I know exactly what I’m doing... 

This was the thought drifting through Ian’s mind as he sat there bleeding on the cold floor.  Already his vision blurred at the edges.  And he knew this was it. No more hiding, no more running.  He looked down at his seeping wound and pressed his hand tight against it.  

No more! 

He looked up at his friends, still fighting desperately with everything they had.  He pressed harder against the wound.  He was not going to lie down and die, not when he was so close.  A shape appeared in his fading vision, he could no longer tell friend from foe, and they reached out to him.  He swatted at them like a stubborn child who didn’t want his medicine, and his efforts were about as effective.  There was a warm sensation of pressure on his abdomen and his wound wasn’t quite so painful.  He felt his eighth, maybe ninth, wind coming on.  He could do this, he just had to stand up. 

Ian pushed his body up, using the wall behind him for support.  As he climbed to his feet, his mind ran over all the circumstances that had led him here.  Everything he’d sacrificed.  Everything he’d lost. All the unfathomable suffering that the world would endure if he couldn’t get up.  He’d fought so hard to prevent that, too hard to simply give up now. He drew in a wet, ragged breath.

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Okay, you can do this.

“This can all stop if you merely accept the inevitable, Ian!”  A voice called out.  There was more, but the rage that voice brought on blocked it all out and pushed Ian to his feet.  

Digging deep, Ian latched onto that unfathomable, unyielding spark which always gave hope in the darkest of hours.  He turned towards the voice and focused everything that he had left into putting one foot in front of the other.  Blood continued to seep slowly through his fingers as he pressed heavily on his stomach.  He gritted his teeth and pushed on. He would not allow his friends to die for him, he would not allow the darkness to win, and he would never forgive those that stood in his way.

He stumbled through a doorway and out into a hall filled with people.  Blearily he looked around and then started his trek forward.

All right, I have about twenty solid feet to pull this off… I know exactly what I’m doing.