AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

[decoy73]

So Alex decided to get himself a new costume, or something like that. She was able to find some hospital scrubs that weren't in bad shape while he joked around regarding the state of the place before stripping down, forcing her to look away, given that he was stripping naked and she'd never felt much of anything for the male body. He realized his mistake and apologized before moving to behind a barrier. When he came back out, he had all scrubs on, with denim on his knees before asking Sabrina to stay back before he started swinging his machete for a while.

He looked scary up until he dropped it, and that was when a girl screamed. Rea. Then Alex saw her, and stabbed her straight in the back before someone shot at him. Sabrina did the only thing that came to mind.

She screamed and backed into the wall.

[Grim Wolf]

The blade slashed.  The terrible figure, the nightmare creature with blade in hand, the gang member hunting him through apartment corridors, resolved itself into a woman, resolved itself into a small frail girl falling to the floor with the back of her clothes cut open, a wound oozing blood.  And Alex stared, and his eyes were wide, and his mouth was open and

Not a hero never a hero oh God oh God oh God oh-

Gunshot.  Pain.

His head exploded just  and he pitched backwards.  Fire in his brain, his thoughts colliding wildly in his head.  Was this what it was, to be shot in the brain?  Did it shatter the think skein of your consciousness and leave your mind fracturing and fragmenting as your face burned?

Is this what he deserved, for killing that nameless girl?

If this is dying, it takes an awfully long time.

It did, didn't it?  But he could feel the hot blood.  He could taste it, flowing down his face.  His thoughts were still whirling, but he could see the dingy roof.  He could see...

Fire atop his head.  Fire where he'd been shot.  He wasn't dead.  How?  How wasn't he dead?  Didn't he deserve to die, for what he'd done?  Didn't he?  Didn't...

He'd been shot.  Someone had shot him.  Someone had tried to kill him.  Someone had tried to remove Alexander David Tarquin from the face of the earth.

His head burned.  Because he'd been shot.

He saw the man standing over the girl he'd cut down.  He saw the man holding the smoking gun.  He saw the man who would have been his killer.  Who might still be his killer.

But he wasn't dead yet.  He would not die yet.

He had landed at the end of the aisle.  He rolled to one side, the crown of his head burning, out of the aisle.  The fire in his head seemed to fill his veins, black out everything but this: the man who had tried to kill him was still holding the gun.  

He charged into the neighboring aisle, raced down until he found the right rack, pivoted and hammered into it with one shoulder.  It rattled: a another blow, and it tilted: finally, it went tumbling over, towards the man with the gun, towards the woman he'd cut down.

[Dannyrulx*]

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

He guessed Solomon had forgotten one pairing. A time to forgive, and a time to seek revenge. And this was most certainly a time for revenge. Or perhaps this would fall under vengeance. It really didn't matter.

He looked down at Rea, who had fallen with a slight smile on her face. There was a crumbling sound, and he whirled around just in time to see a mountain of pallets rain down of him. He brought his jacket up and over his head, a grim smile set on his face, and pulled the hammer back once more. He had five shots left in the cylinder, and he could see flashes of shirt and skin across from him.
He squeezed the trigger hard. Four in the cylinder.
Three left.

"She's barley cold and you're already desecrating her body? Bastard!" His voice was heavy, his accent coming through strongly as he continued. "Just so you know, you're not leaving this warehouse alive. If you do, I chase you down, and I don't stop until you're bleeding out."

He slipped three bullets out of his pocket, dropping his makeshift-head protection, and arranged them ready to load. "And you better pray that my bullets do kill you, because otherwise..."

Two shots left.

[Grim Wolf]

A voice, shouting above the rumbling crash of falling pallets and the thundering hammerstrokes of a gun being fired.  Loud, so much louder than Alex had imagined, so much louder than the movies had prepared him for.  Here he was, with a fire in his head and in his veins, with blood on a sword he'd swung, with a man trying to shoot him.  Here he was, in the heat of a moment that would not have been out of place in any movie he'd ever seen.  The innocent victim: her righteous avenger.

Her remorseless killer.

But no, there was no time for these strange flashing thoughts, no time for his fear or his doubt, because the man who had tried to kill him was still firing.  He could hear the gunshots: worse, he could hear the sizzling metallic sting of the bullets ricocheting nearby.  He was still fighting for his life.  And he was not going to die here.

He would do better than that.

Flashes of shirt and skin across from will resolved themselves as Alex hurled himself through the fallen shelves, taking two leaping strides over groaning metal and then throwing himself forwards, coming up right next to the man with the gun.  His head was down, his eyes on the bullets in his hand.

The man who had tried to kill him.  The man who was still trying to kill him.

Swords lost in the opening salvo.  Nothing but his fists and a hundred half-remember martial arts videos and training classes and self-practice fading into a furious haze so it felt like he was wearing blinders, so it felt like all he could see was his would-be killer with the gun in his hand.

He struck in a furious flurry, getting in under the other man's guard, trying not to let that gun train on him again.

[Dannyrulx*]

((Post order skipped with permission from Decoy73))

Will raised the gun for another shot, before pulling his arms back in to protect his body. The kid came at him with a flurry of punches, and he backed off, although he was a fraction too slow in putting up a defense, getting an elbow to the gut in the tussle. Winded, he let his arms and shoulders take the brunt of the blow. The gun was still in his hand, although he supposed holding a gun by it's steaming hot barrel wasn't exactly the best situation, because it hurt.

He was getting sick of the pummelling though. He lashed out with his leg, aiming it at the kid's knee. Without waiting to feel the connect, he swung the butt of the revolver at his head, dropping his guard and letting a fist smash into his jaw.

"Fuck you kid."
"Fuck you so hard."

[Grim Wolf]

The gun the gun the gun!

The gun, that could snuff out his life with a single pull of the trigger.  How was he not dead already?  His head burned.  There was blood on his face.  How was he not dead?  How, when he had-

When he-

The body was beneath him somewhere.  He had shoved this shelf down on top of her.  After her only crime had been-

No no no no no the gun the gun the gun

He lashed out, hammered one fist into his jaw, felt his teeth click satisfyingly beneath his knuckles.  He didn't see the other man's legs kick out: he didn't see the gun falling like a scythe, slamming into the same aching part of his skull so fire exploded down into his temples and black stars spasmed across his eyes.  He pitched backwards, cracked the back of his head.  Stunning, reeling, losing his mind inside and out, but

the gun the gun the GUN!

Dizzy, half-mad, he kicked out himself, angling for the knees of the man with the gun.  He stumbled to his feet, head still reeling, nausea boiling in his stomach and racing up his throat, clawing over the man in front of him.

Where was the gun?  He didn't know.  He could barely see.  He could barely see, and that gun was somewhere, and all his muscles and all his training, all his fitness and all his special belief in his own destiny would not change the fact that one bullet could end him.

Over the shelves, running all out, trapped by the tall shelves around him, by the painful darkness on the edges of his vision, by the thought of the fallen woman he'd cut open behind him and her nameless avenger with the gun in his hand.

[Dannyrulx*]

Shit, shit shit.
Will's back hit the ground with a thump and he grunted in pain. In front of him, Rea's murderer dashed away. Straight line. He raised the revolver and sighted him, knowing that all he needed to would be to squeeze the trigger and...
click
Wait, what? He had been positive there was one bullet left in the chamber. There had been, hadn't there? Yeah, there had, so...
Oh. The cylinder had been spun. The bullet could be fucking anywhere in the next five pulls of the trigger. Fuck that.
He opened his other palm where the bullets had been, ready to slot them in, only to see his hand empty.
"FUCK!" Did life really not want this bastard dead? He looked around and saw the bullets under one of the pallets, copper glinting in the light. He couldn't reach them, no way.
He placed one hand over the hammer of the revolver and yanked it backwards, Clint Eastwood style.
Click.
Click
Click.
"I'm gonna ask you a question," he deapdanned.
"Do you feel... Lucky, punk?"

[Grim Wolf]

Scambling along the ground, almost crawling, like an animal.  The avenger was behind him somewhere, crowing in triumph.  Not a good sound.  How to escape?  Run in a straight line?  Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!  You should-

The machete gleamed in front of him, blood along its blade.  The girl's blood.  The girl he'd killed.  Didn't know her name.  Had never seen her face.  Just her moving back.  Just her scream.

the man with the gun

Alex snatched up his blade, ready to turn back, ready to cut down the man whose only sin was actually acting like the kind of hero Alex had claimed to be, ready-

And as he turned, he saw her.  Sabrina Luz, cowering against a wall, clinging to cover.  Sabrina Luz, looking at him with confusion and terror.

They are monsters preying on the weak.  We will have to show them they chose the wrong prey.

Chose the wrong prey?  Here a day, and his blade had already cut open some poor girl's back, after he had promised Sabrina Luz that they would do better.

And how had he atoned for his mistake?  By pushing a shelf down on her.  Desecrating her.

"Do you feel lucky?" someone called, from an infinite distance away.

"No," Alex whispered, small and unsure.  The hot pained haze was gone.  He felt alone and young and his guilt might have drowned him except-

Except that he didn't want to die.

He took off at a run, as the gun fired like a starter's pistol.  Machete and sword and hand in bag, running and running, running outside through the door he'd left open, running outside into a terribly bright day, a day that gave no indicate that the murderer Alex Tarquin had fled justice and left an innocent young woman dead behind him.

(Alex Tarquin EXIT: to now is the winter of our discontent)

[Dannyrulx*]

He...
He was gone.
Will's ears still rung from the last gunshot, and gingerly pulled himself to his feet, grabbing the bullets as he did so.

One loaded.
Two loaded.
Three loaded.
Four loaded.
Five loaded.
Six loaded.

He spun the cylinder once more for good luck and walked over to the stack of pallets, collapsed and scattered all over the floor, and all over Rea's body. Carefully, he lifted them up, one by one, until she was revealed.

He deflated entirley, putting the gun back in his pocket as he looked at the corpse of the girl he had loved. He racked his brain for something appropriate to say, anything appropriate to say, and came up with a bible verse. Psalm 23 to be exact:

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

There was a girl. A living one. He didn't really know her to be honest, hadn't known a lot of people. He calmly picked the body up in a bridal carry, and started to walk out of the storehouse, tears spilling downn his face.
"I'm going to find your friend you know."
"I'm going to find him, and then i'm going to kill him, and then i'm going to win this fucking thing, go home and drink myself to death, because what the fuck else am I going to do?"

With that, he walked out.

((WIll McKinley continued elsewhere.)

[decoy73]

Alex was in a fight with someone who had a gun. Someone then fired the gun into Alex's head, releasing blood, but not taking him down as Alex punched the guy with the gun and toppled the bookcases over before running off.

The other guy came over with his gun. He picked up the body and then spoke.

"I'm going to find your friend you know. I'm going to find him, and then i'm going to kill him, and then i'm going to win this fucking thing, go home and drink myself to death, because what the fuck else am I going to do?"

And then he was gone.

I need to get out I need to get out I need to get out.

((Sabrina Luz continued in Haunted House))