Xavier sucked stale air into his lungs and held it in. Ears straining to catch the sound that stirred his slumber. There it was again, the contact of a metal capped boot on the cracked concrete covering the hallway floor.

He lifted his head from the stiff pillow and sat up, the thin sheet slipping off his scarred torso. His spine stiffened as the boot’s contact with the floor reached him again. Louder this time. It could not be just a random passer-by, the footsteps sounded sinister, almost threatening. Like the march of the reaper with lead bullets for a scythe.

Rolling off the thin mattress that lay on the floor Xavier found himself hunched over in the centre of his dusty, bare apartment. It was the kind of apartment that had next to nothing in it but still managed to look like the entirety of New York city dumps their garbage there. 

Xavier had the sort of body that had no choice but to be lean and muscly with his line of work but still tended to the skinnier side. Not by choice but rather by the lack of affordable and nutrient-full food. He had wiry long blonde hair that could cover his eyes with ease when left unchecked. Such eyes were once a piercing blue but had long become darker and more haunted as Xavier was exposed to the streets of New York.

He grimaced as the freshly grown skin on his stomach stretched and sent a sharp spike of pain throughout his body.

Modern medicine allowed a man like Xavier to recover from eight bullet holes through his stomach with its only drawback being the sizable cost. It was quite ironic to him that the medicine that saved him might be the cause of his fast-approaching death.

Fastening his resolve, Xavier let the adrenaline set in, allowing him to almost, but not completely, ignore the stabbing pains racking his body. 

Rays of yellow sun pierced through the metal blinds causing bars of light to cover Xavier’s face. The boot made contact once more, closer this time. The crunch of gravel and concrete gave away the approaching behemoths size.

Without a glance he reached beneath his mattress and pulled out his trusty Vito 20. The Vito 20 was dark in colour with a black grip and a deep grey barrel, finished off with a clean white V etched into either side. Bought from Vark Manufacturers before they were permanently removed from the production line, it was the highest quality semi-automatic pistol Xavier could afford and it was still barely passable as a gun. His fingers wrapped around the worn grip, his index brushing against the trigger.

Much of the gun was made from steel, aside from the old polymer grip, resulting in a heavier than normal sidearm. The gun being made from steel was quite a rarity due to the sheer superiority that titanium and tungsten alloy provide for most modern weaponry. But Xavier knew it provided him with an ace up his sleeve; it was undetectable by the Armada Defence Corporation’s Security Drones and Security Scanners.

ADC was the bane of an outcast like Xavier’s life. They provided the police forces of New York with high quality exclusive weaponry with expensive technology, such as DNA secure triggers, tracking bullets and non-lethal nerve stunning pulses.

Shaking himself back to the present, Xavier holstered the Vito 20, which was always kept fully loaded with its 10 heavy caliber bullets ready to shred whatever he points at. A slight shiver of excitement and adrenaline kicked through his body at the impending combat. 

But first he slid over to his kitchen. ‘Kitchen’ was quite a generous description for the miniscule nook crammed into the corner of his apartment with nothing but a faulty sink and an old food printer set on the counter. The kitchen faced the wall opposite Xavier’s bed and lay directly to the left of the door. The counter was quite likely made entirely from grime and old food left out for over a decade.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Crouching by his creaky cabinets Xavier reached over his head and placed a hand onto the sad excuse for a counter. His fingers quickly wrapped around what he was looking for which he promptly shoved into his mouth. The delicious but slightly chemical taste of his left out burrito filled him with a soft moan that touched his soul. Priorities in order, he quickly licked the last bits off his fingers, put on a massive grin and launched himself across the room

Diving headfirst, Xavier dropped into a roll just as the footsteps paused right outside his door. He came up crouched behind the rancid recliner that came with the apartment which lay in the centre of the room. His well-trained hands, giving off the slightest shake of exhilaration, clasped around the pistol which rested comfortably on the arm of the chair. He trained his sights on the door.

The deep thud of metal on wood resounded through the apartment.

“Open up rodent! I’m here to collect Rogan’s money.”

Xavier recognised the voice. It belonged to the stone-faced guard that stood outside the loan sharks’ door. 

Sure, the loan shark is technically the only reason I am alive today but come on, he really expects a guy like me to cough up $4,000 in 5 days to pay for a single surgery?

Xavier held his breath. He knew prayer was futile in his situation, but he sent up a quick plea, nonetheless. Briefly he heard the hired muscle suck air into his lungs. Another heartbeat later and the door flew off its hinges taking the rusted chain-lock with it.

Air shattering cracks of sound pierced the air as Xavier fired twice through the dust and debris that was kicked up during the brute’s entry. 

8 shots left. 

While pausing for a clearer shot he felt his muscles tense in apprehension and his leg twitch ever so slightly. The apartment had a solid layer of dust covering the floor that Xavier had proudly built up over his few weeks stay and with a single swift kick to his door, the entire apartment now became a swirling mess of debris. A brief calm before the storm allowed him to watch the dust circle slowly down to settle on the concrete.

A freight train of sound hit Xavier’s eardrums as the thundering of high velocity bullets snapped through the dust and dry walls of his apartment. He ducked below his pitiful cover to avoid the obviously untrained and rather ridiculous spray of bullets.

What a waste of quality ammunition… Xavier tsked in his head

After the spray ended Xavier poked his head over the recliner to see a giant silhouette of a man step through his doorway. The behemoth lent forward, visibly squinting while the freshly thrown-up debris circled around him.

Xavier’s suspicions on the man’s identity were confirmed when the recognizable bionic arm reflected light through the dust. The sleek titanium arm clutched the trigger of an even slicker assault rifle. The origin of the weapon was defined by the ADC tag along its barrel.

Assuming the behemoth wasn’t completely dense and would figure out the only place he could be hiding would be the tiny bit of shelter in the room. The recliner. Xavier made to move.

The debris and dust, a generous gift, provided him enough cover to dart to the wall just left of the doorway, right back to the kitchen. Unfortunately, his attacker caught his movement through the haze and unleashed a flurry of bullets throughout the room. 

Somehow, Xavier reached the wall and slid behind the small nook that encompassed his kitchen, all while coughing a lungful of dust lightly into his hand. Now his adrenaline was really kicking in. Xavier almost bounced on the balls of his feet in a rather disturbing burst of excitement.  

By now the monster of a man had stepped through to the centre of the room, finally leaving the most prominent area of the dust cloud. Xavier saw the perfect opportunity. With a subtle and rather habitual flick Xavier moved the shaggy blonde hair that now drooped into his face out of the way. He then threw himself back through the dusty haze and into the hallway like a scampering rat.

Turning around and leaning his gun against the left side of the doorway, Xavier trained his cross-hairs to the centre of the room where he calculated his rather idiotic target would still be standing, dumbfounded. Four shots. Four perfectly executed lead scythes sent to reap his reaper.

6 shots down. 4 left.

Apparently having a tiny apartment worked in his favour as grunts of pain reached Xavier’s heightened hearing through the echoing of gunshots.

With only four more bullets in the magazine he held his angle as the debris finally thinned enough for him to see the behemoth's corpse collapsed into his recliner in a way that made Xavier chuckle with the irony.