The skies were dark above the city, the moon and stars hidden by somber thunderclouds.
Reaching for the obscured heights, their outlines blurred by the heavy rainfall, tall edifices of metal and concrete towered above their surroundings like giant petrified ghosts lit up from within by the poor souls still slaving away at the office despite the late hour.
A distance away from the immobile colossuses, the buildings gradually lost stature and prestige while the streets below lost the bright colorfulness of the business district, the dens of entertainment and the closing shopping malls, replaced by the tamer glow of residential areas.
Further South, a large band of sinuous obscurity cut the city in two. A river, bloated by Heaven's tears, which for all intent and purpose could be likened to the mythical Styx. Beyond its waters, darkness ruled in patches, like a gangrenous disease, eating away at the urban lighting.
Decrepit houses. Dirty pavement. Broken cars. Haggard faces of vagrants running for shelter from the sudden downpour. Scantily clad girls spitting blasphemously at the elements forcing them to retire for the night. Brutish men readjusting their jackets to keep dry their half-heartedly concealed weapons.
What feeble radiance subsisted in this parts only revealed the telltale symptoms of a decaying society.
* * *
Hurried footsteps echoed in a dark alleyway indistinguishable from dozens of others. Despite the drumming of the rain, the irregular noise of heavy stomps reverberated loudly against the brick walls covered in graffiti, the dented garage doors, and the overflowing dumpsters.
Around a corner, a man appeared in the flickering light of a broken street lamp. His shirt was soaked and clinging to his athletic frame. Blood not his own was splattered across his chest and face. He was limping. A hole pierced his right tight, source to a dark reddish stream staining his pants.
He groaned and wheezed. The bullet had entered his leg but hadn’t come out. Every step introduced him to a new realm of pain. Yet he didn't slow down. He did not dare to. The terror in his mind overrode the distress of his body.
For he’d seen it.
Hell.
Mummified corpses. Skin rotting and falling off screaming victims. Ripped flesh. Broken bones. Severed limbs. Torrents of blood, everywhere, pooling on the ground, in the gutter, slowly washed away by the rain that had suddenly started. It was as if the heavens themselves were giving a hand in hiding the evidence of the massacre.
And the culprit of the slaughter. A monster in human shape. Its soft chuckles still haunted the man. He remembered them exactly, as they had been ringing in the damp air when his accomplices were being torn to shreds with the ease and uncaring delight of a child pulling wings off a fly.
Monster. Abomination. Demon.
Those words were flooding the man's mind as he recalled the silhouette that had suddenly ambushed his group on the way back from what was supposed to be an easy job.
At first, he’d thought the rumors were exaggerated. It was often the case with rumors. Suffice for the latest super-powered vigilante in town to act slightly more ruthless than average, and everyone began to swear the Devil had ascended.
That was it, he’d thought. Only rumors. Superstitions and urban legend. He'd believed he would be safe with the number of men he'd brought along. Strong, old hands, not ones to be frightened by some nutjob in spandex. He’d also borrowed a couple of “enhanced”, courtesy of the boss. Nothing could go wrong.
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He’d believed it. He really had.
Now he knew better. Or perhaps worse. Because he couldn’t truly comprehend what had just happened.
Monster. Demon.
Death.
And his own power was useless in the rain! Why did it have to rain?!
As he turned another corner, he slipped on the watery pavement and almost collided with a meshed fence blocking the way. A dead end!
“Fuck!” He slammed his fist against the wires. “Fuck! FUCKING FUCK FUCK!!”
For an instant, he panicked. He felt trapped, helpless, and maddening fear gripped his guts.
But it only lasted for an instant. Taking a deep breath, he forced his heart rate to calm down. Fuck it! He wasn’t some cowardly greenhorn. He’d been doing this for a long time. It wasn’t the first time his life was being threatened, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. People in this business rarely died from old age. The fence wasn't even that tall. Just climb over it, he told himself.
Ignoring the pain in his leg, he grabbed the meshed wires and started pulling his weight upwards. He was physically fit. He could do it. The slippery metal dug into his fingers, but he ignored that too. Soon his hands reached the top of the fence. He let out a small sigh of relief.
The whistle of something whipping through the air was all the warning he received.
An iron grip caught his bad leg and it was abruptly yanked backward. Unbearable pain shot through his body. His mind blanked for a moment and he released his hold on the fence. When he regained his awareness, he was flying through the air.
No. Not flying. He’d been thrown.
His body slammed into a wall with a sinister crack that came both from the bricks and his backbone. Like a disarticulated puppet, he slid to the ground, small pieces of hardened clay falling along with him. His face landed in a muddy puddle. He coughed, nearly choked, but he couldn't muster the strength to move.
A dark chuckle rose above the rumble of thunder and rain.
“You have been a very bad man, Donald.”
The man flinched at the mention of his name.
The smooth distinguished voice, with its undercurrent of casual playfulness, seemed to make a mockery of the carnage Donald had just witnessed. It was as if, for this monster, slaughtering a dozen people was just another Friday evening, then he’d go watch football and fuck his pretty monster wife or enjoy a game poker with his monster friends over a glass of whiskey distilled from the tears of newborns.
Then again, if the rumors were to be trusted, it probably was.
With a grunt, Donald forced himself to bend his neck and look up.
There he was. The Monster. Crouching low. Forearms resting on his knees. Staring down with his head cocked to the side in pondering. Dressed all in black from head to toe. Soaked black pants and soaked black hoodie dripping water undoubtedly mixed with gore. A hooded bloody black demon in the rain.
Lightning split the sky, followed closely by rolling thunder. In the bleak flash that illuminated the world for a heartbeat, Donald caught again a glimpse what was hidden in the shadows of that hood.
The white skull with oversized teeth stared back at him, its left side covered in blood-red tribal paintings looking like claw marks. It stared back at him with those damnable eyes. Oh Lord, the eyes! Twin slanted dark slits filled with bottomless abyss, so black it seemed to deny even the very existence of light, along with life and hope.
Without moving, the demon talked again in its sweet voice.
“Tell me, Donald... Do you fear death?”
The man heard, but he could not answer.
A hand reached down for him, looking human but covered in pulsating black veins. In his mind, Donald saw illusory black chitinous claws overlapping with each digit. Sharp and curved, they were like scythes approaching him to reap his soul.
“Because you should.”
The man whimpered, squirmed, tried to crawl away, but he was simply too slow.
Cold fingers caressed his cheek. The touch was surprisingly gentle.
The pain that came after wasn't.
Donald screamed. He screamed until he couldn’t form words anymore. Screamed until he vomited blood. His agony echoed into the night, amongst the fury of the heavens, lightning and roaring thunder, carrying both a warning and a promise to anyone able to hear, and to those who didn’t.
“No matter how fast you run,
No matter how far you go,
Death always catches up...
Some things never change.”
* * * * *