7 Fluke

I would have thought it would be a more pleasant experience to regain possession of my senses, but the moment I found consciousness granted back to me by whatever forces of nature compelled me to do so, I found myself damning those selfsame forces.

The first thing I noticed was the stench. Piss and shit.

What I noticed next was the feeling. The moisture in my own pants, the former of the stenches I realized then to be my own. Damnit, I thought to myself, now feeling for the latter, praying that the other strong stench I detected was not my own as well. I was able to surmise quick enough that it wasn't.

It wasn't the worst thing, I decided, my whole life spent in the slums teaching me one thing above all else, and that being humility.

It had taught me something else too, however. Freedom, not a soul in the world able to tell me what to do, but as I tried to move now, finding my arms roped to the wall behind me as I simply tried to move to wipe my eyes, I found that stripped from me as well.

Where autonomy was torn away, however, memory came to fill its place as I was suddenly made conscious of my throat, the soreness, the breath that had been taken away from me, and suddenly, the question of "Where am I?" The cry, uttered out of pure instinct, I had no doubt, was bound to fall on death ears, were there even ears to listen.

I found the images flooding back, standing in the alley, feeling the life choked out of me, now finding my heartrate accelerating, beating against my chest, prompting no shortage of panicked breaths to sound out of me, desperate for the same air I'd lost only minutes, no, hours, days? How long have I been here? Where's here? Who's doing? Why? Why? Why?

Why. A question that meant nothing and would bring no meaningful answer in being asked. It didn't matter, 'why'. I was here. Point is that I was.

There was a relief at that to being here in the first place. I wasn't dead. That was reason enough.

Naturally, what normally would have been a celebratory occasion—being alive that was, was now rendered far less appreciable by the state of condition I presently found myself in, trapped in a room, manacled by the wrists, no idea where the hell I was.

I need to get out of here.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that I would get nowhere struggling against the ropes that bound me. I was small, even for my age, at least, for normal people who were my age. By slum standards, I was about average for my age if not a bit taller. Being under nourished for your entire life, however, it didn't exactly do much to build up muscle mass. I was more likely to cut through my arm by struggling against the ropes than I was to get them to budge by even an inch.

Slipping through them wasn't exactly an option either. It didn't seem to me that my captors had made my comfort a priority of theirs as neither of my wrists were granted any breathing room to move, struggle, or make a desperate effort of sliding out.

My legs were available to me, little good that did.

I was stuck. That was beyond certain. I couldn't move. My heart rate had been allowed some time to slow as I focused my energy on the potential of escape, on options, only to find that there were none. My heart was accelerating into a race again.

I want to get out.

I want to get out.

I don't want to die.

I don't want to die.

My mind tried to play the game of rationality, to tell me that the fact wasn't dead yet meant something.

The rest of me wasn't too keen on listening, however.

"Help!" I screamed into the void-the room left utterly black save for the sliver of light that emitted beneath the seemingly wooden door.

As though it's fucking useful to know what material it's made of.

"Let me go!" I shouted out, as though the 'authority' of my high pitch squealed would compel whoever was in hearing range to suddenly decide to release me.

"Please!" I now called out, placing all remaining bets I could make on the newfound mercy of whatever party had me dead to rights.

All 3 attempts would remain unanswered. I was alone.

Am I going to die here? I found myself wondering as the minutes passed. A younger version of myself may have felt compelled to question if I was even alive, or if I found myself in some realm of the afterlife , whatever the hell it was.

But no, I realized. I wasn't dead. I'd been alive in the real world long enough to know what darkness looked like, what piss and shit smelled like, what overpowering fear felt like. This was real.

"Look," I called out again now, wagering that perhaps I was being listened to, or perhaps, wherever I was, I might catch the perking ear of some passerby otherwise unknowing of my presence. All I could do was talk. My present circumstances didn't afford much else. "I don't know why I'm here, but we can talk about this, alright?"

I was a talker. There wasn't much I considered myself good at, but talking was one of them. Hell, I'd managed to talk 2 warring gangs into not killing me for the better part of the last 3 years. I saw no reason why my abilities of talking should have grown any worse with time.

Or perhaps it is their patience with me that is what's worn thin.

Judging by my predicament, that thought was beginning to make all the more sense.

Is it one of the gangs? I wondered. Had I said too much? Seen too much?

Seen too much.

What first came to mind was the most obvious answer, but notwithstanding, I tried thinking of what else it may have been. The dissent in Rat ranks, that one safehouse I'd gotten raided, the Hornet who was planning on stealing from a Rat-protected shop? No. I knew what it was.

"I didn't see anything!" I cried out. "Even if I did, I won't say anything! I swear!"

Of course I won't say anything. I'll be dead.

So why am I not dead already? I still have use.

"It's better to keep me alive! There are things I know! About-"

I paused. I was making a bet now. Making a bet on who was holding me here. On whom I was selling out. If I called out my intent on selling out my captors, I was dead. Beyond all shadow of a doubt. I could, however, simply say, "the other," but anybody intelligent would see right through that.

So who was it? If it was indeed what I'd have observed with the Fire Nation supplies, then it had to be the Hornets. Right? Why would the Rats do this? Especially when I had been with Reek? Unless he was part of it.

No.

No, he wouldn't do that. He was taking me to Miro anyway. They could have just waited until then.

Unless he didn't know.

No!

I had to trust my gut. I was overthinking things, and that would get me nowhere. I took a deep breath. "There are things I know about the Rats!" I finished, not exactly confident in my choice, but at least having said it, no longer finding myself plagued by indecision, merely the knot growing in my intestines.

"Please!" I begged. "Just please, somebody! Just talk to me!"

No answer would come. I stood there, leaned forward as possible as the ropes would permit me, closing my eyes, little difference it made, putting anything and everything on my ears to decide. But there was nothing to listen to. I could have been the only person in the entire city for all I knew. Hell, the whole world. Everything I knew was within the square of darkness I found myself in, the world outside devoid of all life so far as I was concerned. No. There was no world outside of this present state. That was the cold truth of it.

And I was alone.

I stopped trying to listen. I don't know how many minutes had passed of me perching there, head cocked forward like an elephant rat that had heard me turn the corner of the alley prior to scurrying off into whatever drainage pipe or alcove it could find for itself. I let myself slump forward now, no more point in trying, letting the ropes alone hold me up. My legs were done as well, such made quite evident as I fell to my knees, scraping against the stone-cold floor as I slumped down.

All I wanted was to sleep.

The funny truth was that this wasn't even the worst position I had slept in. I'd once fallen asleep in a barrel full of wood shavings outside of some carpenter's shop, sleeping with my head to my feet, back to the bottom of the barrel, eyes closed so as to avoid the wrath of the wood shavings from infiltrating them, just counting down the hours while the "Kings of Taisho" searched the entire city for the punks that had just gotten away with stealing from them, somehow managing to fall asleep in the process, waking a few hours later with a mouthful of wood shavings and sawdust.

Granted, I was smaller then, that having been 5 years ago

Those were better days, I considered. Me and Mini, we made things work. Got away with screwing over Taisho's biggest gang, but we managed.

I shook my head.

No we didn't. They had not, in fact, been better days. We were constantly on the run. We lived one day to the next, relying on spotting somebody better off than us one day after another to figure out just how to exploit them. The sad thing was that it worked for quite a long while.

Until it didn't.

For one of us, at least.

I felt as though I had been on the verge of sleep, or had only been within its confines for but a few seconds until the door in front of me opened.

My eyes were open and looking up at the source of light behind the ominous silhouette dominating the room for long enough to catch, well, nothing really, merely a far wall made of stone just as the one I was bound to.

Little good that does me.

I was attempting to discern more of the outside world before the door began to shut, a noise other than my own voice finally filling the otherwise maddening silence.

"For fuck's sake," he said. "I thought you'd never shut up."

I thought I recognized the voice, but my suspicions were only confirmed when the torch in his hands suddenly became the dominating light source of the room, and I allowed my heart to almost flutter in that moment, to let itself believe that I might not die here.

"Danev!" I called out, a smile I couldn't hide rising to my face, now bearing an overpowering beam of joy.

I couldn't be sure by the light if his face bore a similar expression. In that moment, however, it mattered little. I had been granted some semblance of hope, and that was more than anything I could ask for.

"Hey, Fluke."

I could care less just what it was that he was calling me. It was somebody I knew, somebody talking to me. I was thankful as hell in addition that it was indeed the Hornets who had me rather than the Rats who I had just vocalized my intent to snitch on.

I wondered now just how much Danev had heard. Clearly enough to know when I'd shut up. So how much? If everything, why did he choose just now to talk to me?

I considered the possibility that perhaps he was toying with me, getting payback for earlier?

No. It was something more serious than that. So what was it? I didn't find myself keen to believe that he had any intention of killing me. We were friends. Hell, about as much as you could be friends with somebody in this city, but there was something in the way he held himself, something that told me to tread lightly.

"So what's happening, man?" I asked.

"You're smart, Fluke. You know what this is."

I did. I breathed out, figuring I may as well repeat what I'd said earlier on the off chance he hadn't heard. "I won't say anything. I swear. I saw nothing."

"Of course you're going to say that, Fluke. Then we let you go, you run to the Rats, tell them everything, and go on with your life."

Was he wrong? I didn't have a response save, "I won't. You know me."

What a stupid thing to say.

"I do," he sighed.

Damnit! Why did I say that!? "Wait! I can still make it worth your while. There are things I know about the Rats that I can tell you. You don't have to kill me."

He doesn't have to kill me now.

Then again, every second of extra life counts.

"What can you tell me, Fluke?" He asked, leaning against the wall, holding the torch far enough now that I could see his face. He was as serious as I was desperate right now. Which is to say, he was pretty serious. "What can you tell me that you haven't already sold for a few stupid coppers?"

"I can tell you about Rats! Their names, where they hang out, what they d-"

"You think we don't already know that, Fluke? They're not exactly hiding!"

"You don't know about Miro!"

"Oh, but you do?" There was something more behind asking it just to question me. There was curiosity. This could work.

"Yes!" I called out. "Well, I was going to. I was just about to meet him. Reek was bringing me to meet him before you guys got me!"

"So you don't know about Miro."

"You can let me go! I'll talk to Miro, like originally planned. Then I'll tell you everything! Who he is, what he looks like, where he hangs out, everything!"

"Or you just run to them right away, and never come within 10 miles of us ever again.

Hard to do in a city barely that size.

"You know I'll tell you!" I defended myself. "Why wouldn't I?! That would be worth a lot!"

By his face, he couldn't refute that statement, and I even allowed myself a second of hope. Idiot.

"That's what worries me. You know why I can't just let you go, Fluke. You know what you saw, and why I can't let you tell anybody else. Hell, I should have just grabbed you the moment you saw it. Could have saved us both the effort."

"I won't tell anyone, Danev!"

"For fuck's sake, Fluke! Stop yelling and think! I've bought information from you for years now! I know what you do! The second we let you go, the second you tell somebody about what you saw. It's how you live! You know why we can't do that. I'm sorry, Fluke. I know the rules, but they just don't matter right now. We can't let you leave."

His free hand was already reaching to his side, where a rusty iron shortsword was resting in a sheath.

The sound of metal sliding.

No. No, please.

"I can join you!" It was a sheer muscular response, as though some fight or flight instinct had woken and answered for me, saying the one thing that could possibly extend my lifespan by, at the very least, a few more seconds.

"What?"

"I can join the Hornets! I'll do whatever you want. I swear!"

"The moment we turn our eyes away, you'll run."

"Then don't turn your eyes away. Keep me locked in the Hive or something. I can work! I can be useful. Just, please, Danev. Please don't kill me!"

I was staring at the ground. Desperate tears were already forming around my eyes at the sound of his blade. I don't want to die.

I don't want to die.

Please don't let me die!

Then the slide of metal again, but incomplete, not sliding out, but back in.

Please. Please.

Then the sound of footsteps, myself only then permitting myself to raise my head to observe him walking back towards the door.

"Wait," I asked, the prospect of not dying in this moment suddenly outplayed by that of being left alone in the darkness once again. "Where are you going?"

"It doesn't matter where."

"No-no-no. Please. Please don't leave me."

I don't know what I'd been expecting, but him saying, "Shut the fuck up, Fluke," was not among the things I'd expected.

The door opened momentarily only for it to close behind him once again, not even afforded another second to see where the hell I may be.

And just like that, it was the darkness once again, all that existed, all that remained.

And me.

I was still breathing.

If that didn't count for something, I didn't know what did.