Death and Rebirth (Prologue 4)

My plan worked! I managed to cut them off by the intersection using the long body of the cargo truck as a blockage.

I immediately got off the truck and fired two shots at the windshield of the driver's seat, killing the driver of the SUV. With my gun still up, I then moved cautiously towards the passenger seat where Lucy and the other kidnapper were. Fortunately, the last kidnapper was unconscious. I quickly moved to where Lucy was and called out to her.

"J-John? Is that you?" She weakly replied. She was bleeding a little bit from her head. She had a mild concussion from the crash and was dazed.

"Lucy! It's me!" I answered.

"John!" After confirming that it was me, she jumps into me with a hug.

"Hey, you all right?" I ask her.

"Y-Yes I think so." She said as she let go and moved her hand to her head, rubbing it. She winced a bit due to the pain.

"Come on, we got to go!" I told her.

"Wait! We can't!" Lucy suddenly yelled out.

"What do you mean we can't? We can't stay here." I told her.

"Y-You should go. It's better if you were to leave me…" She said with a sad look.

"And why is that?" I demanded.

"It's just- it's just that... they're after me." She shuddered.

"Who's after you?"

She hesitated before uttering a name. "...Carman Saint..."

My eyes widened hearing the name. Carman Saint, a highly wanted man who is wanted for multiple counts of robbery and murder in the past and is now a mob boss running human trafficking. Now I have a good guess of why they were after her. But why so much trouble for one girl?

Despite how much shit I'm looking at, looking that the girl reminds me a bit of my sister. I was determined to help.

I then moved to the bodies of the kidnappers in the car and started looking through their belongings for anything I could use to help me discern the destination that they were heading to. Taking their cellphones, a note, and an insignia, I then turned to Lucy and told her my next plan.

"Lucy, listen. Head to my house. You'll be safe there for a while." I told her.

"Wha- wait! What are you going to do?" She asked concerns in her voice.

"I'll be back. If I don't come back, head to this address. They'll help you." I said as I handed her a note of my uncle's address and then told her my house address.

"Wait! Wait! John don't!" Lucy shouted and tried to stop me, but she was too late as I already hopped onto the truck and sped away.

• • •

I didn't actually have a plan once I found their location. Looking at this again, I could see how fucking stupid this is. One man taking on an entire mob gang with no plan but to go in either stealth or gun blazing. I gotta be fucking insane, but then again, I'm usually known to be fucking crazy (or intoxicated, usually at the same time) and it's not like I have much to lose. That girl reminds me too much of my sister and she desperately needed help. I guess that's my weak spot.

That or I'm still not completely sober and was winging it the entire time. I did have a drink or two before leaving the house. That's just swell. A semi-fully functioning alcoholic taking down an entire mob gang. They always said my drinking problems will kill me one day. Story of my fucking no-life.

As I drive towards the location I got from the information on the cellphones, the note, and the insignia I recognized, I can immediately tell where they were holding up. An abandoned warehouse yet there are armed sentries around. Just how sloppy are these guys? Easily tracked and easily found? Why haven't the cops dealt with them already? Unless there's some shady shit going on.

I slowly move toward the warehouse. A 14-wheeler isn't exactly the most stealthy vehicle so the armed sentries spotted me quickly and immediately opened fire.

"Screw stealth it is," I said while flooring it.

As I started picking up speed and drove towards the sentries, they shot one of my tires causing me to lose control.

"Shit!" I cursed.

At this time, I figured that if I were to crash, might as well be the warehouse. I'll wing it from there.

I steered toward the warehouse to the best of my ability while flooring the gas pedal as hard as I could. As the truck sped towards the warehouse at top speed, I ducked and braced for impact.

'Here goes!'

• • •

Inside an abandoned warehouse, gang members could be seen moving about. A crowd of mobsters was gathering around at a table full of weapons and firearms of various kinds. At the center, Carman Saint was speaking to the table.

"No one rests until we get her," Carman stated while looking around making sure everyone understands before continuing.

"I got word from the precinct about some guy named John," Carman said.

"Start with that friend of hers." Carman reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

"This is his address. One of us managed to follow him home for it. We can start there. He lives alone so you can use whatever means to get him to give up the girl." He stated.

"I want to see him on that chair, tied up with the girl, by the end of the day." He declared.

"What I don't want to see is anymore fuck ups, understand?" He asserted to everyone.

"I'll make sure to burn him once I see this bastar-" he announced but was cut off by a loud crash.

*Boom*

Suddenly, a large truck crashed through the wall and rammed right into the table where everyone was crowding at. The truck then crashes into the opposite wall of the warehouse before stopping.

As the dust clears and noises died down, the scene that appeared in the warehouse looked like a 14-wheeler truck just crashed through it. And that's because that's exactly what happened. Broken crates, random objects, and debris were scattered everywhere.

Many mobsters were seen on the floor either dead or unconscious. Some were still conscious but were on the floor in pain. There are still some remaining gang members around that were unscathed by the crash either because they jumped out of the way on time or that they were standing further away from the crash.

Carman Saint has better days as he was a bit bruised up from the crash while a heavy steel shelf was crushing his legs. He was groaning in pain struggling to free himself from the fallen shelf.

'Fuck! My back…' I cursed internally.

I also didn't look too good either. I had bruises in many places and was bleeding a bit from my head. My back was aching either from the impact or just the usual back pain I got as a souvenir from the military. Probably both.

I moved my head up and looked out of my truck to see the mess I caused. Then I made eye contact with the mob boss.

We both made eye contact with each other and were surprised at the same time but for different reasons. My reasons were that I managed to find the person I needed to kill so easily so soon. While his reasons were that he did not expect to already see the man he wanted to burn so soon making such a messy entrance.

I opened the door and stumbled out with the gun in my hand ready to take aim at my targets just as the mob boss turned to his men and was about to shout for their attention.

But then a noise interrupted and made me freeze in my tracks terror-stricken and made all of our hearts stop in horror.

The sound of a spark by the fuel tank of the truck went off. At that very brief moment, both the mob boss and I turned our heads back facing each other and made eye contact once again but with a look of horror realization.

"Oh, fuc-" I uttered right as I was cut off by the biggest explosion I have ever experienced as the explosion instantly engulfed everything in the room.

The explosion of the truck blew up the entire warehouse killing everyone inside. I felt nothing from the explosion as my vision was immediately cut to white and all I could hear was a faint ringing sound in my ears.

Did I just die? Is this death?

Best bets are, probably yes. Nothing but white in my vision and an indefinite ringing sound in my ears, probably from the explosion. I can't even see or feel my body.

If I really did die then... sucks I guess. No use freaking out now. I had a good run... It was only a matter of time. I don't have many regrets. I'm only 30, which was still quite young, but I had already seen enough shit. Like a drifter, all I ever did was drift away. That's just it. I'm just bad luck... I just hope that my auntie and uncle are all right. I also hope that Lucy is safe and that she has safely reached them.

I'm also guessing this is either heaven or hell. Probably hell or limbo of some kind. I don't expect to be with Jesus after taking so many lives during my military days and just a while ago. One can argue that I was just doing my job to survive or that they were evil murderers but I still took lives nonetheless. I am no hero. I won't try to justify my actions. Not anymore especially at this point. To kill and to justify killing is the first step in becoming a murderer and a first step in becoming what you killed. I'll meet whatever maker I'll meet up here and I'll answer for every shot I took. My only regrets are the ones I couldn't save.

'I'm sorry, Violet...'

After some time had passed, the ringing in my ears started to fade away and my visions started coming back which I found a little strange. As my vision and eyesight started to recover and focus from the blurriness, what came to view horrified me.

Fire! Everywhere! My entire vision was covered in nothing but the sight of fire. My entire body is engulfed in flame!

"Shit! Fuck! I'm on fire!" I exclaimed. Is this from the truck explosion? Or could it be damnation?

I frantically tried to move around to find any kind of solution to this problem but for some reason, I can't get a grip of my surroundings. It doesn't even feel like I'm standing.

As I was trying to make sense of what the fuck is going on, I noticed something strange. The flames aren't hurting at all. At most, it just felt a bit warm. What is going on here?

While I was trying to ascertain this strange phenomenon with the flames that are currently engulfing my body yet with the absence of any pain, I tried looking through the flames and focusing hard to see if I could make out my surroundings. What I saw utterly shocked me to the core.

What came to view was something unfathomable, the sight of a massive green landscape and me being hundreds of thousands of feet high above the ground. It took me a moment to process what I'm seeing. Now I get what that feeling was. I'm falling from thousands of feet in the air! What the fuck!

'What the fuck!' I screamed internally.

"WHAT THE FUCK!!" I screamed out loud. During the moment, I failed to even hear the sound of my own voice.

"Fuck me! I'm falllinnngggg!!" I continue to scream while panicking.

First I'm on fire, now I'm fucking falling from thousands of feet in the air! Did the truck explosion blow me high up into the air? No, that's impossible. At this height, the kind of explosion that would take to blow me this high up in the air, I would instead be in pieces or incinerated to ashes. But I'm alive and moving right now as crazy as that sounds. Am I stuck in some kind of dream? I fucking hope so!

As I spend more time processing the situation, I can make out that I am about 200,000 feet in the air and I am falling fast. Way too fast. Like a meteor. Is this what the flames are from? From entering the atmosphere? If so then why wasn't I burnt up? How is my body even holding up from this? The flames aren't even hurting. And how the fuck did I go from blowing up in a truck explosion to falling from space? This can't be real.

While I was failing to comprehend this unbelievable situation, I noticed that I am indeed falling as fast as a meteor because the ground is approaching fast as it looked like I already covered half the distance within such a short period of time. I only have about a hundred thousand feet left before I hit the ground. I need to think of something fast. No matter how crazy, sudden, and impossible this looks, focus on surviving first.

I was falling at a slight angle, so it'll be a little tricky. I started to do what I could to slow down my descent by spreading out my body into an X-shape. However, this doesn't seem to help at all, not when I'm falling like a fucking meteor. I have skydived before, but it doesn't even come close to this extreme level falling at the speed of about 25,000 mph.

As the ground got closer, I could clearly start to make out the landscape. Grassy hills and plains with countless green trees all around. As pretty as it looks, I'm about to go splat on the floor as it already looked like I only have about 50,000 feet left in the air before I do. I tried to look for anything that could help with the fall, but not even trees would help when falling like this. I couldn't spot any large body of water either, something to help with the fire.

'Shit! C'mon think! There's gotta be something I can do!' I desperately thought.

Only about 10,000 feet left as my thought raced to try to think of a solution but came up with nothing. Not in a type of situation no normal human being could ever be in. Just when I thought I somehow survived the truck explosion, I'm gonna die anyway falling from the sky. It's either that or I'm in some crazy dream.

'Damn it! Wake the fuck up!' I desperately tried to wake up from what I thought was a dream but to no avail.

I was only about a thousand feet in the air. I screamed at the top of my lungs at the sight of the fast-approaching ground about to hit my face.

"WAAAHHHHHHHHHAHHAHHHAHHAHHHAHHHHH!!!" I cried and screamed right as I landed face-first into the grass.

*Boom*

A crash could be heard distances away as a large dirt explosion could be seen. At the crash site, a large crater could be seen with a person lying in the center of it.

"Ow... my back..." I groaned in pain. I could barely hear myself with this ringing sound in my ears from everything that just transpired.

I no longer think that this is some kind of dream. Not with this excruciating pain I'm feeling all over. It was worse than anything I have ever experienced.

My back aches from the impact while my head and neck were screaming in pain as well as a bit of everywhere else, but... that's about it. I was somehow able to survive a crash from space with nothing more than an aching back, neck pain, and a painful bump on my head. How is that even possible?

Grimacing from the throes of pain, I unsteadily got on my feet, stumbling a bit while brushing off dirt from my face. I was unsteady at first since my body felt unfamiliar for some odd reasons, but as I was doing that, for some strange reason my body felt really light and full of energy. Like the kind of energy I had from my early military days that I thought I had lost, only far greater.

I straightened my posture to help compensate for my disoriented self, just to be able to stand up straight without any problems or inconveniences. Another strange thing that got me even more befuddled was that the pain I was feeling all over earlier was already starting to slowly go away. The ringing sound was also starting to go away as well allowing me better focus on my current situation.

Pushing the strange subject aside for now, I inspected my surroundings and noticed that I'm in a crater. A crater I'm guessing was just created by me. While I was standing there contemplating, I took notice of yet another strange thing.

'Not only that my body feels really light right now but my viewpoint also seems smaller as well. Did I shrink? Did the fall have anything to do with it?'

I was still too stupefied from what just happened that it didn't have my full attention at that time. I was more focused on the crater I made and the event that transpired before that so I decided to push it away for now.

'What the fuck just happened?' I thought. That's when I decided to check my body to see if everything was intact, but stopped the moment I saw my hands.

Two small pale slender hands, albeit covered in dirt, came into my view. Seeing how small my hands have become, I started waking up from my earlier puzzlement. All my arms and feet are also different. All looked pale white, thin, small, delicate, and feminine like a child's.

'What the fuck?' I thought as the shocking feeling hit me harder than a bucket of ice water.

These limbs were completely unfamiliar to me. I was getting more and more confused by the second.

That's when I noticed my hair when some of it was in my view. As I brushed it away, I held a couple of strands of hair and noticed that they were long, silky, and purple-like lavender that stretches down to my thighs. I was dumbstruck at the sight of this unfamiliar, yet somehow familiar hair that clearly belongs to me.

I then looked down to check my whole body and was bewildered by the sight. Not only that I was completely naked, but this body is that of a child. Nowhere close to my well-built adult body I had before. And my chest, though it was flat and that it was hard to tell since this body is that of a child, it was very soft to the touch.

'Eh?' I stood there muddled at the situation. I broke out in a cold sweat as I didn't know what to think of this surreal situation I find myself in.

'It can't be…' I thought as a terrifying premonition started creeping up on me. Not only that my body is that of a child but...

Astonishment and fear wash all over me, and that's when I decided to do one last check-up. I looked at the place between my small legs… and refused to believe it.

"It's gone…" I said as I stood there in disbelief.

I even moved my hands down there just to make sure if I missed my 'little buddy' somehow and god forbid I was feeling something other than the familiar feeling of my 'little buddy'.

"It's… it's really gone…" I astoundingly spoke.

While I was beyond shocked at this new revelation, it took me too long to finally notice my unfamiliar voice which I failed to notice earlier.

A cute, soft, and childish voice came to my ears. The tone of my voice was a far higher pitch matching that of a little girl. It wasn't the usual husky voice I was used to at all. But it wasn't just that. What shocked me further was that the sound of the voice doesn't just sound like any voice from any little girl. The voice sounded almost ethereal and inhuman. It was far more sweet, soothing, melodious, and enchanting than any voice belonging to any human I've ever heard. Almost as if it belonged to a divine being.

But the odd melodic voice aside, there's no denying at this point. I have undoubtedly turned into a little girl... fuck my life.

"EHHHHHHHHH!?" A cute high-pitched shriek could be heard coming out of me as I could no longer suppress the urge to scream in astonishment and in questioning the universe.