Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Anon

January 6th, 201M2021 BC - Volcadera Cemetery.

A year since I met them. It’d only taken me a few months to dismantle everything she was, all it took was one bad night and the cheapest grog we could get our hands on. If you’d told me at the start of the year that I’d be capable of this, I’d have lapped it up as a compliment like the rancid dog I always have been.

It’s been 8 months since I broke them, since everyone let her down all at once in a cascade of disastrous decisions and threw what was left of her into the awaiting arms of a fucking snake in the grass, yours truly, Anon Y. Mous.

Everyone had let them down, and not just on the important shit either, even the most minute of details and the smallest of moments stained their mind when the end was coming. Not surprising, you tend to notice more dark shit when your life is so blackened that light can barely pierce through the veil.

Sure, Naser had fucked up by being too controlling of their sibling and their actions, but maybe they could have lived through that if Naser didn’t try and guide her through even the tiniest and simplest of things… the worst example that came to my head was the 2am dino nuggets incident he described to me once, why the fuck would you get ol’ ripper involved in that? How did he think that would help?

Naser had honestly been the smallest piece of this nightmare puzzle that made up her- 

FUCK!

8 months on, and I still can’t even get that right, I’m such a crock of shit.

Naser wasn’t the biggest of her problems, far from it. Everyone else had fucked her over so royally that his major fuck-ups had barely mattered in the end.

At least she knew Naser gave a fuck about them, and that’s the most anyone could say about any of us.

Their parents had buried their heads, Samantha in the sand and Ripley had jammed his snout so far up his own ass that he could smell last night's dinner. Raptor Jesus, Ripley pissed me off. In the aftermath he didn’t know who to blame, he tried to blame me at first but his own officers had come to bat for me, since they’d witnessed my last moments with them as they fell, after they blew a .357 hollow point through my leg. Since he couldn’t blame me, he tried to blame Trish and Reed, said they were common carfe junkies who’d corrupted his daughter… and regardless of my distaste for ‘em both, Trish’s aims weren’t… this.

Once Ripley learned the charges against Trish and Reed wouldn’t stick, he blamed the school system, he blamed the internet, he blamed anything and everything.

Except for himself.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. Samantha wasn’t exactly a saint either. Given how far she’d stuck her head in the sand and pretended nothing was wrong with the family she claimed to love more than anything else, she’d given the impression that Samantha cared for her daughter, but not for what had taken her daughters place.

Their home was cold, loveless and overloaded with hatred and angst. To the happy couple it may have been home, and perhaps even Naser considered it home, but them?

They didn’t have a home, they had a place they slept at night.

What left me bitter more than anything was the knowledge that they did love them, even if they were incapable of showing it.

If their parents had pulled their shit together, that might have been enough that they could have survived this spiral.

They’d been caught in a tidal vortex of anguish, slowly they were pulled deeper and deeper into the depths of their own mind, piece by piece they were broken down and those “parents” could have pulled them out if they’d just heard them, if they’d so much as seen the cries for help as their child sunk to the bottom of the abyss.

And down there, they were met with me. Someone who could crush what little of them was left, and somehow through the divine power of sheer social retardation could miss that they’d devastated them.

They all let them down, which made them confide in me. 

Confiding in me ruined what little they had.

Raptor Jesus, if I had a second chance at this I’d make sure they fuckin’ hated me if i could.

But I know I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from entangling myself within their grasp again.

I suppose I’d settle for helping her without getting any closer to her than needed. They didn’t need fixing themselves, and I wouldn’t dream of doing that to them again, but their friends and family certainly could receive a few reality checks. After that, I’d disappear from their lives and never hurt them again.

It was the only way.

I couldn’t stomach the thought of them hating me, but perhaps knowing that they’re alright would suffice.

Not like it matters, I won’t get a second chance at this, and we all know where I’m going once I’m done with this life, and it sure as shit ain’t where they went.

Raptor Jesus, I struggled to even say their name anymore.

After all of that shit went down I’d given up on life, my parents hadn’t bothered to contact me when their rent payments for my apartment stopped, nor after my graduation had passed without a word from them. They’d abandoned me, and I’d become the very lowlife my dad always assumed I would be. I’d been homeless for 4 months, just living out what little of my life was left as a vagrant. Did some odd jobs here and there to get enough money for food and some other… essentials.

And all of that led to this very moment.

I looked down towards the grave in front of me, covered in a thick layer of snow just like everything surrounding it, but still just free enough from its coverings to be readable.

‘Here lies Lucy, Heaven restores you in light’ it read. They’d used their birth name, the bastards.

Flowers laid on the grave to the right, Naser’s tombstone.

Their parents had been recently, perhaps today.

They’d left flowers for their son, but not for their other child who had experienced infinitely more tragedy over their short life… not to imply that Naser’s end wasn’t a tragedy, I knew that all too well by now.

I could feel what little soul was left within me stirring as anger flowed through me for a moment… but I didn’t have the energy to be angry anymore.

Naser… I’ll miss you, buddy.

I’m glad that at least one of you is still loved, neither of you deserve to be forgotten.

I look up towards a pitch black sky, dotted with a few small white lights.

I could hear nothing but the quiet gusts of wind passing me, there was no life around. Not a soul in sight.

Perfect.

“Hi, Fang.” I said, trying to keep my tone level as I reached into my pocket, pulling out a lighter and a pack of menthol black cigarettes. I couldn’t even look at my old reds anymore.

“I know it’s been a while, uh…” I mutter while placing a cigarette in my mouth and desperately flicking at my cheap shit lighter that was just refusing to light in the wind. I covered my hand over it, trying to protect it from the wind as I kept flicking at it.

“But I figured I should come see you again, even if you don’t want me here.”

The lighter finally flickered to life as I took a puff. It tastes like them.

“You got me on the menthols, you bitch.” I attempted to laugh with that line, but all that came out was snipped breathing as I shuddered in the cold.

“Look, I’m struggling to beat around the bush here, so I’ll say what I came to say for once.” I say as strongly as my pitiful body allowed, I’d withered away like some kinda fuckin mummy over the last year.

“I’m sorry.”

…

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be the shoulder to cry on that you needed, no matter how much I wanted to be. And, I’m sorry that I never even fucking noticed in the first place. It was so obvious that you wanted someone to just give a shit about you, but I didn’t fuckin care… None of us cared enough.”

…

“I’m sorry for that bullshit I pulled at my apartment, I knew you needed comfort and the first thing my head came up with was Rock Ring 2 of all things. I’m such a fuck up, and you should have had someone better than me, anyone really. You deserved that much, at least.”

…

“I thought your band could have gotten somewhere if we could have gotten Trish and Reed to stop being such hardasses about the double bass bullshit. Hell, I was planning on letting you know that I thought you could have gone solo if you wanted and seen success anyway. I’d have been right there with you if you wanted, or if you wanted me gone, I’d have done that too.”

…

“I’m sorry that my sorry ass even showed up to Volcadera in the first place… Maybe if I wasn’t here, you’d still be alive. You probably wouldn’t be happy either, but that’s no different to what happened.”

The end of my cigarette fell from my mouth as I blew through the last of the tobacco.

“I want you to know, Trish and Reed are still hanging on. They have their families to keep them steady, one day they’ll be alright again.”

I leaned down, and gently placed the lighter and pack of cigarettes against their tombstone.

“But me? I have nothing, and I deserve nothing for what I did.”

…

“I want you to know none of this is your fault. They made you like this, and I finished the job. The lives lost on that day are all on me, not you. That includes your life too…”

I pull my snub-nosed revolver out of my right pocket.

“This last body won’t be your fault either.”

I press on the chamber release and observe the chamber.

All five rounds of .38 special are loaded and ready.

No chances to bullshit this with Russian roulette, just this once I’ll act like I’m not a raging pussy.

“I won’t see you once I’m gone, I’m going down… and if I see you down there with me, there will be more than just hell to pay.”

I close the chamber with a click and place the barrel under my chin pointing towards the sky.

With this angle and this calibre my brain should turn to goosh and put me beyond the point of saving. And even if someone found me and managed to get me to a hospital, I’ll have long bled out by then.

I exhale, steeling myself as I pull back the hammer and I feel the revolver shudder lightly in my hand as the chamber rolled into place.

This is it.

“Ahem.” Someone announces their presence behind me.

I turn, keeping the gun pointed at my bald-ass head.

I can’t make out anything beyond a large humanoid figure standing there, 5 or so steps away.

We stand there in silence as two golden eyes glare at me with a contempt I recognise.

“Mr. Aaron.”

“Anon.” He replies with a growl. He raises his right hand and clicks down on a button on something.

An electronic lantern lights us up like a firefly in this sea of darkness, and Ripley can see me in full display, just as I can see all of him.

He’s lost weight, a lot of it. And not in a good way. This version of Ripley wasn’t as powerful as I had seen him last.

His gaze flickered down towards the silver revolver in my hands, and his expression contorted into something resembling pity.

“That won’t fix anything.” He says.

“I know… but I can’t live with this.”

“This isn’t what she’d want, son.” Ripley replies.

“Because you’d know that, wouldn’t you?”

A flash of anger jumps through him like a lightning bolt, but it leaves just as quickly as it came.

“I know she… I know they cared for you.” He said as if the very thought made him violently sick. “And I know she told you not to come to school that day… she wanted you to live.”

Hear him out.

>There’s no saving you, Anon.

I smirked at him. “They aren’t here to stop me now, are they? Neither is your son, and that’s my fault. If it weren’t for me, they’d still be alive… Still as miserable as they both always were, but alive.”

He stilled for a moment, his eyes glazing over for a moment.

“I can’t convince you, can I?” He said stiffly, as if he’d manually turned off all of his emotions at once.

“No, if you stopped me here I’d just find a way somewhere else… The gun just makes it easy.”

Ripley stared into my eyes, a strange expression on his face. I’d call it regret, but I wasn’t entirely sure he could feel that. He nodded gently, and began to slowly step back, step by step without a word.

Once he got around 20 steps away from me, he turned off his lantern, and stood there silently.

Guess I was going out with an audience.

I turned back towards their grave.

Back out like the coward you are.

>Barrel, meet head.

I placed my finger on the trigger, and applied pressure.

Back out, coward.

>Pull the trigger.

“See you never, Sweet Tooth.”

*BANG*

—-----------------------------------

* BEEP * * BEEP * * BEEP *

Ah, I can’t even fantasize about my own death in peace.

I reach out and away from the bed, blearily smacking at the desk nearby until I hit the alarm.

Slowly rising from the comfortable bed, I rubbed my eyes as I stood and started walking towards…

Wait.

I don’t have a bed.

I don’t even have a place to call my own anymore beyond an alleyway.

Looking around in a blind panic, I take in my surroundings.

It’s familiar, but not something I can name. There’s a couple anime posters on the walls, a phone and a desktop in one corner of the room, alongside an XROX and not much else. The room had high ceilings and a fancy light fixture, not quite a chandelier or anything like that but clearly something expensive.

Come to think of it, everything in this room looked vaguely bougie and expensive, the bed frame and desk looked to be solid proper wood.

Heh, come to think of it, it almost reminded me of the apartment in Rock Bottom that I’d grown up in…

No…

Scrambling towards the computer, I turn it on with all the delicacy of a meteor and wait for the piece of shit to boot up…

Anticipation hangs above me like the sword of Damocles, swinging like a pendulum in rhythm with my heart.

I see the Wingdows 8.1 bootup screen… and finally hit the login page.

December 21st, 201M2016.

…

I…

I don’t understand…

I slam my slightly overweight ass into the comfort of an office chair that’s far too comfortable for someone of my ilk, and begin typing erratically.

‘Volcadera shooting’, ‘Volcano High shooting’.

Nothing.

I checked the Volcadera Police Department's public arrest record, and to my surprise their last arrest was Monday, December 19th of 201M2016.

Their system corroborates it as well…

Fuck…

‘Lucy Aaron’.

No hits.

‘Fang Aaron’

Zilch.

‘Naser Aaron’.

One hit, an article entitled ‘New VPD commissioner Ripley Aaron - A career retrospective.’ Looking through it revealed Ripley’s past service, joined the military in 1990, 2 tours in the military and then joined the police in 1998, served as a officer and quickly climbed ranks, joined VPD SWAT in 99 and made Sergeant by 2000, got lieutenant early thanks to his superior biting the bullet early in 2004. Seems after that he stayed behind a desk with the exception of SWAT duties after that until recently with this promotion to commissioner after the prior commissioner ran for mayor and won.

I presume he also stuck to the deskwork because Samantha would wring his neck if he willingly stepped foot into any more danger than he already did when his family needed him. Funny, he wasn’t of much use even when he was present.

I pawed at my pocket to light up a cigarette, only to remember that the pocket wasn’t there because I wasn’t in the fuckin cemetery anymore and I’ve apparently warped through time like I’m Marty fuckin McFly.

I keep scrolling through the article until I find what I’m looking for.

It’s a picture of Ripley and Samantha standing at the side of a running track, cheering on a much younger but still crippled Naser. It was labelled as being taken this year, and given that Naser would be… fuck, he’s like 12 in this picture.

Damn it all, their accident had happened this year.

I knew realistically what the fuck was I gonna do to stop that, hell why would they even listen to a random skinnie screaming at them anyway?

It still stung. Fang’s downward spiral began with that accident, and things never got better for them.

I bit down on my hand idly as I kept scrolling down.

The article finished up on a picture of Ripley receiving a medal from… Raptor president legend Bill Cliffton? Holy shit, can’t imagine Ripley was too happy hearing the president that gave him his medal was the one that got sucked off in the oval office.

That would explain why I never noticed the picture hanging anywhere in their home.

Right… Think Anon, think you ape-brained retard.

I need to get things planned, get things in place for the moment to strike.

Fang’s life is on the fuckin line here, I need to get my shit together for one fucking second.

First, I need to get stronger. I need to have a fighting chance of beating any of those fucking meteor-dodging fuck-knuckles at Volcano High if push comes to shove, as paranoid as that sounds it’ll also minimise the chances of losing this potential second chance to some junkie on skin row.

There’s gyms in my area, and MMA gyms too, dunno how my parents will react to that but worth a shot, outside of that I think Rock Bottom High has a gym available to students after school hours, so that’ll work.

Next, money; Fang’s pockets weren’t exactly filled with money and they flat-out would not go to their parents for money, having some extra pocket change would help with that. A part-time job, preferably something that Ripley and Samantha would respect, would be available to me when I turned 16, which according to my calendar is… four months away. April 1st, because I was born a joke.

Fuck, are there any other options…

Wait a minute…

After a minute or so of keyboard clacking, I’d found what I was looking for.

BitCoin was only valued at 600 fucking dollars right now…

Shit do I have my own bank account yet?

Doesn’t matter, I’ll check later.

Next comes the personal matters; how to best go about dismantling all the bullshit that’s gonna form around Fang as their life goes on…

“Nonny? Are you awake?” I hear a feminine voice echo from behind me loudly, somewhere else in this apartment.

My mother.

Fuck.

Rushing towards the door, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

I look younger, that much I had already assumed, still bald as always. Chubbier than I remember, but not by much.

Not unexpected for Ptero-fucker permit carrying virgins like I am now.

Once I get to the door, I take a second to brace myself.

I gently open the door.

There stood a woman I hadn’t seen in over a year at this point, Masq U. Mous, her tired eyes and tightly strung face glared at me with the same indifference I remembered well.

This bitch was just as high on my shit-list as Samantha was, she did the same shit as her, more or less. She was a fence sitter, she’d watch the countless arguments between me and my old man and flat-out refuse to get involved, even over the smallest shit. I remembered that more than I remembered her face.

She was a business woman, she never told me the specifics but it was something like COO of an accounting firm, she’d never specified beyond that.

Her thin, gaunt hand raised and pointed down the hall “I got breakfast, it’s waiting for you in the dining hall.” She said with a practiced plastic smile, the very same one she wore at her countless business affairs, even the ones she dragged me to as a kid.

Notice how she said she ‘got’ breakfast rather than she ‘made’ it, she couldn’t cook to save her life.

I’ve seen her struggle to boil water before.

I followed her without a word, hoping to Raptor Jesus that I wasn’t scowling enough for her to notice. Following down the hall we passed by a number of pictures and portraits, scattered on the walls on either side of us.

Business meetings, their wedding day, more business meetings, and old family photos.

Not a single picture of my bald head in here.

As we reach the end of the corridor and turn into the lavish dining room, which is more of a dining hall given the high ceilings and ludicrous size of this apartment, I’m able to hear my dad watching the morning news before I even see him.

“ Fuckin meteor-dodging boot skinned bastards! ” He screamed at the news over what I could only assume was something minor to him, like a baryonyx mayor being elected or some crime that CNN said a raptor had committed in another city.

He was sat on a bougie red leather sofa at the other end of the room, staring at an obnoxiously large TV and waving his fist at it in a blind rage as always. This might as well be his favourite hobby, I don’t remember him doing much of anything besides this and working.

“Honey, Breakfast is ready.” My mother said to him, loud enough to pull him away from the TV.

As I sat down at one end of the dining table, I heard my dad slowly rise from his leather throne, and waddle his way towards the dining table, where he sat a whole tables length across from me.

Ahead of me sat Paron Y. Mous, my dad. He was a short man, weak and tubby. His poor diet had ravaged his body, and he barely looked human at this point, like Danny DeDino but completely bald like me. I’ve always assumed my dad must have been a looker of some kind when he met my mother, but even in the oldest pictures I’ve seen of him he’s always looked somewhat like that.

That rat had multiple businesses going. His main income was through a series of car dealerships he owned in Rock Bottom which brought him real good money, but he started investing in real estate a number of years ago when I was younger, and now he was a landlord as well. A shitty one at that, given how poor the property in Volcadera was.

I’m thankful I take after my mother, and I have some height. I’m also built like a normal person, which I can only thank Raptor Jesus for.

“What’s for grubbin today honey?” He said in his sleazy car salesman voice that always rubbed me the wrong way.

My mother placed a plastic shopping bag on the table, and began pulling out small cardboard boxes.

“I got Chinese, your favourite.” she replied with a smile that looked considerably more genuine than the one she’d given to me just two minutes ago.

As my mother walked my portion of ‘breakfast’ past a dozen rows of chairs, she finally got to me and plopped my meal on the table, turned around on her heel and marched her way back towards my dad, sitting down in the seat to his side.

The distance between us was ridiculous, it was like that dinner scene in Shrek 2.

I forgot that we ate like this. I forgot this was my normal until very recently.

It made the Aaron family look like a picture perfect propaganda family.

As I opened up the box in front of me, I saw an incredibly greasy concoction of rice, noodles and some kind of mystery meat that could have been from literally any animal in existence.

I hazardously raised a piece with the cheap chopsticks that had been provided and slopped it into my mouth like an animal.

…

Sweet Raptor Jesus this is terrible. 

It’s slimy, like the texture of what you’d assume eating a worm is like, it tasted of somehow nothing and everything at the same time, you couldn’t make out any of the flavours at all.

This was a crime against cuisine.

I looked up towards my parents, expecting they would match my own horror.

Instead, I found my dad pawing at two different portions with each hand, while my mother picked at hers, wearing that same false face.

How the hell did this family ever function at all?

Fuck it, I can’t watch this anymore and I’ve got questions to ask this pig and his blow-up doll.

“Dad.”

He looked up at me, still pawing food into his face. “Yeah, kid?” He said with disdain, as if I’d offended him by interrupting his ‘hard-earned’ meal.

“You said ‘college or the service’... are there any other options?”

“Hah, finally thinking about the future, ey kid?” He guffawed with practiced laughter, he let go of the food in one hand and raised it to his chin, rubbing it as if he was a cartoon character in thought.

My mother was looking at me funny, as if I’d shocked her or something.

“Well, I don’t care which college you go to, as long as it gets you money… As for the service, any branch is fine, and if you don’t wanna die in the sandbox then you can at least become a cop or security or something.” He said, with slightly exasperated breaths as if he was struggling to finish even one sentence.

“That’s… a lot more than what I thought you meant.”

“As long as you’re making dough, kid! It’s what makes the world go round, and I don’t plan on giving you anything more than I have to until you’re pulling it from my cold, dead hands!” He said with a laugh, as if that was funny.

My mother let out a polite laugh, nodding along with him like the sycophant she is.

“Why? What’s got you so interested all of a sudden?”

Shit.

Gotta think, need to convince them I’m interested in some career path, but what? Shit they’re gonna push me into something… Fuck, this is too early for this!

“The police.” I say without thinking.

The fuck was I talking about? The police? That was the last thing on my mind.

Fuck it, already said it, might as well go with it.

“I saw some ads for their…” I have to physically stop myself from saying they had recruitment ads, they wouldn’t buy that since I’m… what, 15 now? “Their cadets program, that’s all.” I mutter, hoping they take the bait and at least leave me alone. 

“Alright, I can work with that. I’d prefer you stay off the desks if you can, keep yourself out there on the streets like a real go-getter!” He said with a smirk.

What, did he want me dead or something? Rock Bottom may have a lot of business opportunities and rich type business moguls. But it’s called Rock Bottom for a reason, you can be in the safest part of the city, walk a single block and now you’re liable for a bullet to the head.

“That’s enough on work, dear. Anon has school to deal with soon.” My mother said.

Fuck

—------------------------------------

Rock Bottom high was the same shithole I remembered.

Old brick construction like most buildings around Rock Bottom, but nothing had been maintained over the 80-something years it’d been up so it was falling apart at its seams. Looking at it only brought back bitter memories, and the sea of humans wasn’t exactly helping. What am I, a scaly sympathiser now?

Hell, I hadn’t seen a human outside of skin row once in Volcadera outside of Spears, and he was never exactly a picture perfect example of what a human looks like.

As I looked around the rundown environment and took in the polluted stench of the packed Rock Bottom streets behind me, all I could think of was ‘How do I get to Volcadera?’

I know that I shouldn’t even dare think about it, who knows what I could fuck up if I mess with any of the events that came before I got to Volcadera… but who’s to say things will play out the same while I’m out of the picture anyway? And even considering that, I don’t know if I can stop myself.

Come to think of it, have those pictures that got me sent to Volcadera in the first place been made yet?

I pulled out my phone, some second hand phone my dad had passed down to me after he replaced it when the later model came out 9 months later, and immediately went to the image gallery app.

…

Yeah, they’d been made alright.

And if I’d made them, then HE definitely had them.

Which meant the doxxing would likely still happen, but I can’t plan on that alone. I’ll have to find my own way to get to Volcadera in case that never gets used.

I took a look around the apps in my phone, until I finally found what I was looking for.

My banking app. So I did have my own account by now.

I checked the pocket on the jacket I’d picked out at random from my closet that morning, and sure enough there was a debit card in there.

I had a pretty good amount of money in here, thanks to my parents' negligence. They never knew what to get me for birthdays or Christmas, but they didn’t want it getting out that I’d never received anything from them, so they just… sent money straight into my bank account. The last time I lived this life I blew it on retarded shit, anime posters and other little shitty trinkets.

Not this time.

I immediately went to the app store and downloaded a crypto trading app while I was walking to class, I found it a lot easier to brush past humans compared to dinos. Especially Ptero’s, their wings caused ‘em to take up a lot more space in a corridor than they typically realise.

One purchase of 12 bitcoin for $4000 dollars was nothing to me, given what it’d become by the time it would be needed. From my memory, by 2019 they’d balloon to some stupid value like $80000 per coin, I’d be a hair away from a millionaire if my memory is right.

$4000 was most of my savings, but I still had a nice little chunk of change for any immediate purchases. Thank fuck my shitty parents had money floating around.

Once I’d put my phone back in my pocket I realised two things, that the halls were now empty, and I’d been walking on autopilot the whole time, and I now had no idea where the fuck I was going.

What class was I supposed to be in? 

I looked around in a bit of a panic, God damnit Anon, think!

“You’re supposed to be in your homeroom.” Someone said behind me with a snippy tone.

I turn around, it’s the goddamned principal. Of all people. A human woman, pale with sunken eyes, and a poorly tied bun of brown hair that was already fraying from its confines. And I couldn’t remember her name for love nor money.

“I…”

Raptor Jesus, don’t let the spaghetti fall out of your pockets immediately.

“I don’t know where I’m meant to be going, ma'am.”

“Do you not have a timetable?” The principal asked, no longer seeming as annoyed as she did before.

“I don’t remember.”

…

“Come with me, I’ll find out for you and get you another one printed out.” She said, turning on her heel and marching in the direction I’d come from.

Fuck it, what’s the worst that could happen.

—------------------------------------------

Once we got to her office she sat at her desk, and I sat in the only chair across from her. I looked down at the desk and saw a name plaque reading “Principal Isaacs.”

She leaned towards her keyboard, and put on a small pair of glasses with a chain nerd-strap on the end, and squinted her eyes at me.

“Name?” She asked.

“Anon Y. Mous” I replied stiffly, sitting as still as I could. I put my hand in my jacket pocket, out of… habit, I guess.

I could feel cold steel against my hand.

Did… I still have my revolver? The one I’d…

No, why would I have that, but what the hell else could it be?

Shit, did I bring a gun to school?

I could feel myself sperging out as Principal Isaacs clattered away at her keyboard.

Suddenly, she stopped typing and there was complete silence… until the printer at the other end of the room suddenly came to life with a mechanical grinding noise, startling me as I shook in my chair.

The principal, who either decided to ignore my spasm or didn’t notice it, stood from her desk and collected the timetable. She stared at it for a few moments.

“Your first class is math in room 209, you’ve missed your homeroom so I’ll give you a note to explain your absence…” She leaned onto her desk, scrawling her chicken scratch writing onto a sticky note.

I reached out and took the note and timetable from her.

“Thanks, I’ll head to class now.”

As I stand and turn to leave, she places a hand on my shoulder.

“Anon, are you alright?” She asks.

Shit.

“What do you mean, Ma’am?”

“You’re clutching at something in your pocket like your life depends on it, you’re sweating, you can’t look me in the eyes… Do you have something you aren’t meant to have?”

Fuck.

FUCK!

Not even a day into your second chance and I’ve already fucked it up as usual.

Might as well put a gun to my head and pull the trigger… again.

“I…”

“Show it to me.” She demanded, her voice like steel.

“I don’t…”

“Now!” She said at the same volume as before, but with an even sharper edge than before.

Slowly, I pull whatever is in my pocket out and into the open.

Please don’t be a gun, Please don’t be a fucking gun.

I look down at my hand.

It’s a metal lighter with a dark burn scar covering whatever design hid underneath, and a half-spent pack of Marlboro reds.

I let out a very loud exhale, thankful to whatever deities may or may not be out there that my journey hadn’t been prematurely ended by a life sentence on day 1.

Fuck, I haven’t smoked a red since… one of my last days with Fang. The band was meant to be practicing, it was a few days before the concert where everything went to shit and Trish had fucked off to deal with something she refused to speak on, leaving the rest of us to sit around… from what I remember Reed flaked out pretty quick once it was clear Trish wasn’t gonna come back.

I still remember it so clearly, the last good memory with them.

We stood at one of the fire escape doors and smoked while we talked. She’d gotten in a real bad argument with Trish from what they told me, the day before. Something about me and the band, Fang refused to go into any detail on it.

I lost this lighter after everything went to shit, but I can’t remember what I did with it.

“Anon!”

I’m pulled from reminiscing by Principal Isaacs, who looks at me with concern.

“Normally I’d demand an explanation over this, but…”

She looks me in the eye, I struggle to meet it.

“You’re crying, Anon.”

I put my hands to my face.

Yep, sure as shit crying. The question is why? Regardless, it might have just saved my ass.

“I… ”

She placed her palm over mine, picking them both out of my hand. I wanted to reach out and snatch the lighter back, but I stopped myself.

“Why do you use these, Anon?”

>Be honest.

Lie.

Well shit, might as well just be honest and tell her, no point in anything else.

“Stress.”

She cocks her eyebrow at me. “From school?” She asks.

“Yeah, but that’s not the reason I started.”

She looks at me in silence, waiting for me to continue.

“My parents have… expectations. I don’t think things will end well for me if I go against them… but I’m not exactly ‘talented’ or a ‘model student’ so I think I’m screwed if I’m honest.” I say with a shrug.

She looked at me like I’d just kicked her shin.

“I see… what ‘expectations’ do they have of you, if you don’t mind telling me?” She asked tersely.

“At first it was ‘College or the service’ but now that’s been expanded to any college, and the police. They just want me to get into something that pays well.”

“Well, at least it’s workable… I doubt your parents would listen to me if I tried to change their mind, so are there any particular fields that you’re interested in that you think you could succeed in?”

Something I could succeed in? I couldn’t succeed my way out of a paper bag, let alone a career.

But if it’s for Fang? I’ll do anything.

I think back to this morning, and what I’d said to my dad without thinking.

“I have an interest in the police, I think I’ll join their cadet program when I turn 16, other than that… don't wanna die in the sandbox, and I’m not exactly college material… but maybe a community college would work… it’d have to be something involving my hands, my head’s not good for much beyond talking.”

Principal Isaacs looks at me like I’ve grown a second head.

“That’s a… more rational outlook than most people your age have, Anon.”

Ah fuck, is it obvious?

“Just had to think about this for a while, ma’am.”

“Hmm…” She rubbed at her chin idly as she sat back down at her desk, and ushered me to sit down again.

Great.

“I’m not entirely comfortable with sending you into the force’s hands this young, especially considering the crime rate these days in Rock Bottom, so let me run you through some of our college accreditation plans as well.”

“Don’t worry, no matter what career path I go down, I’m not sticking in Rock Bottom.”

“That’s good to hear, especially if you go down the police route, but may I ask why you don’t plan to stick around?” She asked.

“Bad memories… and the crime rate, that’s all.”

“I see.” She sighed as she spoke, typing away.

“The police cadet program would put you in community college anyway for law enforcement education once you’re done here, so I’ll check for any accreditation there as well.”

She types in relative silence for a minute or two. Am I really doing this? Am I really already pushing myself down a path I’ve never walked before?

I didn’t plan on biting the bullet like this, and not this early either.

Fuck…

“Right, well… The police don’t have an accreditation program, but there are programs for mechanics and carpentry… Do any of those sound workable to you?”

Realistically either mechanics or carpentry could work, but since my dad owns car dealerships I might be able to convince him to let me toy with any old shitboxes that roll into the dealership, beyond that carpentry was less likely to help me in Volcadera since almost all of the constructions were brick and mortar rather than wood, much like Rock Bottom.

For some reason, my gut was telling me to bring up the police again.

“Mechanics is more up my alley… but since I don’t plan on sticking around, would you be able to look at accreditation for another city?”

“That depends, where?”

“Volcadera.”

She raised her eyebrow at me again.

“Volcadera? That’s across the country… why there?”

“It just… seems like a good place to start over, I guess…”

She didn’t respond verbally, but she started typing away.

“...Volcadera has… police force training accreditation and mechanics accreditation… That work for you, Anon?”

“That’s perfect, thank you. I’ll try and set myself up for both if possible, and I’ll have to make a dead-set decision later down the line.“

“Good, in that case…”

She began typing like a madman, pushing out more and more keystrokes, faster and faster. It was like she was playing DDR with her fingers.

“Right, I’ve contacted the colleges in Volcadera about their accreditation program for both courses, and I’ve contacted a few teachers to get your classes re-arranged to suit this.”

I blink at her.

How the fuck?

“I’ll let that language slide.“

Shit, I’m still fucking mumbling.

“Look Anon, Rock Bottoms crime rate is skyrocketing lately, most of the kids that have passed through this school since I got this position 10 years ago have had their lives amount to less than they could have achieved.”

She looked me dead in the eye.

“Everyone has their own destiny to manifest, it’s up to the students, or in this case up to you to walk that path, but it’s up to myself and my faculty to show you that path… And more often than not, someone does something wrong, and that child will most likely never reach their full potential. No matter who makes the mistake, the student or us, it stings all the same.”

She looks down at my lighter, rolling it around in her hands.

“You’re different from most students… There’s something in your eyes, it’s hard to explain… but it looks like you have good reason to leave Rock Bottom in the dust. But more important than that, you have things you want to do, goals to attain, and there’s something within you that is steering you this way… and it would be a disservice to not facilitate that.”

What the hell, how did I manage to stumble my dumb ass into a mini Spears on day 1?

“Uh, thank you, ma’am.” Is all I can say in response.

“Good, now go to class, I’ll call for you once I’ve gotten feedback from the faculty about moving you around.”

As I go to stand up, she thrusts her hand out to me, with my lighter in hand.

“While I’m obligated to confiscate the cigarettes, I see no reason to keep this.”

I gently take it, and slip it back where it belongs in my pocket.

“Besides… I get a feeling it’s more than just a lighter.”

—------------------------------------------------------

Class was boring, I could barely make out any of it as it passed by like a blur.

I only remembered one thing that I saw during those hours.

HIS FACE.

I could only hope I’d forget it one day, having him appear again wasn’t exactly sunshine and roses.

Now I was back home, to an empty house once again.

From everything I could remember, this was normal

I was sitting at my desk, looking into the Rock Bottom Police Department Cadets program, while trying to figure out what the hell I was even doing.

I’d do anything for Fang, whatever would allow me to help them, in whatever manner they required.

But becoming a pig like her dad?

I didn’t have a problem with it personally, I’d long lost any right to a moral high ground. But Fang might have a problem with it…

Fuck it, I can always pull out of it and lean into mechanics once I get to Volcadera, I guess.

I don’t know what’s causing these… gut feelings to go with the police route here, but it was pissing me off.

Twice now I’d spoken without my own consent on this, and that was twice too many.

Was this my fate?

Was Raptor Jesus fucking with me?

Who knows, all I know is that regardless of how I get there, I need to get back there, I need to protect them.

…

Is that even the right thing to do?

Fang hated being controlled, her independence was crucial to her happiness as far as I could tell. I can’t control her…

But I might be able to control their surroundings somewhat.

If I can get the people around them to get their heads out their asses, then maybe she’ll be supported enough that she won’t be destroyed by a skinnie piece of shit like me.

 …Yeah, that’s probably the best shot. That comes with the neat bonus of helping the other people I give a shit about as well, Naser could benefit from learning how to take a minute to relax, and Naomi could do with learning how to fuckin’ communicate…

They could also benefit from less lead in em’.

I don’t particularly care for Ripley and Samantha, but their happiness directly correlates to how happy their kids' lives will be… Maybe the police would be an ‘in’ to get ol’ ripper to listen.

I should also be nicer to Stella and Rosa. They were good people, sure Stella was a weeb and Rosa was a slave driver, but they were good people who made it clear they gave a shit about me… I don’t exactly know why they cared.

Holy shit… StegoStar.

I open a new browser tab and start searching for the weeb boards on my Mongolian basket-weaving websites.

She’ll be there…

…

That’s a post about how Gundam is objectively better than Transformers…

…

That’s a blatant lizard lounge user rage-baiting…

…

There she is.

StegoStar, posting more shit about Sailor Moon, as usual.

Now I just gotta think of a way to interact with her.

Hell, this isn’t even a part of my plan, I’m just fucking lonely.

… Tarot cards.

I’ll ask her about Tarot cards…

Wonder if she can do an online reading.

—-----------------------------------------

The next day, I woke up to an empty apartment again. This would be bad enough, but in a penthouse apartment as big as this, the quiet seems almost amplified.

There was a sticky note on the fridge this morning, my dad was travelling to Atlantic City for some sort of hostile takeover with a business partner, and my mother was on a business trip to Toronto. They’d be gone for at least two weeks.

I know my mother would be all business over that time since that was all of her personality… but my dad? He’s taking a fucking vacation by day two.

I made sure to leave my lighter behind this time before locking up.

By the time I got to school, I noticed Principal Isaacs standing at the front door, peering over a sea of high school students, looking around as if she was a human lighthouse.

Until she locked eyes with me, and started walking towards me.

Oh fuck, what have I done now?

“Anon, come with me.”

As she marches me towards her office, I prepare for the inevitable execution that would soon follow.

She sat me down, and then smiled at me, in a way that completely failed to calm me down.

“Good news, the faculty has agreed to move you to follow this path you’ve chosen.” She said happily.

“What? Already?”

“It took a little bit of strong-arming but yes, I’ve taken you out of your electives; Human History, Interspecies Relations, Journalism, Home Economics and World Politics, and I’ve replaced them with Auto Mechanics, Auto Body Repair, Criminal Justice, Physical Education and Music Theory.”

Hah, seems things are finally going the way of the Mous…wait?

“Thank you ma’am but, why am I in Music Theory?”

Her face lost its smile and went blank. “Your Interspecies Relations teacher got involved when he heard about moving your classes and around, and he requested you get out of his class because you kept making jokes about the ptero women.”

Raptor Jesus, I was hunting people like Fang down long before I thought. I barely even remember this shit.

“The Music Theory teacher said he’d take you, so I was happy to let him take you, I’m sure you won’t lose any sleep over it.”

“No ma’am, I will not. I was there for fun, if anything.” I reply blandly.

“Good, in that case let me get you a new timetable printed out, and I’ll send you on your way.” She said, fumbling at her keyboard again as if she was a caveman slapping rocks together.

“Thanks again, Principal Isaacs.”

—---------------------------------

First class, Mechanics.

I had very little fucking idea what I was about to get into.

The classroom was essentially a large workshop with a small section with rows of chairs and a white board, probably because there was too many classes and not enough classrooms in this shithole, the school hasn’t been able to expand this building because they’re in the middle of an grid-iron city, and there’s no chance they have enough budget to purchase another building.

The classroom was far emptier than I expected, there were only five other students, all human as always in Rock Bottom.

Standing at the whiteboard was the teacher for this class, and unlike the principal I didn’t recognise this one at all.

As I got close to the chairs, he waved me over without saying a word.

“You’re Anon, right?” He asked with a tone that sounded exasperated and breathy, as if he’d been working since 3am that morning.

“That’s me, sir.”

“Good, I’m Dr. Clarke, I’ll be your teacher for Mechanics and Auto Body Repair.” He said with that same tone, as if it was normal to talk like that.

He stuck his hand out to shake mine, and I noticed his hand was marked with tattoos in some sort of language that I’d never seen before.

“Doctor?” I said as I shook his hand.

He smirked at me. “I was originally an engineer, but I changed careers after some… bad jobs.” His smirk fell as he idly rubbed at a large scar running across the side of his forehead, starting at the eyebrow and pushing up into his short salt-and-pepper hair.

“Anyway, Principal Isaacs told me you’re stretched between this and the force?” He said as he leaned against the wall at the white board.

“Yeah, Mechanics makes sense since my dad owns a bunch of dealerships so it’ll be easy to get work, but there’s something in my gut telling me to go into the force.”

“Well, I doubt the force would have a problem with you being qualified elsewhere, and besides that every police department needs mechanics to service their cars.”

… I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.

“Anyway, sit down and I’ll start the lesson.” He said as he turned to the whiteboard, popping the lid off of a pen.

I looked back at the seating to find that there were still five people sat there… is this it?

“This class has been getting less popular over the years, it’s only still being taught because it’d cost too much to reconfigure the room for other classes.” Dr. Clarke said without looking at me.

Fucking mumbling.

I took a seat and stared straight ahead, hoping that none of these strangers talked to me… I just wanted to be left alone, no point making any connections here since I’m planning on leaving this place in the dust and never looking back, even then I’d rather not deal with the average Rock Bottom citizen.

“Alright, since we have a new student today, and Christmas break is only a couple days away, I’ll be covering our old material for a refresh before the mid-term exams in January… Anon, you don’t have to take part in that, but if you want to try your hand I won’t stop you.”

Dr. Clarke turned around and started writing on the board in what resembled manic smears and scrawls.

“We’ll start with the basic safety protocols...”

—----------------------------------------

The bell rang out far quicker than I thought it would. Dr Clarke was far better at teaching than I expected, I still couldn’t read anything he wrote down but he’d talk so much about whatever he wrote that it started to become legible.

The second class was Auto Body Repair, which was in the same classroom with the same students, so we just took 5 minutes and kept going…

And somehow, I didn’t get bored.

That’s something I’d never had before.

It felt good. 

A part of me thought that this was too good for me; that I didn’t deserve to experience anything positive for what I’d done…

But I wasn’t doing this for my sake.

—--------------------------------------

Third class, Criminal Justice.

I had a distinct feeling I’d somehow manage to incriminate myself and get myself stuck in juvie before I could even sit down, but I managed to push that screaming part of my brain into the back of my mind.

This class was actually full, every student looked more… put together than the average student at Rock Bottom High…

Probably rich kids like me.

Then again, their parents probably gave a shit about ‘em.

I looked past the sea of well groomed teenagers to the teacher.

Sat at a large fancy-looking desk behind a sea of paper that was scattered all over the place, was presumably my teacher for this class.

He looked at me with a glare that was clearly well-practiced, and gestured at me with his finger without a word as he flung a sheet of paper behind him into a pile of even more paperwork.

“Anon?” He asked with a raspy voice.

“That’s me, sir.”

He raised a hand out towards me, much like Dr. Clarke did.

“Mr. Voight, at your service.” He said with all the enthusiasm of a dying whale.

“Good to meet you sir.” I said as I went to lower my hand from his grasp.

As I moved to let go, he tightened his grip like a vice and dragged me towards him.

“I’ve heard about you… you have a reputation for being outspoken in some of your old classes, that will not fly here, you understand?” He said as he tightened his grip further.

This shit has nothing on Ripley.

“I wasn’t taking those classes seriously Mr. Voight. I mean, what career can you get out of Interspecies Relations? I’ve got something to prove, and this class is important to me, I’ll keep in line.” I said as I tightened my grip back to match his.

He laughed as he let go of my hand. “That’s what I’m looking for, you see that, class?” He said loudly as he stood up and gestured to me.

“That’s what I’ve been telling you all to work on, to lay down the law you can’t just have the knowledge, you need to have bite to go with your bark, there’s gotta be a fire in your eyes!” He said as loudly as his raspy tone would allow.

I stared on with feigned disinterest as 30-something students stared at me with jealousy & disdain.

I get the feeling I won’t be well liked in this class.

At least Mr. Voight seems nice.

—----------------------------------

Third class over, Voight’s a fuckin’ slave driver.

But, just like with Dr. Clarke, he was effective at teaching.

This place made Volcano High look like a joke, at this rate I might actually miss this place.

Fourth class, Physical Education.

I was dreading this one, but there was some part of me that was eager to get started.

I was tired of this human body. I’d need to be far stronger than the average teenager to stand a chance against any dino in a scuffle, except for maybe a raptor. With my mouth and my appearance I was bound to get involved in a fight or two eventually, people hunting for easier targets than their dino brethren or perhaps they just saw how noodly I was.

That wouldn’t stand if I could help it. I would not waste all of this by getting my ass beat to death.

Aside from that… Fang did mention that they’d prefer I was beefier.

According to the timetable I’d been provided we’d be in the gymnasium today, but it looked like there were dedicated classrooms for certain days of the week, roughly a 50/50 split.

Walking into the gymnasium I saw a horde of what I could only describe as a horde of apes running down a circular track at full speed in a massive pack, it was like watching a bunch of hyenas chase down their prey in the desert.

I spotted a lithe older woman with a white streak within her black hair standing off to the side in some sort of old-timey purple suit. She had a lit cigarette in her hand that was billowing out far more smoke than most cigarettes would produce. 

The hell?

I walked towards her, and by the time I got around 5 steps away from her she started talking at me without looking. “Anon Y. Mous, I presume?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good manners, an impressive trait compared to these… animals.” She said, lazily gesturing her cigarette at the pack of students.

She turned to me, and I came face to face with piercing yellow eyes that reminded me of my mothers. Unlike my mother however, there was a certain charm behind them.

“I understand you’re a late start, especially considering your… stature, but there are mid-term exams and physical tests coming up at the end of January. I expect you to meet the minimum requirements just as I expect of the rest of them.” She said with a level of utter confidence I’d never seen before, as if she was already absolutely certain it would happen without a single doubt in her mind.

I wish I had that trait.

She idly let her dwindling cigarette fall to the ground as she gently stomped her black high heel into it, rubbing out the flame.

“Is that something you think you can do, Anon?” She asked as she pulled out a golden cigarette case containing a number of very high-brow cigarettes and a golden ornamental lighter that looked like it cost more than all of my dad’s wealth combined.

“It doesn’t matter what I think, Ma’am, it’s gotta be done… so it’ll be done.” I said, trying to match her confidence.

She placed a cigarette in her mouth and began flicking at her lighter, which was refusing to cooperate with her. Before I even noticed what I was doing, I pulled my lighter out of my pocket, sparked it, and held the flame to the end of her cigarette.

Wait, I could’ve sworn I left that at home?

Her veneer of confidence briefly broke into surprise, but as soon as the nicotine hit her that prior expression came back. “... I think you and I will get along well.”

I slipped the lighter back into my pocket, unsure as to how it got back in there. I was just happy she didn’t blow a gasket at me for having contraband.

“You may call me the administrator, everyone does.” She said as she blew another puff of smoke out. “Now get to the lockers, get changed, and join the pack… I expect you to keep up until your body fails you.”

—-----------------------------

Lunchtime, I’m dying.

She wasn’t kidding when she said I was to keep up until my body failed. I couldn’t feel anything but pain.

Was I always this weak?

I wasn’t eating anything for lunch today, I hadn’t felt hungry since yesterday morning after I had to watch my dad eat greasy food like an octopus.

I was sitting on a quiet stairwell on the wrong side of the school, technically I wasn’t supposed to be here, but the faculty wouldn’t care so long as I was quiet, and it wasn’t a risk if I never got caught.

I was just scrolling on my phone, looking at random posts on image boards purely so I could check for any posts from a certain stego.

Out of nowhere I heard footsteps behind me.

Shit, had a teacher found me?

“There you are.” said a voice I remembered far too well.

HIM.

I stood, and turned.

“Croacher.”

He sneered at me, as if insulted.

“Who else, numbnuts? Where the fuck you been, I ain’t seen you all day.” HE said, as if I’d somehow offended him by not being in class for one day.

“Got moved out of all my electives, put in new classes at my dads request.” I said, hoping he bought it.

“Ah, that sucks man.”

He went to put his hand on my shoulder, but before I could think about how much that bothered me, I’d already moved away from his touch.

“Woah, what gives?” He said with that same sneer.

“Listen man, I’ve got shit to do and I’ve got the school and my parents breathing down my neck, if I’m around you it’s gonna get even more heat on me.” I lied as easily as I breathed, hoping to Raptor Jesus he’d leave me be.

“Alright, I get it… but I’m gonna be out hunting for raptors all day, it’d be a shame if you missed out on that?” He said with an exaggerated wave of his arms.

“Seems I’ll be missing it.” I replied, gripping my lighter tightly in my pocket.

He sighed, as if he’d lost some ‘game’ and replied “Damn, they really got you by the balls eh?”

Finally, he turned on his heel and walked up the stairs, towards… wherever the fuck he was going.

I let out a sigh of relief. Every second that he wasn’t around was another second I hadn’t throttled the bastard with my bare hands.

He made me this way.

He made me into the selfish asshole I am.

He’s the one who got me sent to Volcadera in the first place.

He’s why Fang died.

I’ll fucking kill him. I’ll gut the bastard and watch him die.

—--------------------------------

Fifth class and last of the new electives, Music Theory.

I wasn’t looking forward to this.

I haven’t been able to look at a guitar since it happened, much less hear one play. It didn’t matter what kind of music was being played, it didn’t matter how the guitar looked. It was enough to make me remember, and that was a problem.

As I walked into the classroom I was met with a class full of students who were all talking and bickering over one another as if there wasn’t a class ongoing. As I walked past the walls adorned with various instruments and posters with musical iconography, I got sight of yet another human teacher, to the surprise of nobody.

“Everyone settle down now!” he shouted with an incredibly thick southern drawl to no avail, as everyone continued to ignore him.

“SETTLE DOWN!” HE screamed as loudly as he could, echoing throughout the room as everyone finally stopped talking.

“Right, now that y’all are listening, open your damned textbooks and pay attention to the board.” He said as he turned and pointed at a white board where he’d written “The history of the banjo; the south's greatest gift to mankind.”

Oh, I wasn’t going to like this class, was I?

“Now listen here, we got a new student today by the name of Anon, now… that’d be you in the green shirt, standing there like a moron.”

Asshat.

I sat down without a word, a small part of my mind wishing that when I’d pulled the trigger it’d just left me dead.

“Now listen here all o’ ya, today we’re gonna cover the single greatest musical invention known to man… the banjo!”

The class cheered as if it was their birthday.

I zoned out.

—-------------------------------

The school day ended with all the impact of a wet fart thanks to that asshat that hadn’t even given his name to me.

I’d gotten back home to my parents' empty apartment… Nothing feels right in this apartment anymore.

My stomach grumbled as I locked the door, guess not eating for 30-odd hours had finally taken its toll. I meandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge, expecting the bare minimum and yet somehow I was still surprised by the lack of options… in that the fridge had nothing in it.

No food, no drinks, nothing.

But I’d bet what’s left of my soul that the wine cabinet is full of proper vintage.

I rubbed at my forehead as I slammed the fridge door shut… Alright, where the fuck would the food be?

Freezer? Nothing.

Pantry? Nothing.

Cupboards? Nothing, nothing and…

Bread!

Finally, some good fuckin’ food.

I pulled it from its plastic wrapper, idly checking the date on it…

23rd of September?

Shit, this could kill me.

>Eat the bread.

Not today, yeast boy.

…Well, it doesn’t look mouldy…

I took the loaf of bread back to my room and sat at my desk, staring at the blank google page in front of me while I idly gnawed on the very stale bread and pretended that I was just stealing the dough from Moe’s kitchen.

Fuck, I missed Moe’s. You couldn’t pay me to eat the pizza in Rock Bottom, everyone’s obsessed with that deep dish shit, it’s like a fuckin volcano that scolds your entire mouth unless you leave it out for long enough that the edges all get cold. Moe’s grandfather would roll in his grave if he ever saw that.

Hell, I was starting to miss being around dino’s in general; maybe it was just the people I met in Volcadera but… it felt like it was… I don’t know, easier? I’d met people who were two-faced, both dino and human… but at least Naomi had some sort of justification, a reason… a shitty one, but a reason.

People like Croacher didn’t have anything like that… but then again, maybe it wasn’t humans that were the problem… Maybe it was Rock Bottom itself. I’d never seen a dino in Rock Bottom apart from Jurassic Kitchen, Rock Bottom’s very own Skin Row for its minority raptor population, and they had an even more bloody reputation.

The community down there was famously insular to protect themselves, all of the raptors went to the same schools and worked the same jobs in the same areas that were safer for a raptor.

Even after the civil war all those years ago, long before I was around to ruin everything I touched, the ‘equality’ between the two genus of species was rarely truly equal, even in the modern day.

Volcadera was clearly biased in the favour of dinos, but they weren’t openly hostile in most cases. Rock Bottom was a place that considered it normal to spit at anything with scales on the street as you pass them by.

I suppose it didn’t matter.

I wasn’t going anywhere except for Volcadera, there was simply no other options. No plan B, all or nothing.

—----------------------------

December 25th, 201M2016

Christmas day, my last day of school for the year had just passed by and I was sat alone in a silent apartment, just as I expected.

I woke up around 4am from night terrors, and I’d spent the rest of the morning wandering around this apartment, watching the unending traffic of Rock Bottom some 40 stories down.

I’d considered trying to get back to sleep, but I knew pretty well that there wasn’t a point. The things I saw in that nightmare was something I wouldn’t risk seeing any more than I already had to.

I really wish I’d never looked over the ledge after Fang jumped.

After a few hours of what amounted to walking in circles around my house for cardio (gotta pass that P.E. midterm somehow) I eventually got bored and started walking into random rooms.

At first it was the conference room my parents used for business meetings on occasion, but once I remembered how lifeless it was in there I bumbled my way to another room. 

My dads study.

Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this room.

As I walked inside, I was greeted with… exactly what I expected, honestly.

Bookshelves that climbed several feet higher than any man could reach, lined with expensive looking hardbacks that had never been opened before. A gaudy golden chandelier dangling abnormally low from the ceiling, as if my dad had to be certain that everyone who ever walked into the room would see it. That mahogany desk he never stopped bragging about sat at one end of the room covered in various papers, binders and random stacks of money held together with rubber bands, and a clear view of the city below behind him through a series of large gothic windows.

In conclusion, my dad was like a very shit, very tacky Lex Luthor.

I meandered over to his desk, perusing over the sea of files scattered across the wooden surface…

Tax returns… Purchase orders… Internal documents… 

Huh, that’s a police sale order… my dad had bought a 2015 Dodge Challenger, a lot of shit’s broken…

Missing a camshaft, needs a full engine replacement? 

I picked up the repossession order and looked further, thankful I’d found something to sate the boredom and self-loathing. It seems it’d been a police interceptor that had taken a bunch of minor body damage over the last year, and then someone had pulled a gun on them and mag dumped into the engine block, kept the officers alive but it totaled the engine.

A Dodge Challenger without an engine wasn’t exactly useful to the police, and replacing the V8 engine and all the other problems would probably wind up being more expensive than just ordering a new Challenger, so they just sold it off to the sleaziest man in Rock Bottom; my dad.

Oh neat, there’s pictures attached…

…Wait, that bullet hole in the windshield looks familiar…

Holy shit, it’s the fucking NasCar!

Why the fuck did my dad have it? And how the hell did it get into Ripley’s hands?

Before I could think about it further, my phone started ringing. I pulled it out, dropping the repo form onto the desk. My dad was calling.

I pressed the accept button,

“Hey Anon! I know we ain’t home but eh… happy Christmas kid!” He said with a cheer, as if there was nothing wrong with what he’d just said. Before I could interrupt, he continued talking. “Hey listen, I’ve sent you a little something-something for Christmas… don’t worry about me, you don’t gotta get me anything, your school called me about you changing your classes around, I’ll consider you getting your head out of your ass as a Christmas gift for myself!” He said, laughing at his own joke.

There was silence on the line for a few seconds.

“Hey dad?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m in your office right now, and-”

“What! I told you not to go in there, I have important business details in there!” He said, interrupting me as he loudly screeched over the phone.

“Listen, I’m looking at this repossession form for a 2015 Dodge Challenger on your desk, since when did you start doing repossessions of damaged product?”

“What? Oh, that bucket of shit. Simple really, he never mentioned that the engine was busted and my ‘talented employees’ didn’t check the engine before they towed it off… amateurs.”

“I assume you plan on dumping it then?”

“Yeah, I could try and get the engine replaced but eh… good V8s of that calibre are hard to come by right now.” he said, shuffling around as he talked, presumably walking somewhere.

“...Would you mind if I took it then?”

My dad says nothing for what felt like weeks, all I could hear was the continued rustling of his well-tailored suit jacket as he walked to Raptor Jesus knows where.

“Sure, not like I’ll get anything out of it anyway, I’ll get one of my employees to tow it to the garage under the tower, you take it from there.”

“Thanks dad.” I say with gritted teeth. I could feel my hand quaking as my grip tightened around the phone in my hand.

“No problem kid, I’ll see you around, hopefully I’ll be home for New Years!” He said as he hung up abruptly.

That meant he wasn’t planning on being here for New Years.

I shouldn’t have minded. I shouldn’t care about him not being there like always.

And yet I couldn’t stop myself from slamming my hand onto his desk.

Chapter Text

Anon

January 26th, 201M2017

School had started back up, and things were going… Well, they were going.

Mechanics and Auto Body Repair were both a good time, I’d never really known what people meant when they said they had a ‘good teacher’ before, I’d always assumed they were just some dick-riding pissbag who felt the need to suck up to their teachers so incessantly that they kept riding their coattails even when they wouldn’t get anything out of it. Now I knew what they meant. Dr. Clarke actually seemed to give a shit about his students individually, maybe it was just because there was so few students in either class, but he was always able to break down a problem or a concept to us in a way that just… made sense, I guess.

Dr. Clarke was blowing all of my past teachers out of the fucking water, to the point it worried me.

Not to mention the other two standouts.

The Administrator, who at first appeared to be a giga-bitch who’d probably get along with my mom well enough, turned out to actually be quite genuine in her words unlike my mom, who was really good at convincing people she cared… everyone except me, anyway. She was authoritative, overly demanding and haughty with a clear veneer of superiority over everyone around her, but she wasn’t expecting the impossible, and any expectation she had of you was something she’d do in your shoes.

And Mr. Voight, who by this point had already decided that he’d given up on the rest of the clearly affluent class of future lawyers, lawmakers and real estate agents (or as he put it, ‘rabid dogs, puppets and con artists’) and he’d started bouncing all of his questions off of me, and me alone. Was it a clear bias towards me? Yeah. Did the students complain? Yeah. Did the principal shoot it down? Yeah. 

I think what made Voight’s teaching so effective, and Dr. Clarke as well for that matter, was that unlike every other teacher I’d met before, they cited sources. In detail.

Mr. Voight went off on Monday morning about Romeo and Juliet laws and how the whole system is deeply flawed, citing three different examples of the laws protecting people who should have been arrested and jailed on the spot, or at least that’s how Voight put it. Personally, it sounded far more like Voight wanted to put a bullet in their heads and call it a day.

I was… enjoying myself when I was in their classes. Hell, I was enjoying school more than I was enjoying my time outside of school… although that might have also been because Croacher and other snakes like him were less common in these classes.

I wasn’t even sure I deserved to enjoy any of it.

Raptor Jesus, I was tired of this shit. It didn’t help that my parents still hadn’t gotten back from their 2 week trips that had somehow become over a month long with no signs of them planning to show up anytime soon.

I’d started getting food for myself from a nearby grocery store, since the stale bread had run out after a couple days. I’d tried to keep it simple and cheap, but food in Rock Bottom was never cheap, especially in richer areas like this, where the crime rate stayed relatively low. Since my dad had sent me $12000 as my ‘Christmas gift’ alongside that busted ass car I planned to work on. I’d been worrying about that car, had I fucked up the timeline even more royally now that I’d taken what appeared to be Nasers car for myself?

Maybe I’d pass it over to him down the road somewhere, hopefully that’d fix it…

Eh, who the fuck am I kidding?

Anyway, the groceries. Expensive shit that it was, I figure I might as well experiment. I had a whole second life now, and Raptor Jesus be damned, I wouldn't let that go to waste in any aspect of my life. I’d been toying with herbs and spices, different meats and sides, different snacks, different cooking methods, hell if I had a balcony in this bougie ass apartment I’d have bought myself a grill and gone ham on that bitch.

Unfortunately balconies have never been common in Rock Bottom, happens when the rate of rainfall is almost as likely as getting stabbed as a human walking through Jurassic Kitchen.

That of course meant this shit was expensive, I’d spent $350 in a fucking month of eating.

On the bright side, I’d been skimming the fat off of myself thanks to this diet. Rosa would be proud of me, I think. Granted, she’s got every reason to hate me… her and everyone else in Volcadera. I was halfway surprised Uncle Moe hadn’t paid me a visit after my fuckup.

The elevator dinged as I reached the bottom floor. Fuckin’ finally, there’s too many floors in this damned tower, I’ve been yapping in my own head for minutes on end now. As the doors peeled open silently, I walked out and to the left, straight towards that Dodge. The pictures didn’t exaggerate at all, this thing was banged up seven shades of shit…

But it was salvageable, and that meant something.

The body of the car was pretty beat up since it’d been used as an interceptor, that meant doing pit manoeuvres at high speeds, ramming cars and otherwise chasing down suspects, but the actual frame of the car was still in good shape, which was real lucky for me since replacing or fixing a frame is a lot fucking harder than the body. Not to mention the cost of replacing parts on this bitch. It wasn’t as bad as a luxury car brand, but it was still higher than it should be.

As for the engine, totalled was an understatement. I’d taken what I’d learned from Dr. Clarke for a diagnostics check, and after peeling the poor bastard apart like an onion I found that half of the pistons were damaged from the gunfire and a mix of shrapnel and piston jamming had damaged the camshaft, this engine wouldn’t run no matter how much I wanted it. Not to mention the boiling oil had sprayed out and burned through the few good parts of the radiator that were left after the thing had been riddled with bullet holes. Missing a headlight, bullet hole in the windshield, 

…

You know, half this shits blown out, doesn’t work at all. It’d be easier to just rip out everything damaged and replace it as I could, when I could. Just needed a new engine and a radiator to get it running again, beyond that I’d need to smash the bodywork back into place, maybe replace some body panels if they aren’t fixable with a hammer and a winch.

I’d need to get this to a mechanic at some point for some of the stuff I can’t fix, interceptors like this probably have their clutch and brake pads burnt to shit. But for this other stuff?

Nothing my hammer and a few lucky junkyard finds can’t fix.

—--------------------------------

January 27th, 201M2017

If you’d asked me yesterday what I’d be doing at 4pm on a Tuesday, it wouldn’t be hauling a wheelbarrow to the only junkyard in town. And yet here I was, wheeling this brand new wheelbarrow I’d bought from Home Depot down random streets towards a junkyard I could only vaguely remember.

Hell, I might not even be going the right way, I was just fuckin’ guessing.

I’d been getting looks from people for the last half hour as I marched an empty wheelbarrow down a public fuckin sidewalk. I must look like a clown.

…

Shit, there it is!

Dizzy’s Junkyard, place looked straight outta mad max, there’s random piles of metal scraps and other shit lying all over the place loosely surrounding rows upon rows of bashed up cars.

I slowly pulled the wheelbarrow in, looking around to see if this ‘Dizzy’ or any of his staff were around…

Nothing.

Oh well, guess I’ll just go looking.

…

I’d passed 60-something cars before I even found a single Dodge branded car, and of course it’s not the model I'm looking for. Of all the things I could have found, it had to be with a better car.

A 2014 Dodge Viper. The entire rear-end of the car had been totalled, but the front of it was picture perfect.

V10 engine, roughly 50% more horsepower. This thing wouldn’t have anything that would be compatible with the Challenger, not officially anyway.

…

Fuck it, might as well check it.

I popped the hood and took a look inside…

Raptor Jesus fuck, the engine’s already been taken. Ah well, not like it mattered since the damned piece of shit wouldn’t fit in my car anyway…

…Although, the radiators in tact…

…Fuck it, not like overcooling is a problem, right?

I reached into the engine compartment, slowly pulling various wires out of the cooling system and pulling at the annoying plastic piece of shit coolant tube that was hanging on top of the radiator like a poorly fitting hat…

Am I gonna need to hacksaw this piece of shit pipe out of the way?

Suddenly the pipe popped from its housing with a loud clang as it smacked against the body of the chassis. It hurt like a bitch, but at least I’d gotten the damned thing free…

And as I thought, the radiator was held in place by bolts, just like it should be.

Damn, gonna have to see if I can find a toolbox, I knew I should have bought a wrench set while I was at Home Depot!

Suddenly, I felt a rather large hand land on my shoulder, I could feel the calluses rubbing at my shoulder through my shirt like a set of boulders.

“Ya’ need a hand with that, sonny?” Said a man with the thickest Texan drawl I’d ever heard in my life, as if he was a goddamned caricature.

I turned around to see the source of the voice, and I found myself completely unsurprised by the incredibly burly man standing in front of me, in a white vest  with tattoos scattered across arms thicker than my head into a torso twice my size. A thick greying beard and an incredibly wrinkled face, topped by a thick wheat-coloured cowboy hat.

“I take it you’re Dizzy?” I said, sticking out my hand to shake his.

“That’s me, son!” He said with a laugh, taking my hand firmly, but shaking it gentler than I expected. “So, whatcha lookin’ for? I doubt a boy as young as you’d be able to afford anythin’ outta this here Viper.”

“Just the radiator, I’ve got this trashed Dodge Challenger with a blown radiator and engine I’m trying to get fixed, I’ve got money, but not enough to get scalped by Dodge.”

“Well I’ll be damned, that radiator should fit if I remember right… you said you were lookin’ for an engine?” He said, scratching at his chin as he pulled a wrench out of his belt and handed it to me, nodding at the radiator.

“Yeah, it was a cops interceptor that got a bunch of small holes punched in the engine.”

“Hah! Alright, get that there radiator out of there and I’ll show you my special stash?”

Special stash? Great, he was gonna lure me into his freaky junkyard-themed rape dungeon.

Ah well, I can think of worse ways to go, and I deserved all of them and more.

I popped the radiator free from its final bolt with a loud clang as the bolt partially sheared off and pinged around the vacant engine compartment. It wasn't too much of a surprise because of how damned tight those bolts were in there.

As I lifted the large radiator out of the engine compartment and stuck it in my wheelbarrow, Dizzy clapped me on the back and began guiding me towards a large garage on the furthermost corner of the property.

Walking past what appeared to be some kind of 7 wheeled pickup truck and a some sort of small tank, he pointed towards a corner of the building enclosed in a steel wire cage, with what looked like some sort of tarpaulin on the inside to prevent people seeing into it

Yep, rape dungeon.

“That there’s where I keep mah special parts, the good stuff that nobody’s gonna go lookin’ for… an’ I think I got just the engine for ya.” He said with the same jolly, almost Texan Santa claws esque tone as he fumbled with a keyring, his freakishly large fingers were thicker than the damned keyring was.

Once he’d finally found his comically tiny key and jammed it into a comically tiny lock, he whisked me inside. Inside was a series of large engines, radiators, turbochargers and other exotic-looking car parts all hanging on mounts against the wall, there were also some other smaller parts strewn across the floor… There was also what appeared to be a 20mm cannon mounted on the severed back half of a pickup truck, which I elected to ignore.

“Now, I keep all sortsa nice parts in here that most people don’t come lookin’ for, helps me not feel so guilty keepin’ em’ all to myself.” he said as he scratched at the back of his head.

“Now you, little bald fella that ya are, you’re in luck.” He said with a chuckle as he started walking towards the back of the room, and hefting a large engine off of the wall into both of his hands with an alarming amount of ease, even for his size.

He walked back towards me and plopped it into my wheelbarrow gently, yet I could still feel the sheer weight of it rattle the wheelbarrow against the ground.

“Now that there’s a 2016 Dodge Hellcat engine, I got this one thanks to some richie-rich dime-a-dozen asswipe crashin’ into someone’s home while he was tryin’ to drift through Jurassic Kitchen of all places… lucky for me, I happened to know that someone, and after the kid abandoned the car and ran, I was happy to take the car for free, and I was gonna try and use it myself… but I ain’t about these muscle cars, I don’t need all that horsepower unless it’s in a truck, and I’ve got far too many of those already.“ He leaned onto the engine, causing the poor wheelbarrow to creak and groan as the weight of this engine, plus a man who put Spears to shame with his sheer size.

“How much do I owe you?”

“That depends, how much you willin’ to pay for it?” He said with a smirk.

…

“I’ll give you four grand for it.”

“What!” He said, his eyes bulging out in shock. “Where in sam hell did you get four grand?”

“My parents are well-off, but they aren’t around enough to know what I’d want for gifts at Christmas, birthdays, you get the idea. This isn’t chump change to me, but it isn’t everything either.”

Dizzy looked at me in silence.

And then a familiar look dusted across his oil-smitten face. A look I hated.

Pity.

“For you kid? It’s free.”

“I’m gonna stop you right fuckin there!”

I jabbed my finger into his chest as his frame dwarfed me.

“I came all this FUCKING WAY to get these parts with MY FUCKING MONEY that belongs to ME! I did not come here to get FUCKING PITIED because the TWO FACED RETARDS that made me are too FUCKING RETARDED to even know what I give a shit about, much less FUCKING BE THERE! I don’t even give a shit they aren’t ever around, because they’re FUCKING INSUFFERABLE. ”

I closed my eyes, and let out a sigh. Deep breaths Anon.

Once I opened my eyes, I saw that Dizzy’s expression was still unchanged. I lowered my finger from his chest and took a step back.

“I’m sorry, I just… hate this fucking pity party bullshit. You’re already cutting a shitload of the cost out for me, and I can’t just… not pay you for something like this.”

He still has the same fucking look on his face.

“Alright… alright, I can work with that… but if you have any trouble gettin’ her runnin’, you come back here and give me a holler, we'll fix ‘er together.”

…

“I’ll take that.” I said, forcing the four grand in cash into his palm, and slowly lumbering this stupid heavy engine out of the junkyard.

—---------------------------------

So it turns out I didn’t think this whole ‘carrying a wheelbarrow’s worth of engine parts through Rock Bottom’ thing through all that well. I was like, maybe a quarter of the way home by the time the fatigue had set in. 

I’d received a complete fuck load of strange looks and vaguely hostile stares, I had to assume everyone I passed by was jealous of the amount of money that was currently being wheeled down the street by a teenager. More likely they were pissed that they couldn’t steal it so easily.

A phone is easy to take out of someone’s pocket or hand and dash a few blocks away, the same goes for a wallet or jewellery, hell even the clothes someone’s wearing could be pulled off of them if it was worth the extra hassle, and beyond how easy it is to take these sorts of high value items, it’s far more important that you’re able to conceal these items.

Think about it, you can hide a phone or a wallet you’ve stolen by just jamming it in your pocket and calling it a day, and even with something larger like clothes or a backpack, you can just stuff them in a bag, or put it under your own clothes.

You can’t do that with an 8 cylinder engine that’s being slowly dragged by a wheelbarrow.

It’s not even really the police they’re worried about getting busted by, the crime rate in this shithole of a city is so bad that they’ve put all of their eggs into SWAT and other rapid response high intensity units, they physically can’t afford to have officers patrol across most of the city because they’re either so likely to get gunned down in broad daylight that there’s no point, or it’s one of the few areas that doesn’t need as heavy police presence, where the richie-rich types all mingled.

They’re far worried about getting away with their theft, only to find that they can’t hide the heat, and someone else will carry on the theft chain, with the original thief as the victim. They know the chances of them getting home with something like this was near-impossible, it’d be too hot of an item that you can’t hide.

That didn’t make this whole journey any less stressful, it felt like I was gonna get shanked or shot at any moment.

I wouldn’t feel this shit in Volcadera.

As I turned a corner I caught a glimpse of a raptor glaring at me, before ducking away into the other pedestrians behind him… Shit, the whole crowd was raptors.

Fuck, had I walked into Jurassic Kitchen without realising?

Being here changed things, unlike the other areas of Rock Bottom, the people of Jurassic Kitchen were insular, they had each other's backs through thick and thin. And that meant they weren’t worried about getting their shit stolen after they took it for themselves, their worst outcome was splitting their winnings after they sold it off.

Fuck.

Of course, getting the engine stolen from me wasn’t the thing I was worried about now, the stakes had been significantly raised now.

I was on their turf, and I was liable to be shot dead for this, regardless of whether I was a teenager or not.

This was their home, and their blood, and as far as they’d be concerned I was everything they hated, the privileged son of some rich skinnie bastard. They’d take me wheeling this hunk of shit through their turf as a personal insult, as if I was bragging about my wealth.

I tried to haul the engine faster, but it became very clear very quickly that the sheer weight of almost a metric tonne of steel and plastic wasn’t something I could just ‘move faster.’ If I could just get the damned engine a couple blocks down the street I’d be out of this mess and back in my area, just a few blocks from home in a region where people would rather steal from you through insurance or receipts rather than petty theft.

3 blocks left to cross.

I could feel myself physically falling apart, my lungs burned with all the intensity of a neutron star and my legs felt similarly fucked. I must have looked goofy as shit, warbling this oversized hunk of valuable metals, I’m sure the various raptors sizing me up like a chargrilled sirloin were having a good laugh over it.

2 blocks left to cross.

I had to make it, I couldn’t let this chance go to waste. This wasn’t just my life hanging in the balance anymore, there was every possibility that Fang would die without my intervention… maybe I was just bigging up my own role in things, Fang’s strong, they can stand on their own two feet… but I don’t know if the people around them will let that happen.

1 block left.

My hands slipped from the wheelbarrow’s handle as I slammed down on the head of the engine,  breaking down in a fit of coughs and heaving breaths, unable to will my body to go any further. I was such a fucking disappointment. It took about a minute of dry heaving and sputtering for the pain to become manageable enough to stand again.

Ahead of me were three raptors, two of them were red and I could see a net of eclectic tattoos that cascaded from hands to shoulder, with anything on their torso being covered by their tattered vests. The third was an older blue raptor, a rarer sight. This one had just as many tattoo’s as the rest, but unlike the other two there was one tattoo that stood out.

A spider’s web on the rear of his arm, starting from the elbow.

In most circumstances around these parts, that meant this dino had seen significant jail time, which meant he probably had even more of an axe to grind with the likes of me.

“Hey man, nice engine… mind if me and my boys take a closer look?” He said with a suave, almost convincing friendly tone.

>Fuck it, go with the flow.

Start swinging and pray to Raptor Jesus.

“Sure, take a look.”

They all encroached towards me, with the blue raptor standing directly ahead of me and looming over both myself and the engine, while his two younger accomplices took a grip of either side of the wheelbarrow.

They were sizing me up, putting themselves in a position to shove me to the floor and ‘run’ off with the wheelbarrow in tow, all they were checking for now is how likely I was to come after them.

I’d bet that shady guy that had been eyeing me up three blocks ago was their lookout, and knowing my shit luck he’s probably somewhere behind me, ready to move in and take me out if I somehow managed to win the fight with these three chucklefucks.

“Shit, this a viper engine?” He said, tipping his black fake leather baseball cap upwards.

“Mhm, bought it from a junkyard.”

“A junkyard? You found something like this in a junkyard?” His eyebrow crooked upwards as he talked, and one of his accomplices snickered at me from the side. Clearly his two younger friends were more eager for a fight than the older one.

“Dizzy’s, yeah.”

“Shit, that old bastard’s still selling off all the fun shit without tellin’ us… how much you pay for it?”

I could feel their eyes on me, I was deep in the viper’s den now. It wasn’t as if I was intimidated, in the sense that I was scared of the outcome, or what’d happen to me.

Fang's future was potentially on the line, and by the nature of that, so was the future of Naser, Naomi, and the three other people they’d gunned down before the end of it all.

This wasn’t just about me anymore.

And that pissed me off. And when a piece of shit like me gets pissed off, we only have two paths we can go down.

Mutilate them, leave nothing behind.

>Lie your ass off and hope the gamble works.

“Look, I got this thing for cheap because the internals are all sorts of fucked up, Dizzy wanted rid of it because he got pissed off looking at it, he had plans for this engine and opening it up ruined his fuckin’ week. I’m only taking it off his hands for a school project.”

The two red raptors hesitated a bit, their smiles dropped as they both shamelessly looked at their leader, who hadn’t broken his gaze from me.

“The fuck are you two lookin’ at?” He said to his accomplices, who straightened up and looked back towards each other, clearly shitting themselves almost as much as I was.

“How bad’s the engine, kid?”

“No camshaft, missing half the pistons, oil leak, there’s a dead spark plug jammed in the engine, and a dozen other things.”

I could feel his gaze on me, despite it only being one set of eyes compared to the hundreds that had cast that same look over me on the way here, this one was far more intense.

Unlike every other dime a dozen piece of shit that I’d walked past today, this one knew what he was.

Shit, was I gonna have to go with plan B?

…

It’s me or them. There are people who need me.

It’s my life or theirs.

I felt my fist clench involuntarily, shaking as I grasped at the wheelbarrows handle.

As I prepared myself for a fight I’d almost definitely not win, I heard the screech of a car burning rubber as it braked heavily to my left on the main road.

A black SUV with equally black windows had stopped at the side of the road, and out stepped a familiar face, cocking a Sig Sauer P229 as he rose from his driver’s seat. 

Mr. Voight?

He certainly looked different to usual, instead of slacks and a poorly-tailored shirt with a tie that looked like the product of a 10 year old, he now had jeans and a leather jacket.

As soon as the two younger raptors saw his face, they turned and ran like the wind, as if they were fleeing from death. With how pissed Voight looked, that might not have been far off.

“Owens.” He said with an aura of intimidation that felt physically repressive.

“Voight.” The blue raptor, presumably Owens, replied.

“I thought I told you, a million times by now, that you keep your gang business quiet.”

“That’s what this is, Voight.”

“Is it? You’re haggling a kid for… what is this, spare engine parts?” Voight said, waving a hand towards my wheelbarrow. 

“Times are tough, Voight. I gotta-”

Before Owens could finish his sentence, Voight rammed a knee into his stomach and pushed him to the ground, levelling his pistol to point to his face.

“I don’t give a shit how rough it is, you keep your nose clean or you know what happens next, Owens.”

Owens wheezed as he rolled onto his side, clutching at his core. “I get you man, fuck.”

Voight lowered his gun and looked towards me. “Put that shit in the trunk and get in the car, kid.”

I wasn’t one to go against a command as direct as that, he might as well have put the damned gun to my head as he said it.

As I went to lift the wheelbarrow and move it towards the back Voight’s car, I saw Owens slowly sliding one of his hands down towards something he’d stuffed in his pants.

Fuck, he had a gun.

“Do we understand each other, Owens?” Voight said, his pistol now in a low ready position.

“Yeah, I think we do.” Owens replied with a smirk, his hand now slowly snaking around presumably the grip of his gun.

Shit.

Run.

>Beat the fucker till he can’t fight back.

I let go of the wheelbarrow and ran towards Owens, who was still lying on the ground and staring squarely at Voight.

I let my leg fly as hard as I possibly could, and delivered an incredibly strong punt kick to Owens head. He noticed what was happening a second before my foot met his face, and he’d started drawing his gun on me, but he wasn’t able to get it anywhere but out of his belt and into the open, he dropped it as he rolled with the momentum of my kick, gurgling as he rolled. I must have hit him in the mouth.

Voight looked at me with surprise, although once he clocked the Glock that had briefly gone airborne from Owens hand, he got even more pissed, thankfully not at me.

“Really Owens, you were gonna pull a fuckin’ gun on me over this?” Voight said, raising his gun towards him again.

The only thing that Owens replied with was more gurgling.

“Owens?” Voight said as he got to one knee and rolled Owens onto his back.

Owens was seizing up and his whole body was shaking rapidly, blood spewing from his mouth in spouts.

Fuck, did I kill him?

Voight looked up at me, a very mild sense of panic in his eyes. “Get your shit in the car, now!” he barked, holstering his pistol in the waist of his jeans and pushing the wheelbarrow alongside me.

Once we’d loaded everything into the trunk of the car and hopped into the front seats, Voight pushed the car into drive and started blitzing down the quiet road, as quickly as the car would go.

“I want you to understand something, Anon.” Voight said with a voice like steel.

“You almost died today, and if I wasn’t there you’d be dead in a bush somewhere.”

“I know sir, it wasn’t something I meant to do, I just… ended up there, I guess.”

“Yeah, well… there won’t be a next time for this, you understand?”

“I understand, sir.”

“Shut up, after that you can call me Hank.” Voight looked at me with a strange expression, his eyebrows fully raised and his mouth partially open. “You’re taking a ride with me, I’m gonna explain this nice and simply, and you’re gonna listen.”

Well, he didn’t leave any room for arguing.

“What you did with Owens was the right thing, and that moron had it coming, but if you did that anywhere else you’d be seeing juvie until the day you turned 18, minimum. They might’ve even tried you as an adult and given you life in prison.”

Voight rounded a corner quickly, taking us into a nicer area.

“Lucky for you, you did it to a piece of shit like Owens in Jurassic Kitchen, so the cops don’t give a shit. Even if they looked, you only hit him once with your boot, so they can’t get any fingerprints, and there’s not gonna be any DNA evidence since you don’t have any hair to lose.”

He looked at me and smirked, it looked less like he found the situation funny and more like a shark smelling blood in the water.

“Well, what’s done is done. Now you have to live with the consequences, you can never step foot in Jurassic Kitchen again, hell it’s probably a good idea for you to get out of this city, but since you’re a kid you don’t have that option.”

Voight turned the car around another corner, taking us towards an industrial area of Rock Bottom on the edge of town.

“You understand what you did, right?” Voight asked, turning his eyes away from the empty road towards me.

“He’s dead, isn’t he.”

“Mhm, dead as a doornail.”

Voight turned off the road towards a set of concrete pylons near a small pond, with a view of the city.

“Now, there’s gonna be witnesses to that, but you won’t catch any heat from it.”

“Why’s that?”

The car came to a stop as Voight put the car in park, and turned his torso towards me, his full attention on me.

“Because they saw me there, too… and Jurassic Kitchen knows me. They saw me willing to drop Owens for you, which I still am, and they all knew Owens was a power hungry moron anyway. He’s not worth what going against me would bring them. Especially since we spared the two gangster wannabe’s with him.”

“We?”

“Well you put the boot in his head, didn’t you?”

“Fair.”

“There’s only one thing I’m worried about… You don’t seem bothered about killing someone.”

Fuck, of course someone like him would see through me. Gotta deal with this somehow…

Deflect and lie.

>Tell some of the truth.

I can’t tell him the truth, not fully. But I can tell him bits and pieces.

“I’ve seen death before.”

Voight froze, looking into my eyes. I think he was struggling to figure out what sort of altercation I’d been involved in.

“I had a few friends a couple years ago. A brother and a… sister. I didn’t know the brother well, but he was a good enough guy, overprotective and overworked but he kept his head on straight most of the time. As for the girl… I loved her.”

I looked down at my hands, and for some Raptor-Jesus damned reason I could feel the revolver they used in my hand. I knew there was nothing there, and I couldn’t see anything there either… But I could feel the weight, the cold steel and wood handle, the cold steel of the trigger and the trigger guard pressing against either side of my index finger.

“Her life was full of people who wanted to control her, who forced her to feel alien wherever she went. She didn’t feel like she had a home at all, her family saw her as a problem who’d never amount to anything, her friends were all sycophants and scumbags who wanted her to fit into their mold… after everyone had pushed her away, she fell into my arms…”

I looked at Voight, at Hank. I looked him dead in the eye.

“...And I fucked up bad, Hank.”

…

“She came to me to help her, and I didn’t know how to… so I just did what I usually do, I curled into myself, and she got locked out. I didn’t even realise what I’d done until it was too late. I woke up late that morning for school, she’d got up early and unplugged my alarm… She went home, took her dads gun, and… went to school.”

“Shit, kid…” Voight said, gripping at the inner console of the car as if bracing himself.

“She had six rounds, she took five people out. Her brother’s girlfriend was the first target, and the brother was the unintended second. The other three I didn’t know well, but I know their names now.”

Dinoskia Vasques, John Drogan, and worst of all… Stella Stegostretti.

“She was gonna use the last bullet for herself, but I managed to get to the school once I figured out what was happening, I managed to find her on the roof, I tried to stop her but…“

I patted my hand down on my left leg.

“She tried to use her last bullet to stop me, but she missed. Once she realised that she’d tried to take me down, she jumped from the roof and fell five stories down.”

I looked at Hank again.

“As far as I’m concerned, their blood is on my hands. Sure, her family and her friends pushed her to this, but I had the final play and I fucked it up like always. There’s no saving me, but I need to keep living, I need to make something of myself, that’s what she wanted… and I will not fail her again. There’s nothing that will stop me, and after seeing her brother bleeding out at the stairwell, after seeing his girlfriend's face caved in and singed from the point-blank blast of a .357 in her face, well… kickin’ a man to death to stop your crotchety old ass from taking a hit is worth it.”

The car was silent for a few seconds, as Voight… Hank, stared out at the water ahead of us.

“Be honest with me, you enjoy killing Owens?”

“No.”

He squinted his eyes at me for a moment, before looking away towards the water again.

“I believe you… do you regret it?”

“No.”

“I believe that too, kid… but, do you feel guilty?”

…

“Some. He deserved everything he got, but he didn’t need to die. If he’d cleaned his life up a bit, or at least kept his affairs private… But I’d do it a thousand times over if it meant you and I, the people I care about, were still standing at the end of the day.”

…

“You said you wanted to be a cop, right?“ Voight asked, seemingly changing the subject.

“Yeah, but I don’t plan on sticking around Rock Bottom after high school, planning to go to the west coast, get as far from this place as I can… Volcadera, maybe.”

Voight said nothing, but he reached into his pocket and handed me a small piece of paper. A business card, of sorts.

It read ‘Rock Bottom Police Department - SGT. Henry Voight, Bureau of Organised Crime - Intelligence Section.’ Voight was a cop, and clearly an experienced and competent one, given the rank, don’t know why he’s teaching criminal justice now… And that first name, is Hank a nickname?

“Whatever police department you go to after the academy, give your commanding officer that card, most police departments have heard my name, but regardless of that a commendation from any police sergeant will carry weight… and remember that number, call me if you need me.” Voight said, leaning back into his car seat.

“You were on the force, sir?”

“For the last time kid, call me Hank, or Voight, anything but sir… And yeah, I was. I was a patrol officer for 4 years, detective for 6, and then head of intelligence for 20 years. I left the force after Internal Affairs decided that the way I’d been running my unit was ‘wrong’ and ‘dirty’, all I was doing was using the people I had dirt on to get more dirt on more people in exchange for reduced sentencing or money, it kept them reliant on me for their survival. I never put too much heat on them, and over my career I haven’t let any of my informants down, Owens is the only exception now, but I’m not on the force now, so…”

I decided that any agreements or disagreements with Hank's policing methods could be left unsaid, after all he’d just saved my ass… and given that he was policing Rock Bottom, and people like Owens, I wasn’t against his methods in the slightest.

“Hank… Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, kid.”

…

“What the hell were you dragging an engine around for, anyway?”

—------------------------------------------

“So this is the car?” Hank asked, leaning over the empty engine bay of my Dodge Charger.

“Yep, this is the car I nearly got myself killed for… seems stupid now.”

“You’re a lucky bastard, kid, hell this might have been worth eating shit for.” Hank said with a dry chuckle.

“I got it for free from my dad’s dealership, he didn’t want to invest in repairing it for resale.”

“Idiot didn’t know what he was missin’ I guess.”

Hank and I dumped the engine from the trunk of his car, placing it down next to the car.

“You sure this won’t get stolen?” Hank asked, looking over his shoulder towards the entrance of the underground garage.

“Nah, this place is manned by security and the type of people who live in this building won’t know what this even is.“

Hank chuckled again as he stood up, looking over at me.

“I didn’t think you’d be this rich, seems to be a nice place.”

“My parents are rich, I’m well off myself, sure… but there’s consequences to that.“

Hank motioned with his hand for me to continue. “I barely ever see them, and neither of them give much of a shit about me. They’ll put on smiles and send me money for birthdays or Christmas, and they’ll put a roof over my head… but I barely even know what they’re like, I don’t even know what kind of work my mom does.”

“Eh, at least they do that much.” Hank gave his minimal input.

“Yeah, I’d rather them over nothing… still, it stings, y’know?”

“Trust me, I know, kid. I’ve helped a dozen people get their lives back together personally, and most of them had parents that didn’t give enough of a shit to realise their kid was getting into some deep shit.“

…

Hanks phone started vibrating in his pocket. He pulled his phone out in a practiced and smooth manner and smacked it to his ear.

“Voight, talk.”

…

“Where?”

…

“I’ll be there.”

Hank hung up the phone and slid it back into his pocket, backing up towards his car. “I gotta go, kid, you gonna be alright here?”

“Nah, I’m alright… Thanks, Hank.”

“It’s no problem, Anon.” Hank said as he got into his car. Just before he closed his car door, he hesitated and re-opened it until he could see me.

“Hey kid… you ever shot a gun before?”

I have, once.

“I can’t say I have, no.”

Hank let out a genuine smile. “Call me tomorrow, I’ll take you to a gun range, don’t worry about the laws of it; I’ve got buddies who’ll make exceptions for me.”

Hank slammed his car door shut and immediately set off at breakneck speeds, setting off at lightning speeds. I backed away from my own car, and stumbled into the elevator…

I just wanted to sleep.

—----------------------------

January 30th, 201M2017

The dreaded mid-term tests had come and gone today. I’d been excused from the majority of them, however I’d applied to do my elective midterms anyway. I felt obliged to show them I was trying, which is a sentence I don’t think I’ve ever heard myself say before.

Criminal Justice was like taking candy from a baby, I breezed through that damned thing like a hot knife through butter (pro tip: don’t microwave the knife) and my two classes with Dr. Clarke had been similarly easy. There was one that proved to be as daunting as it appeared.

The P.E. physical fitness midterm proved to push me to my absolute limits, especially since my body was still partially damaged from hauling that stupid fuckass engine halfway across the damned city. I never knew that pullups could give you the sensation of your shoulders being slowly ripped from your body as if you were on a medieval torture device, or that a cramping quadricep was even more debilitating than you would expect, but now I know.

By the time I’d finished the final phase of the physical fitness midterm I collapsed to the floor in a heap, struggling to breathe and my skin tone was probably close to matching a tomato by this point, or perhaps a rotten one.

The whole thing was torture. Bonafide, clear as day torture.

And yet the whole damned thing had been made entirely worth it by The Administrator’s words.

“Well, Anon… I asked you to meet the minimum requirements, and you have done even more than I asked.” She held her hand out to me, and I took it shakily as she pulled me upwards with far more strength than her gaunt frame let on.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you in particular, since you’re new to this. While I can’t say for certain until I’ve graded all of this, you seem to be ahead of the pack in terms of your score, Anon. Very well done.” The Administrator gave me a small smile, before turning her gaze back to the rest of the class who were still performing.

As I limped towards the changing rooms, I thought on her words. They felt a good bit more than just pleasant, I felt like I’d been injected with enough dopamine to kill a damned whale, I was on cloud nine in a manner I hadn’t felt since…

…

I winced in pain as I suddenly fell to the floor of the changing rooms, grappling myself to a nearby bench to prevent damaging myself any further. There was a burning sensation coming from my leg, one that was far worse than any cramps or other pains I’d felt today.

I looked down towards my leg, and saw that there was nothing outwardly wrong with it, I could see most of my leg thanks to the rather short gym shorts I’d been provided, but it hurt like all hell. Particularly this one spot on the outside of my quad…

Shit, that’s where Fang shot me.

Why did it hurt now? What the fuck? Was it still there?

As I stared down at it, clamping my hands down around my leg as the pain seemed to only get even worse, I felt the intense urge to scratch at the pain, to try and dig it out.

Dig it out. Dig it out. Dig it out. Dig it out. Dig it out. Dig it out. Dig it out. Dig it out. Dig it out. Dig-

“Hey man, you alright?” Said some random passer-by I recognised vaguely from my P.E. class. I looked up at him, letting go of my leg as if it was taboo to hold it. “Yeah man, just a bad cramp.” I said, desperately hoping he didn’t think there was anything more to it.

“Damn, those hurt bad man, good luck with that.” He said as he turned and walked off towards his locker. I looked down towards my leg, realising that the pain had suddenly disappeared. Shit, it looked like I’d torn a chunk out of my fucking leg, and yet it didn’t hurt at all.

Fuck, what the fuck was wrong with me?

—---------------------------------------

February 2nd, 201M2017

Hank had agreed to bring me along to a gun range today after school ended, although I didn’t realise how quickly he’d be ready to leave, seeing as he was already standing outside of the school in plain clothes while leaning on his car by the time I managed to get to the front door of the school. Let me tell you, being picked up after school by Hank Voight was not something that was taken lightly by the rest of the students. It looked like I was being kidnapped by the CIA with how his car looked, not to mention that glare of his.

“Get in.” He said with his usual bland tone as he turned on his heel and swung open his driver’s side door with a practiced 

As I slid into the passenger's seat and closed the door over with a metallic thud, I looked over towards Hank, who looked about as exasperated as always. He was wearing that same black leather jacket I’d last seen him in when I’d booted Owens head in like an out of date melon.

Looking around his car, I noticed that Hank had apparently brought enough firearms to arm a small militia force. There was three different pistols in the cup holders; a small revolver and two compact handguns, there was some kind of wooden semi-automatic rifle sat next to my leg with clear marks of wear and tear, this was clearly some kind of old favourite of his. There was also a compact pump-action shotgun stuffed into the passenger’s door docket, and there looked to be another on Hank's door from what I could see. Looking to the back of the car, I could see a double-barrelled shotgun, an AA-12 semi-automatic shotgun, multiple AR-15 variants and a few other weapons that appeared to be stowed away in cases. There was also a giant green sack of various different ammunition boxes chaotically thrown in there, as if Hank had literally just been filling it with whatever he needed that day for numerous years.

I looked back towards Hank. “I thought we were going to a gun range, I didn’t exactly plan on raiding the closest cartel safehouse.”

Hank chuckled as he put his seatbelt on and turned the car's ignition, setting the engine alight with a heavy purr. “Well, I figured if you’re gonna be joining the force, it’s better that you know the basics of everything you’re likely to use.”

“Well, I haven’t got anywhere else to be, so I can’t say I disagree.”

Hank smirked as he put the car into gear and sped off down the road at the same breakneck speeds he seemed to always move off at, the whole chassis of the car rumbling with all of the sheer power an inline 4-cylinder engine could provide.

…

Oh great, I’d become ‘artistic’ enough to differentiate engine types by their sound and feel, I’m sure that’ll come in handy when I’m about to get myself deafened by the sheer might of whatever ridiculous firepower Hank was bringing with him…

I just hoped Raptor-Jesus, or whatever else is out there, if there even is anything out there, that Hank had remembered to bring ear protection.

—---------------------------------------

Hank had dragged me about a mile or two out of the city, past the suburbs and out into the dense surrounding boreal forest that covered this entire straight of the country from west to east. A small part of my brain was panicking that Hank had decided that I was a loose end and that rather than taking me out for a relaxing shooting experience, he’d be taking me out to the middle of nowhere to dig my own grave.

It didn’t help that there wasn’t a car in sight on either side of a six-lane highway, Didn’t surprise me that nobody wanted to travel to Rock Bottom, especially when it’s this time of year and it’s always overcast, raining and even colder than the rest of the north of the country.

I felt well and truly alone on this giant dead highway with my only company being the only other person I’d met in my life who hadn’t blinked at the death of someone he knew.

“How much further we gotta go? I assume we aren’t going to cross the state line.”

“We aren’t going to Wisconsin, Anon. That’s north. We’re going southwest, there’s a shooting range I’ve been going to for the last 40 years out this way, we’re about a minute out.” Hank said, rubbing at his neck idly, he kept flicking his eye down towards the gear stick as if it was going to magically move itself into reverse and send us careening into the airbags.

“40 years? I assume you’re familiar with the owners then?”

“Heh, yeah. When I started going it was owned by Grunch McFudd, this old world war two vet that made you follow all of his rules to the letter or he’d kick you straight out the door onto your ass, I remember showing him my police issued AR back in ‘93 when the department had just been issued them, he looked at it like it was alien or something, you should have seen it… I miss that old grouch. His son, Gregory, takes care of the range these days..”

Grunch McFudd? That’s the most ludicrous, fucking retarded name I’d ever heard in my life, that was even more fuckin’ stupid than that shark dude Stella’d been bumming around near the end of the school year back at Volcano High. It was always hard to tell what she saw in him, I couldn’t see anything that made him special beyond the whole macho vanity thing… Then again, I’m one to talk.

“Mind if I ask you where you get all this firepower?” I asked, pulling the topic away from the owners of this range we’re travelling to, just in case I say something stupid.

“Well, you tend to pick up a lot of shit over the years, a lot of this stuff were gifts from cop buddies over the years, old guns they didn’t need any more, guns they couldn’t afford to run or that were in bad shape, that sorta stuff. Some of it was bought by me, mostly the handguns and the ARs, but a few of them are… ”

Hank seemed to be eyeing me up, as if trying to figure out if I could be trusted with whatever it was he wanted to say.

These better not be guns he took off people he’d arrested…

“Hey, I didn’t say it.” Hank said with a smirk.

Fucking mumbling.

As Hank took an incredibly sharp right that sent us careening down a poorly marked dirt road, he kept his head on a swivel as if he was expecting an ambush, his eyes went all beady and glassy too.

“Looking for something?”

Hank blinks and shakes his head rapidly. “Sorry, kid. Thought I saw something.”

Odd, wonder what he thought he saw? Viet-Cong, maybe?

As Hank barrelled the car down this dirt path that barely qualified as a road, we eventually came to an abrupt stop outside of a large wooden building. It looked like something out of a wild west movie, clearly well maintained with a fresh coat of charcoal paint. I could see a large sign hanging over the front door reading ‘McFudd’s Duds and Lugs’ which must have been the name of the range, it certainly sounded like some wacky saying that an old man had thought was funny or catchy fifty-something years ago.

“We’re here.” Hank said plainly as he unstrapped himself from his seat and swung himself out the car door, moving towards the door for the seat behind him to get his bag of bang sticks.

As I unbuckled my seatbelt, I grabbed the rifle and shotgun at my legs, and I jammed the revolver in the central console into my pocket, leaving the other two pistols for the moment. As I slammed the door shut with my elbow I turned around to see Hank had somehow threw all of that shit in the back seat over his shoulder and was lugging it to the front door as if it weighed nothing. I’ve seen a few dinos do something similar before, but I ain’t never seen a human pull of a feat like that before.

Was I just particularly unremarkable?

Regardless of my feelings on my own inadequacy, I followed Hank to the front door, catching the door behind him as he pushed through with his shoulder. The front room of this building was filled with enough firearm display cases and safes to qualify as a military armoury, the sheer amount of firepower lining the rows of shelves, walls and counters was astounding. There was probably enough firepower in this room to satisfy the entire cast of Rock Ring.

Hank marched towards the front desk and began repeatedly smacking on a small bell on the front counter, while looking increasingly agitated with each passing second. “Greg! Get out here you sack of shit!” Hank screamed hoarsely with a tone that sounded vaguely friendly, by his standards at least.

A door behind the counter swung open as a short human with obnoxiously large glasses meandered towards the desk. “Raptor Jesus, Voight… How in the hell could I have guessed it was you coming to my fine establishment? If the sound of your ridiculously loud car didn’t give you away before you got here, the sound of your club-footed caveman ass lumbering through the front door was more than enough, give me a minute to at least get to the fuckin’ door, man.” The man, presumably Gregory, said with a demure voice and a small smile.

This man seemed far too amenable and friendly to be in cahoots with the likes of Hank… there was a history here, I was certain of that much.

“Give it a rest Greg, got a kid with me here, gotta show him the ropes.” Hank said as he gestured to me with his free hand, the other holding multiple bags worth of firepower over his shoulder.

Gregory pushed his glasses up and squinted his eyes at me, taking multiple seconds to try and discern what he was looking at. With how hard he was squinting, I wasn’t sure he could even see me.

“Bit young, ain’t he?”

“That won’t be a problem, will it?”

“Nah, head on through, range is empty at the moment, so it ain’t like there’s gonna be any witnesses, ey?“ Gregory said with a practiced smirk, something about his demeanour bothered me… it was the same vibe I usually got from Naomi, but…

There was something he was hiding, but whatever that was, it simply wasn’t my problem and it wasn’t something I needed to worry about. Besides, it’s not like I have the right to pry into someone’s private life, especially after what I’ve done?

Hank started marching towards a door on the other side of the room, giving Gregory a curt nod as he turned. As Hank brushed past me, I saw Gregory walking around the counter to presumably follow us to the range. I followed after Hank, unsure of what sort of trouble I’d inevitably get myself into if I was left by my lonesome.

The range was empty, just as Gregory said. It was setup in a strange manner, it had 15 lanes, with the closest five being an indoor range with human silhouette targets that were attached to railings on the roof that would take them out to a specified distance with their little controllers on the table for each indoor lane, and the 10 that came after that were an outdoor range with a bunch of small targets that went out very far into the distance, I’d guess 1000 yards or so, before it stopped abruptly at a large dirt mound behind the target furthest away.

“Start him with the indoor range, get him used to the smaller calibre stuff and go up from there.“ Gregory said with an ‘erm, actually’ tone that I just knew was said specifically to piss off Hank.

“Blow it out your ass, Greg.”

Yeah, it certainly got under his skin.

Hank led me to the middle lane of the indoor section of the range, and and dropped his bag of knick-knacks and other death dealing devices gently onto the ground next to the station he’d directed me to. I placed the weapons I was carrying onto the top of the bags, and pulled the revolver out of my pocket.

Before I could put it down with the other firearms Hank gestured for me to stop. “Hold onto that one, it’s a good starting point.”

Hank took a step closer to me, and pulled a small cardboard box out of the pocket of his jacket.

“That’s a snub nose revolver, chambered in 38. Special. It’s a good cartridge, small but packs enough punch to deal with anyone who isn’t packing any armour, which is most people.” Hank said as put the box on the table and slid a tray of bullets out of it.

I looked down at the revolvers barrel, and saw the name marked on it ‘Ruger SP101’

“This one’s pretty small by revolver standards, pretty decent choice for a concealed carry or a backup weapon… there’s plenty of smaller revolvers out there that are better for hiding, an old cop buddy of mine used to have this tiny revolver he’d put in an ankle holster, that saved his ass couple times… Things like that are always good to carry in case of an emergency, but for learning the basics… you’re better with something like this.”

Hank patted his hand on the table next to the bullets. “Try loading it.”

I looked at him for a second, unsure of why he said it like he was laying out his trap card in Yugioh or some shit. I looked down at the Ruger, casting my eyes across the mechanisms of the firearm, until I saw a small metal pole running alongside the barrel. I pushed my finger into it and the cylinder popped out, revealing five small holes within.

“Good, you figured it out… This revolver cylinder pops out, but on some older models they have a trap door and a push rod, both methods are about as reliable as the other, but you can reload a little faster with this option.”

I grabbed five rounds from the box and slowly, and by my own admittance rather clumsily jammed five rounds into the revolver with my fat stubby ape fingers.

“You’ll get better at that with time.” Hank said with a small chuckle at my expense, the dick.

I pushed the cylinder into place and cocked the hammer, making sure to keep the barrel of the gun pointed towards the target a few feet ahead of me.

“Guess you’ve seen some old western movies… This revolver is single-action, so you have to cock the hammer after every shot. If it was a double-action you wouldn’t have to set it every time.”

I placed my feet like the characters in Rock Ring usually would when shooting, who I could see smirking out of the corner of my vision.

“Good, lets get this target out to 10 yards, once it stops you can fire.”

Hank pushed a button and a loud whirring came from above me as the target slowly shuddered forward for a few seconds before abruptly stopping still in the middle of the target area.

As I looked down the sights of the revolver… well, less sights and more a vague suggestion of where to aim, I cast my sights towards the head of the human shaped target, held my breath, and slowly tightened my grip around the gun.

A hilariously loud bang went off that rattled my brain as the firearm went off with a metric shitload more volume than I expected. I pulled the hammer back and took aim again, trying my best to ignore the incredibly distracting tinnitus that was setting in.

Hank put his hand on my arm, and I lowered the revolver to look at him.

I saw him saw something, but I couldn’t hear shit, presumably he was calling me a fucking moron or something. He then handed me a large set of headphone lookin’ things.

Ah, ear protection. Forgot I needed that.

I put the revolver down on the table in front of me and slipped the clunky headset onto my giant head, which felt like it immediately relieved the headache that the first shot had set off, although the tinnitus was still present and I couldn’t hear anything.

I picked up the revolver again and took aim, taking notice of where my first shot landed. I’d aimed low and caught them in the neck.

Maybe the sights were low?

Three shots later, and I’d landed three solid hits on their head. As I rolled the hammer back for what should be the final round in the revolver, I blinked and felt a strange sensation overcome my whole body, almost like one of those full body shivers you get when you’re scared.

I noticed that the target ahead of me didn’t look right, as if it was warped? Was something wrong with my eyes? I looked down at the revolver in my hand and noticed it looked far bigger than I remember it being, and the silver colour it had initially been was now solid black, and the wooden polymer handle now looked like a dark wood.

Was I fucking losing it?

I did my best to ignore it, looking down towards my target ag-

Why the fuck was Naomi standing in the range?

“Naomi, what the fuck are you doing?”

All she did was gurgle at me, to my horror half of her fucking head was missing, as if it’d been blown off, there was also clear evidence that a round had tore through her neck as it spewed blood in violent spurts like a faulty water fountain.

Her remaining eye stared directly into my own, glassy and dead.

“Kid!”

I blinked, dropping the gun on the table as I backed away from the range.

“Hank?”

“I’m here, kid. You alright?” Hank said loudly, shouting loud enough for me to hear through the ear protection.

“Yeah, just… give me a minute.”

I rubbed my eyes and looked out towards Naomi… the target, I mean.

Yep, just paper.

I took of my ear protection and looked at Hank.

“Sorry, just… had a twinge in my arm, nothing special, let me get that last round down range.”

Hank looked at me with clear scrutiny, as if he was not only bothered about my blatant lie, but also disappointed about just how thinly veiled the subterfuge was.

“... Alright kid, get your last round down range and we’ll move onto a handgun.” He said with a plain tone.

I caught a glance at Gregory standing a few metres behind us, looking at us, or rather me, with a similar cocktail of concern, pity and disappointment.

I nodded at him, slipping my ear protection back on and quickly picking up the revolver and sending the round down range with a level of speed and precision I didn’t know I was capable of, smacking the target right between where the eyes would be.

Besides that… odd moment there, There was one thing I was certain of, beyond anything else…

Using a firearm like this felt oddly cathartic… So wrong, yet so right…

To Be Continued…