Ah shit, I’m back here again…

I guess no matter how warm and fuzzy you feel inside, nightmares always still come back to you.

“How far can one slab of flesh go? Find him!”

A large man in a sleeveless shirt was berating four to five people in the mouth of the pier. They were all holding flashlights in one hand and phones in the other.

“Boss, we lost the trail of blood”

A group of people came running from the north side of the pier. Bowing to the large man, they were shouting something about the tracks ending by the water’s edge. Pointing somewhere in the parking for docked boats, three-fourths of the group of people, an approximate fifteen people ran to the boat, while the remaining one-third remained on the port.

“That’s still more people on the pier than I expected. I probably shouldn’t base my expectations on Anime villains level of intelligence...”

About ten meters away, I was peering at the group that stayed behind on the pier. I was laying low from inside a shipping crate which contained imported clothes, peering outside through a small gap in the doors.

“I better leave when the coast is clear. It’s lucky that the other group of people took the bait with my blood-soaked clothes.”

Before they were out and about looking for me, I had torn my clothes to make a makeshift binding on my arm, not to close the wound or anything, but just to prevent it from dripping farther. Though I didn’t plan on getting shot, I could use this to my advantage. I had inadvertently made a trail of blood on the way to the pier, I might as well lead them around on the goosechase. I led the blood trail to a spot on the bay right next to the pear, I then tied up my wound, retraced my footsteps on the sand, and tossed my shirt in a nearby boat. I then ran like hell to a container before they would subsequently arrive a minute later.

Inside the container, I grabbed the first packaged shirt that would fit me. I can’t fucking believe my eyes that the shirt I picked had the label “Here I am” on the back in bold white letters. Well fuck, I don’t think I have the option to change into a something more appropriate. Good thing the shirt was black though, still I can’t believe fate was being such a clown with me right now.

While the five or so people were still in my line of sight, but they weren’t necessarily looking in my general direction, I slowly opened the doors to the container and scrammed to the opposite direction, to the city.

I was only about ten meters away from my initial position when I heard a bullet hit the position I was in a few seconds ago.

“There he is! The boss was right, when they would leave, he’d come out and start running to the city! Call the boss back now! He should be hiding by the docks!”

Ah shit I really should have given these guys more credit. I run in a zigzag direction and dive further into the maze of shipping containers. From this point on, I started opening every container I passed by, not only to potentially shield me from the bullets but also to make them think I might be hiding in any of them.

“Damn they really cleared the area of any possible nuisances huh, the pier’s totally empty! Must be why they took so long to chase after me. I was careless.” I didn’t think it was a good time to think about what went wrong when running away from literally a dozen or so guys with guns, but I couldn’t help it. I was a pessimist at heart.

This isn’t some adventure game where if I die, I’d go back to a save point. I gotta fucking drill that into my head. One mistake’s death.

One of the people that remained behind caught up to me and was bursting bullets about two meters away from me. I slowed down and held unto my injured arm, making him think that he had shot me, he came closer to get a cleaner shot.

“I guess you guys really are chimps huh?”

I swung open one of the container doors just before he took aim at me and lunged at him. He tried to shoot straight at me, so the only thing I had to do was charge at him from the side, since he was also disoriented with the door. With the knife I was hiding in my pocket, I stuck it into his neck spurting a bit of blood on my hands. While still grabbing me, he slowly slid off my arms, then to my legs, as if he wanted to slow me down as much as possible. I grabbed his gun right after wiping the blood off my hand on his shirt and went on my merry way, right the fuck out of there.

“If nothing else, I kinda admire their drive...”

At the back of mind was this thought process that I got myself into this shit and that there was no use escaping, because they’d just catch you. But I don’t think that’s a good reason just to lay up and die right? I have to see this through, maybe even lady luck would smile upon this handsome face?

“Shit, he got Julius! That little shit.” A group of people close by shouted unto their phones

Wow, his name was Julius? Kinda looked like a Bob to me.

Giggling at how stupid and devoid of logic my thought process was, I hid inside a container a little further west of the place I killed the guy earlier, as two goons passed passed by the open container. I had actually back-tracked a bit from the place I was. Because they’d think I would keep opening containers that I passed and just follow the opened containers, they’d actually think the opened containers were indications that I had already passed the area. Of course, there’s the possibility that I might still be hiding in one of the containers, but with the corpse so close to my area, the natural reaction people would have is to move away from the corpse right? Because they’d think I was running away from the scene of the crime. They wouldn’t think I was opening more container doors because I was running frantically away from the scene right?

After waking up a bit, I see the coast is again clear. This time though, I make sure to look at both sides and the crevices they might be hiding in.

At this rate, they’re probably lined up at the port entrance, so the appropriate course of action would be to…

I silently sprint back to the original hiding spot I was in earlier, the beginning of the shipping container maze where the stupid shirts were in, careful not to make any noise by bumping into the opened containers.

Jukes.

I make it back to the container at the beginning of the maze. After confirming that there really weren’t any rogue elements inside, I hid back into it once again. Starting back at the position I was in earlier, peering into the open space at the end of the pier that led to open water.

“Maybe I can double-juke them and jump right into the water?”

Before I could ascertain whether that idea was good enough though, I heard a loud voice coming from one side of the open area, an area that was slowly becoming a gathering point for goons. The goons spread linearly parallel to the pier, as if fencing me out from the bay. The voice came from the large man earlier, their “Boss”, Ace. The sleeveless shirt he wore was full of sweat, but he didn’t seem tired from running around trying to find me. In fact, from the small smirk on his face, I could tell he was kind of having fun. He was wearing cargo pants like any generic B-film villain would, I wasn’t quite sure if this was ironic or not as we were also in a pier with cargo around us.

“We’ve got the area surrounded! Both the entrance of the pier and the exit has my men stationed on them. One of my lookouts that was above the shipping creights told me you were running in this direction. Dex, you sure are a smart guy, but this is the end for you. Surrender now and you might get a painless death.”

Jeez what kind of script did he rip that speech out from? I’ve seen BuTube videos have better dialogue than that sorry-ass piece

Needless to say, this was not a Hollywood action movie, there’s no way me surrendering myself would bring out a happy ending.

『 The only way to survive in this world is to crawl for survival 』

As if sensing the predicament I was in, the face of the old man flopped in my head. Ironic that it’s you that I see in maybe in the final moments of my life, after the shit I’ve put him through. I guess I’ll buy some time.

I make a makeshift fort out of the packs of clothes inside the carrier, making a pile that could potentially hide my body. I lie in the middle of the pile and start stacking the packs on top of my body, just enough that my body isn’t visible.

After about five minutes from the previous announcement, Ace was getting impatient.

“Fine! We’ll check each and every carrier in this part of the pier. Now open up all the carriers and look for him!”

In reality though, Ace had already known which container Dex was in. He only wanted to play with him and give him a bit of anxiety. Afterall, after everything he’s done, he’s gonna at least need that much fear from him right? Though he didn’t plan on letting him die just like that and was prepared to torture him to the end.

He ordered his men to open the containers beside the container Dex was in and instructed them to make as much noise as possible. Even encouraging them to shoot their guns inside the container to strike the most anxiety out of Dex.

Finally, he ordered them to open Dex’s container. It wasn’t long until they found Dex lying on a pile of packaged clothes. The three men that entered the container, after finding Dex started beating him with the butts of their pistols. After a good three minutes of beatings, he was dragged to the middle of the pier by the ends of his hair until he was made to kneel in front of Ace.

“Dexxx what took you so long? We were getting lonely, you know? We gave you a chance to turn yourself in for a painless death, why didn’t you come out?” a grinning Ace was slowly winding up on the beaten Dex.

“Well, Ace, if you were half as smart as me, you’d know that I wouldn’t get a painless death anyway, after everything I did.” Smiling, Dex let out a small chuckle before getting socked in the face.

“Tch. You’re such a dick. Even after all that pressure, you still crack jokes like that? I guess that’s why the boss took a shining to you.” Ace cocked his gun and started pointing at Dex’s different body parts.

“Nah Ace, I think he liked me cause I was better looking than your ballsack looking ass.” This time, Ace pistol whipped Dex’s upper lip, causing it to burst immediately.

Blown back by the force of the blow, Dex was breathing heavily face first by Ace’s feet.

“What would a runaway like you know anything about me? You were only the boss’s pet, but he liked you better than me, a person that has been with him for five years! How many months have you been around Dex? HOW MANY?”

Signalling his men, to bring Dex to a kneel again, in a still yet smug tone, “Uhhhh 4 months? HAHAHA. Damn you suck.”

Ace’s boot reached deep into Dex’s stomach, blowing him a bit backwards, letting him lay back to back with the ground.

“That’s enough of that, I wonder what kind of torture I’d do to you? Cut off those balls? Fingers? Ears? Gauge out an eye like Julius? The possibilities are endless.”

Ace started bringing out his knife, and without delay started carving unto Dex’s body like he was a ripe christmas ham.

“What’s wrong Dex? Where’s your lip now? Can’t talk cuz of the pain?”

The pain was unimaginable, but one thing was in my mind at that time.

『 I don’t want to give this fucker the pleasure. I never want to be controlled again 』

So, Dex fought the urge to scream with each cut and abrasion made into his body. The only sounds that came out of his knife were “oohhhs” and “ahhhss”, just to piss him off.

After 5 minutes of making light cuts around Dex’s body, Ace started to get flustered.

“Damn, for a runaway you’re pretty tough...Boys bring him, we’re gonna finish this business at the terminal..Hm?”

A phone call was coming through to Ace.

“Boss the cops are here! They just broke through the entrance and they’re coming right to you.”

My very pleasant dream was interrupted by:

“HEY WAKE UP, OY OY OY OY OY”

And just like that, what unfolded next dived into the darkness.