Okay, so I know I’ve been writing stuff lately that’s completely unrelated to everything that ever happens anywhere. So, today, I shall now attempt to do the exact opposite and provide you with actual art. So, here it is, the first chapter of my next book. If you steal it, I will find you and kill you. It’ll be published by the end of the year. This is not the format you’ll see it in. The chapter (or “episode” in this case) has no name. I won’t be naming the chapters until I’ve finished the book. It’s over two hundred pages now, I think. I hope you enjoy this section.
P.S.- If there are spelling errors and you point them out to me, I will consider that legitimate grounds to do the same thing I’d do if you stole this Holy God awesome work of art. Thank you, jerks.
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Ledge
EPISODE ONE
There’s darkness, and then the curtains are drawn back. Time starts. His thumb moves. Click. That’s the sound of the gun’s hammer getting pulled back.
“Still won’t talk, Mr. Adams?”
That’s Greg. He isn’t holding the gun. Mac’s holding the gun. Mac’s seven feet tall, or something.
“Hit him again, Mac.”
Whack! That’s me getting punched in the face by a left hook. The gun’s in his right hand, not aimed at anything in particular yet.
“Come on, Adams. We don’t got all day. Just tell us where your friend is and we’ll let you go.”
My friend is Michael. I won’t tell Greg anything. I think my jaw’s broken anyway. It hurts like hell.
“Adams…”
We’re in a hotel room. It’s got a nice view overlooking Lake Oslana. That wasn’t the lake’s first name, but the owner of the hotel line decided it’d be a nice one to buy. I wonder what it was called originally.
“You know how easy this is. And it’s not like we’re gonna backstab you or anything. Just let us at him!”
I wish Greg would get it over with and have my ass capped already. There’s no way I’m exposing Michael—no way. I really hope he doesn’t come in and try to save me or anything.
AGH! GOOD GOD!
“That’s strike one. Next we put a bullet in your other thigh. Might be hard to walk around. Start talking.”
Jesus Christ, it hurts so much! Keep it together, Eddie! Be cool! You’ll make it out of this. Just need a plan.
Greg’s looking over at the other two men in the room, Mac not being one of them. He says something to them, but I can’t hear it very well. It HURTS!
“…and if we’re not quick enough, the Doctor might wonder what’s taking so long!”
The Doctor: a psychotic crime lord with one eye and one hand. There’s an eye patch over the eye (no, no hook). He seems threatening to most people. Not to me. He’s just an ugly old man to me.
Whack! Another punch. The Doctor REALLY wants Michael dead, huh?
“We may have to waterboard it out of this guy,” says one of the other men. I don’t know his name, just some random goon with a gun. I hope Greg doesn’t agree.
“Get the rags,” he says. Now I’m done for. I won’t be able to hold out through that stuff. I hope Michael left the country. It’s not safe here in State 9 anymore, not with all that’s been happening lately.
A lot of time passes once the third man exits to get the rags. I give Greg an indifferent look, he shoots a glare. I give Mac the same look and he just snorts and walks off, dropping the gun on a sofa chair. He talks quietly with the last man in the room (just another goon).
“Why do you care so much?” Greg asks me. I become introspective and really analyze this before I answer, and then I shrug seeing as nothing I say will prove satisfactory. If I told him how Michael saved me, how he was different from the other you-know-whats, he wouldn’t understand. He’d just say I was a nutcase who needed his head examined.
After the course of fifteen minutes (it felt like a lot more to me), the rags arrive with the third man. He tosses them to Mac, who catches them with ease.
“Did you bring the bottles too?” Greg asks.
“They’re just outside sir,” the man responds. “I’ll go get ‘em.”
The chair I’m strapped to is made of wood. It is laid across the floor, me now facing the ceiling. This is going to suck.
“You could always talk now,” Greg offers. I remain silent, like a good friend should, and the rags are placed over my face. I toss my head to the left, throwing the rags off. When a hard punch hits me in the—Lord, that hurts!—face I stopped turning. The rags go over my face again. I think my nose is bleeding.
One of the water bottles is opening, I can hear it. Here it comes. Mac’s tilting it right now. Get out now Michael. Get out before they find y—CRASH!
“What the—?!”
The sound of men being tossed about the room echoes through my ears. Bullets fly from Mac’s gun, but it explodes in his hand, causing him to shout in pain. The other two goons fire but are launched into the ceiling, their necks snapping. I can hear Greg being pinned against the wall. Mac is groaning and weeping on the floor as the rags are lifted off my face.
Michael.
“Get out of here!” I tell him. He unties the ropes that bind me and helps me into a sofa chair. There’s Greg, being held against the wall by Michael’s power.
“An angel never leaves his friends behind,” he tells me, before looking to Greg with an expressionless face. One of the guns of the dead goons soars toward his hand. He aims it at the leader of the group, now begging for mercy.
“To harm an ally of mine is to hang oneself,” the angel says. Then a red mark appears between the eyes of Greg and blood trickles down from it until it reaches his lips. The body falls to the floor, lifeless as ever. Michael looks back at me.
“Are you all right, Edward?”
“Yeah,” I lie, “I’m dandy. You showed up just in time. Although I still think you need to get the hell out of Dodge.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “WE are getting out of Dodge, not I.”
“I have to see Sally first.”
Sally’s my girlfriend. She’s—she’s beautiful. I haven’t quite decided whether I’ll marry her yet. We’ve been steady for a few years now.
“No time,” Michael tells me, causing my further worry. “Those were easy hunters. If they send Lucifer—.”
“I can’t just leave her. They’ll kill her!”
I’m standing now, but my leg hurts too much. I’m trembling as I fall back into the chair. Michael holds a hand to were the bullet is and slowly—YAGH—levitates it out of me. I’m not bleeding too bad. Okay, maybe I AM bleeding too bad. But he’s already ripping a bed sheet apart and wrapping a piece of it around the wound.
“That should stop the bleeding. Raphael will be able to heal you later.”
“Michael, I can’t leave her.”
His face, though without expression, holds weight behind it like you couldn’t imagine. His eyes waver and glow. And then, he understands.
“I will get you to safety first. The others are downstairs with a car. I’ll let them get you out of here, then I’ll get the girl.”
I’m thinking of disagreeing, thinking of telling him I have to be there when it happens. But that’d be foolish right now. I need healing, and Raphael’s always been the quickest at that.
“All right, fine. Let’s go.”
He nods. We depart. Mac looked dead last I checked.
This world has changed since the war. I can only hope that doing what I’m doing will help save it from its own self-destruction. Although, to be honest, when I look outside at the dystopia that has come, I can’t help but lose hope entirely.
We’re hanging on a ledge right now. I really hope Man’s fingers don’t get any more tired than they already are.
Dylan Alexander 