It was an odd thing you know, to be shot, I always imagined that it would be painful, that a piece of speeding metal ripping through ones body, separating tissue, severing threads of muscle, and tearing through tendons, would be quite painful, but as I lay here on the ground bleeding, gasping for breath, very unladylike I'm sure, I can not help but to brood upon the fact that even though I'm bleeding, probably to death, in some alley way, I'm not in pain, really I'm not, and I don't know why I'm not, I mean, I should be in agony or something right? Maybe it's the shock or something, but what I do know is that I taste the iron in my mouth, the metallic taste of blood is inhaled with every breath, sweet and bitter, that the ground is stained by my life-force, and its warm, a contrast to the ground, the ground that is so cold, and wet from the rain, and yet even though it's cold, its refreshing…. Its like the little things in life, that remind you that you are alive, the little things that one takes solace in. there is no breath in my lungs anymore, and I'm starting to hyperventilate, perhaps I am in shock maybe, but shock has never really felt so good, my mind feels high with a new understanding and suddenly everything about life, about reality, is put in a very harsh perspective. So I lay here in the no name alleyway between fifth and Benito, behind the Chuck-E-Cheese and the Payless shoe store, I know why I was shot, and I know I deserved it, hell, I deserved worse for what I did, for my treachery, for my mistakes, I was only a child then, naïve and lonely so I turned to the only person who could understand, Bröm.
Bröm was a man bent on domination, starting out first with petty crime all the way to running a network of organized crime, reigning the masses of the city with a regime of terror, and myself at his side, crazed with power and corrupt with longing, longing to become a part of something, to be a someone. But at what cost? To prove my loyalty I traveled the world to spread our word, our terrorist organization to every big city in America, and some in England, México, and Canada. We were all powerful, we were an unstoppable force that was crippling world powers from the inside out, and I was second in command. I am the reason why every one I ever loved before this new life, this new name, this new role, is gone, gone and forgotten by all save two, myself, lying within a breath of death, and my assassin, my brother, alive after a botched murder.
So as I lay here in the no name alley, I laugh and welcome death with open arms, but as death approaches in the race for my soul, he falls behind the flashing red and blue lights of the ambulance and I cry, really I do, my soul weeps, because I know that never again will I feel so great, how ironic, my would be assassin, and yes the term would be assassin for myself and my stature, wanted me to die a slow, painful, drawn out death, and I know this because he told me so as he left me bleeding. I feel enlightened, and heartbroken because I know death is going to lose this race, because I know that I will not feel deaths sweet embrace tonight, that I will have to wait for some nondescript monotonous period of time before I can meet death again. And I cry into the night, not because my shock is starting to wear off, because it is, but because the damn ambulance must be faster than death, and I curse technology and the kid driving the Mercedes three blocks back for not 'going for it' and slowing the ambulance down, I cry because I'm going to live.
Who would have known that this was what it was like to be shot?