He didn't stick around for very long but I was told he said something about finding the colt in a alleyway, though of which one he gave no indication. And that he found the colt with those aforementioned wounds"
"And that's all we got?"
"No, he also gave a on duty nurse this" She exclaimed, opening her desks right most drawer and pulling out something distinctly metallic even with its matte black finish.
"....And? What is it?" Storm questioned, moving in for a better look.
"I'm not sure, all he told her was that he found it next to the colt... And that he believed it to be his." she answered, turning the L shaped object around in her hooves. "As you can see it seems to have a small lever but I'm unable to pull it" Showing him as she tried both with a hoofs edge and a wing-tip. "Hmm."
"Anyways..." Shutting it back into her drawer she turned her gaze back to him.
"The immediate question is, what to do about him?" She enquired, resting her head on her hooves.
"Well. I say we wait and see if he still continues to act as violent as he was when he wakes up, or if he will be willing to cooperative with us when he see's that his aggression will get him nowhere. Perhaps have Iridescent perform a psych test on him then work from there...."
The light blue pegasus nodded. "Sounds as good as anything I thought of. In the mean time I'll send the colts description out to social services along with a brief of what we know so far, see if they cant dig up anything on who he is or what happened to him. Though they probably won't be able to find much with that little to go on."
"Alright, see you next shift then. Although my wife's going to have a fuss when she sees my leg..." Rightful muttered as he left Breezes office, headed home for the night with quite a story to tell his wife.
