The beginning
At the sound of voices, he began to stir; his consciousness rising to lucidity like bubbles to the surface of a murky lake. The voices became more prominent, more defined, he became aware of the heavy weight of blankets on his form, the needles in his arm, and the steady beeping and humming of various pieces of equipment.
“Are you sure there’s nothing you can do for him Doc?” Asked a gruff, weary voice.” This fuckers been out for three weeks, and he’s the prime suspect in the biggest case Miami PD has ever seen! The other one we locked up won’t say shit; this guy’s the only lead we have left! You certain you can’t bring him round?”
A quieter, firm voice responded “Officer please. We’ve tried everything we can to bring him around without risking permanent brain damage, and need I remind you that it is a miracle this man is alive? He was shot three times, twice in the torso and once in the head. If that head wound had been anymore than the glancing blow that it was, he would be dead. So please, take your things and leave. I assure you that as soon as he has any change in his condition, you’ll be the first to know.”
He heard the police officer curse under his breath, clear his throat, and then the harsh foot falls of boots on linoleum flooring move away from his bedside. The door squeaked open, then slammed shut.
The doctor sighed, and walked to the end of his bed. He heard the scribbling of a pen on a clipboard, the ruffle of a lab coat, and once again the footfalls moved away, the door shut and he was alone.
The man opened his eyes.
Hissing in pain as bright light hit his sore eyeballs; he turned away from the source of the irritation, and looked to his right hand side, at the hardwood table at the side of his bed. Amidst the detritus, plastic cups and bubble gum wrappers, he caught sight of a crumpled, coffee ring stained news paper.
Reaching over, his joints creaking in protest and the intravenous drip jerking in his arm, he grabbed the newspaper and held it up to his face, blinking and squinting blearily as he tried to make out the front page.
“MASKED MANIAC MASSACRES MOBSTERS” Was plastered in thick, bold writing across the front page, along with a blown up side by side comparison of two men. One was tall, lean with a trim middle, broad shoulders and a bloody baseball bat clutched in his right hand, frozen in mid stride as he made his way down the steps of a run-down apartment, clad in a leather varsity jacket with cream highlights and a B sewn onto the front, black jeans and combat boots.
The ghastly mask of a rooster covered his face; eyes beady and piercing looked up at the security camera which had recorded him leaving.
The other picture was of two paramedics rushing a trolley up the slant into accident and emergency at a hospital. The man in the trolley was wearing the same, albeit without the mask. Blood poured from a large gash in his forehead, blood spilling down and soaking into the front of the jacket, the B being spattered a clotted read. The man’s face was ashen, and pulled taught into a grimace, blonde hair cropped short and one piercing blue eye gazing into the camera as he was hauled into the hospital.
The man dropped the newspaper, crumpling it up into a ball as his hands began to shake. He couldn’t remember much, but he could still recognise himself in both of those pictures. He couldn’t remember his name, but he remembered the phone calls, the nights of violence, the girl lying dead in his home, as well as the grinning face of the rat as he sat in his couch.
Glancing once more at the crumpled newspaper, the stencilled J looming back at him from the black and white, the man swung his legs out of bed, clenched his jaw and stood, slumped and trembling in the hospital room.
“Jacket…” He thought. He couldn’t remember his old name, didn’t care enough to either. The only people he’d trusted and cared about enough to disclose his real name where both dead now anyway, and he doubted that he’d be alive long enough for a new name to matter.
His throat was dry, sending throbbing lances of pain from where he had been fed via tubes by hospital staff as they worked to keep him alive.
Jacket thought back to what the police officer had said before leaving, more specifically, about the guy they’d caught, and were presumably holding at the station. Up until now the police in Miami had been little more than a mild annoyance; he’d always been too quick or too stealthy for them to catch him, besides, when he’d first started Miami PD had better things to worry about than dead Ruskie mobsters.
Now though, they had become far more of a problem. The police had caught on enough to track him down to his apartment, and if they were holding whoever had attempted to kill him down at the station then they had to be dealt with.
Ignoring the bright flashes of light that danced and swirled at the corners of his vision, Jacket crept to the door to his room, turned the handle and cautiously opened the door, looking quickly to his left and right as he did so.
It was time to go.
Breathing heavily, Jacket tore down the police warning tape from his door before kicking it down, the hinges groaning with the sound of tortured metal before giving way all together, the doorframe cracking and falling inward.
Hissing with pain, and clutching a blood stained shred of tattered clothing to his stomach, Jacket stepped over what remained of the door and into his apartment, staggering into the living room and smearing the chalk outline of his late lover, Hooker, as he collapsed onto the sofa.
His hunch was right, Miami PD were nowhere near prepared for a full frontal assault, and the ill equipped police officers barely had time to grab any form of defence before he had rammed the front of his car through the glass doors and started shooting.
Turns out though, slaughtering an entire station of armed police officers three weeks after being shot is not a good idea, as his wounds had ripped open during his sprint through the various rooms and floors of the police station, leaving him bleeding heavily and nauseous as he finished off the remaining officers.
Jacket’s vision swirled, jerked and twisted as a myriad of colours and shapes pulsed in a disorienting display as his damaged brain tried to deal with the sensory overload it was experiencing. Black dots danced in front of his eyes as Jackets hands slipped from his injuries. Blood began to pool around the waistband of his jeans and seep down onto the sofa, as the grinning mask of the rat he had stolen from the police station looked up at him from where he had dropped it as he collapsed.
As Jacket bled out, he noticed the box of masks he had attained in his “visits” all over Miami, slide into the room in front of him. The unicorn masks horn pierced the side of the box and cut upwards, spilling out the assortment of creatures faces as a pair of red and yellow eyes popped into the vacant sockets of the unicorn mask.
A long, serpentine body stretched from the back, weaving through the masks and seemingly stitching them into a form, as the unicorn mask distorted and changed into the head of a goat. Two horns, burst through the latex, a snaggletooth snuck under the upper lip and the mouth split open into an eager grin. The thing took its form from the scattered masks, a lion’s paw, an eagle’s talon, a goat’s hind leg as well as lizard’s allowed it to rise to its full height in front of a dying and perplexed Jacket.
“My my…What a sorry state you’ve got yourself into hmm?” The things voice was rich, disarming, yet sinister as it placed both hands on its hips and stared down at the incapacitated Jacket.
“And such as shame! I’ve been watching your little escapades for a while now, and you had such a talent when it came to dealing with certain matters” The thing blurred and was suddenly beside the dying human, tilting his pale face upwards and peeing into his bloodshot eyes.
“Yes. Yes it certainly would be a waste for such talents to be lost to us now wouldn’t it? Well, “us” as in “me” and “me” as in the dashingly handsome rouge you see before you now” He struck a pose, spotlights shining down from somewhere and the rumble of applause could be faintly heard in the background.
When the thing noticed that Jacket wasn’t answering, the spotlights died and the sound of a cricket chirping could be heard.
“Well now, not much of a talker are we? In fact, not much of anything, seeing as how most of your insides are now on your, well, outsides. Anyway, that brings me nicely to why I’m here. I have a proposition for you my dear fellow, a deal if you will. You come with me and I’ll stop you from bleeding to death in a rundown apartment, deal?”
Jacket tilted his head up and looked into the creatures eyes. What did he have to lose? He nodded.
“Splendid!” “Oh I’m so glad that you accepted, believe me, we’ll both be better off for it! Now, we’ll be leaving immediately and seeing as you’re really not in the state to do much packing, it’ll have to be whatever’s in this box,” He gestured to the box of masks” And the clothes on you back my good fellow.”
At the click of the things scaly hand, Jacket felt the sofa beneath him give way, sending him plummeting backwards into a white void. He could see the box of masks follow him though the whole as he spun in free fall, leaving a crimson trail as he fell, his vision fading into black as he rocketed into the white void.
Now alone in Jackets apartment, Discord chuckled to himself as he selected a few choice items from his surroundings and tossed them over one scaly shoulder into the whole in reality he’d made, strolling through the different rooms as he went.
“Mind you.” He said to himself, the smile on his lips literally too big for his face and stretching out of the side of his head. “I only said that you wouldn’t bleed out in a rundown apartment. I never said anything about bleeding to death in the halls of a certain castle. And I bet that right about now, a certain Celly-Welly is wondering what in Equestria has been dumped in her throne room.”
With a final hysterical guffaw of laughter the God of Chaos and disharmony rolled into a ball and span into the rift he had created, a lions paw pulling a door knob out of thin air and slamming it shut behind him.
Author's Note
First ever fan fiction, so any and all criticism, story suggestions or tips are appreciated, I'll be trying to get a new chapter of similar length to this one out at least once every week.
Hope you enjoyed reading, and I'll hopefully see you in the next chapter.