บท 18: Between A Rock and Hard Place
"What do you want?" the father yelled, "I'll give you anything! Take my wife! Take my little girl!"
In response all the thug did was raise his handgun, pressing it deep into the father's forehead.
There was an anxious feeling encapsulating Ambitan, the moral compass compelling him to step in and do something but the numb heart screamed to mind his own business and move right along.
That father got himself into that situation, and it would be his problem to get out.
But compassion, the whole point of humanity was unity, to work together to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.
Shaking his head, Ambitan stepped forward behind the thug before raising his fist and hammering him on the back of his head.
Like a sack of bricks, the man crumpled and slammed face-first into the dirt.
Confusedly, the father had been kneeling on the ground, his eyes closed as he anticipated the smell of gunpowder. But no such death had occurred.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. Revealing bloodshot red orbs that darted all over the surroundings.
"Who are you?" he slurred.
"None of your concern," Ambitan replied.
Shattered glass and bent, twisted beer cans were littered all around. In little odds and ends, some dust bunnies hopped tiredly across the equally worn streets.
Some used syringes were discarded to the side and in a little cranny, there was a pair doing some drugs.
Methodically they lined up the meth, ensuring that not a single fleck was left behind. They hit it with a card several times before finally scooping it up and snorting it.
The drug was potent, and the new tech had enabled the various groups to produce more addictive drugs.
Almost instantaneously their eyes went bloodshot, the drug instantly dispersed throughout their system. They fell down and slumped against the wall as they rapidly gulped down breaths.
"Colors… so many pretty colors…," the one in red said, "I see the stars. I see them smiling and twinkling for us, welcoming us after a hard day's work. Do you see them?"
"I see them too Mike! They're glimmering oh so fantastically… while we're stuck here. Stuck to rot."
"Things will get better Rachel, we just have to believe. Have faith in the hand we have been dealt."
"Faith isn't enough Mike. What the fuck is it going to accomplish for us? Huh?"
"Well, what else can we do Rachel?" Mike yelled. "The people in the Upper Sectors are content to let us lay in their shit. And it's not like we can do anything about that. So at this point, we just need a miracle. And that's why we need to have faith."
"But it's hard to hold faith, Mike. Day after day we just keep getting beaten down," Rachel said through grit teeth, "When will the punishment stop?"
Shaking his head, Ambitan decided to stop listening in on the conversation. It wasn't his place to jump in.
Solemnly, he approached the door of the bar, knocking on it before he saw movement through the peephole. Oddly enough this time, there was no one keeping watch outside.
After a couple of moments of waiting, Ambitan impatiently started scuffing the dirt, digging a little ditch with his foot.
Then he knocked again, rapping his knuckles against the brittle wooden door. As he did so, little flecks of red paint fell off, drifting down to the floor.
When there was no response, Ambitan pushed against the constant nagging feeling in his mind and tested the doorknob, checking to see if it was locked.
The door swung wide open with zero resistance, revealing an incarnation of chaos. Blood was pooled up and flies were buzzing around lifeless corpses.
Bullet holes littered the walls, a blatant sign of the conflict that had gone down here. The wallpaper was peeling off and everywhere Ambitan went there was this foul stench.
Vomit started to bubble up and get caught in his throat. He hacked and coughed as his stomach protested against the sight.
The faux bar was wrecked, despite its cover, it had seemed as if the disguises had been done away with. Clearly, someone had found out about the Faceless. Someone Ambitan didn't want to be on the unsavory end of.
Walking into the bar area, broken glass decorated the room, almost like carpeting. The way it cast the dim light and reflected it all across the room, with a dull red tinge.
Blood trickled down the walls, and the ceiling too was seeping.
Underneath the bar laid Vergil's corpse, his hands tied behind his back with rope and bruises dotting his face.
His eyes were wide, the very image of panic captured within those now soulless orbs. But despite them being soulless, they seemed to convey more humanity than even that of the living. He was dead but not quite dead. For even the dead still spoke.
Seeing that someone was targeting the Faceless, Ambitan jumped to the logical conclusion that someone had probably been watching him enter the hideout.
As if to confirm his speculations, he heard the door creak open, and footsteps thud against the bloody wood.
Calmly, Ambitan reached over to Vergil's eyes, gently touching his eyelids before drawing them to a close. He had seemed like a decent man, not righteous. But decent, and for all his sarcasm, he didn't deserve this ending.
Ambitan snatched a handgun off the floor, praying that there were still bullets left in the magazine.
The footsteps thudded through the halls, as they approached, Ambitan identified a minimum of at least 5 members.
"Get out here you anarchist scum!" a voice yelled.
Ambitan stayed deathly silent, not daring to even breathe too loudly.
Inwardly his mind raced, hoping that they didn't have anything like infrared or the sort. If they were sponsored by the Upper Sectors to quell dissent then Ambitan already knew that he was truly and royally fucked.
"Ya think he already left?"
"Nah, there's only one exit. The guy's got nowhere left to go."
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