I left the homeless shelter when they were all sleeping. It was kind of hard to pry myself out of the tent that I was put in, but I was able to leave without alerting anyone. I couldn’t afford to let them get dragged into the mess I was in. That was the "moral" side of my thinking, but in actuality, I just didn’t want anyone to betray me again.

I had planned on staying at a motel for a little over a month to let activity in the pier die down. I was planning on leaving the country somehow or someway. The longer I stayed in this country, the more I felt the chill of the horrible incidents that I experienced. I had heard that there was someone in the general vicinity of the red light district that could help me get “official” documents to help me get out of the country legally. They were a constant target of Rising Feather because they were marching in on their smuggling business, but they never found them. Maybe if he/she considers them an enemy, they’d be willing to help me?

As I was walking through the back alleys of the area surrounding the main street, I was stopped by two police officers who were stationed there. They were having a checkpoint for any suspicious activity because of what had happened on the pier yesterday. I was about to turn back on the path I was on because it would be too bad if they caught on to me when I was stopped by a man that smelled like booze that was stumbling behind me.

“Whoa there. Kid, if you walked the other direction now you’d only be treated as a suspicious person.”

“!”

He was right. What kind of idiot police officers wouldn’t notice a bandaged up man slightly limping on the street suddenly turn around when spotting them right after a serious confrontation on the pier a few hours ago? What a rookie mistake. Still, if I felt like it, maybe I could outrun them? But I was injured right now.

“Come with me, we’ll get through. Just follow my lead.”

Before I could reject his offer though, he put my arm over his shoulder and stumbled towards them with me in tow.

“Excuse me boys!” The old man started jeering at the two police officers.

The two police officers looked at each other, sighed and berated the drunken man.

“Ernestoooo, I know that you like drinking, but could you not let someone injured like that take care of you! I feel for the poor kid.”

With a half-assed apology and with promises that he’d treat them to a drink later. The man named Ernesto passed the checkpoint all willy nilly with me in tow.

“Just follow me for now.”

The “drunk” man started to stand up straight and walk normally, much to my shock. I wasn’t quite sure what his plan was, but I decided to go along with it for now. He led me deeper into the back alleys around the main square of the city and into the red light district.

When we passed by an alley, I pulled the collar of his shirt and dragged him to a nearby wall away from the public’s eyes. I pulled out the knife I had hidden underneath my shirt and pointed at it by his throat. With his back against the wall, the old man looked at me and silently put his hands up.

“What do you want from me? Do you know me?”

“Yes and no”

I press my elbow further into his neck and shorten the distance between my knife’s blade and his neck. The old man sneered a bit and started monologuing.

“That incident in the port, it was you, right? Then can we talk about this in a more private location?”

A bit shocked by his words, but also a bit skeptical I tried to press more information out of him, but he wouldn’t budge. He looked at me with a boorish face and sneered.

“If I really wanted to get rid of you, I would have turned you over to the cops. If you were really the mastermind behind what happened in the pier and you had a deep connection with the organization there, then you would know that most cops were under their payroll, and seeing your wounds, they'd put two and two together and you would have been captured.”

“I made sure that I undug every dirty little secret that organization had and spread it. It’s only a matter of time before every establishment with ties to that place is flushed out.” Refuting his statement, I spout out what I did to screw Rising Feather.

The man shook his shoulders and smiled, nodding his head left and right.

“You said it yourself, it would take some time. But this was the same night err morning? how can you be sure that the purge you put through was going on as we speak?”

Sighing, I released my elbow from his neck and pulled my knife away. This man was indeed sketchy, but what he says is true. If he wanted to get rid of me, then he would have done so already. Naturally, if he didn't want to kill me then…

“So what kind of favor do you need from me.”

“Oh, so you know that this isn’t a charity?”

Of course, I knew, ever since I ran away I had experienced hardships and betrayals. It was only natural to help someone if there was a reason. If he knew anything about me or had heard of me, then he’d probably make me do some dark fucked up shit in exchange for keeping me safe right? There’s even no guarantee even for that condition to be followed through. I could still get betrayed.

As I was wracking my brain thinking about all the dark shit he could possibly ask me to do, he quickly burst that bubble with a casual release of these words:

“Okay. Work at my bar!”

HAAA?

“Wait, you don’t want anything else? Don’t you have something twisted to give me? An assasination? Something to dirty my hands with?”

Shrugging his shoulders, Ernesto walked away and peered at my through his shoulder.

“Nah, but you’re someone with no place to go right? I’ve been the same ever since I could remember. I know what it’s like to not have a home. Besides, your hands will get real DIRTY in the bar.”

It sounded cheesy as hell and it was so plastic that it felt like something a horny teenager would copy-paste unto his crush’s message box, but something within me, I’m not sure what, was reaching out. As if it wanted to believe what he was saying was true.

“So are you coming?”

I guess it can’t be that bad. I’ll work at his bar and I’ll leave when things die down.

“Fine.”

That was the time that I believe I was saved.

Back to the present, words that kept haunting me, the kindness that was given to me all screamed the same thing. “YOU MUST LIVE” as if guilting me into not giving up, not backing off, and legitimately start taking my life seriously.

Back to the present.

The moment Aoi started morphing into his “living wart” form I discreetly grabbed the fork that was still on the table. I had wished it was a knife, seriously though what kind of steak restaurant doesn’t have knives set on the table? Anyway, I had slipped it in between my pants to not arouse suspicion if he were to hit my body. It’s cruel but I’ve learned a thing or two about deceiving people when I was with them. Even now, it seems it’s fight or die.

Still holding unto me with an iron clutch, I churn the fork around his eyeball before pulling it back. I immediately struck the second time unto his other eyeball this time, in an effort to blind him, so that I could find a chance to escape. His body may have beefcaked it up, but I naturally thought that attacks to the head would be effective on every living creature, no matter how muscular they may be. Aoi blocked the fork with his free hand, but I had expected this so I had pulled back sharply and adjusted the angle of the fork, successfully hitting the other eye. People do tend to block things with their hands when panicking.

“GRAHHH WHAT THE FUUCCCKKK”

Aoi had now felt the full effects of losing two eyeballs and had subconsciously let go of the hand that was choking me. After being forcibly dropped on my broken arm, I squeal in pain only to narrowly dodge an angry stomp. I slip under the table and go past it towards the other side. I couldn’t really see well because of the black fog, but I had kind of calculated where the walls start and end.

Miki was looking dumbfounded while the old man was crying out in pain. In response, Aoi’s body started to get swoler and bigger, and his horns started turning a different color. He let go of his tightly-gripped head and looked at my general direction. He didn’t seem to know where I was exactly because he stared at the area just over my left side. He then took a sprinter’s starting stance.

“I underestimated you.”

Before I could react he dashed towards the table and lifted it up with one hand. The plates and utensils on the table slid off as the heavy, solid wood table was tilted right above my head. He then proceeded to grip the table’s edge with both hands and haphazardly swung it around.

“If I can’t see you, then I’ll just swat at you!”

That’s just ridiculous!

Just before he could swat down the area I was in, I had dashed closer to him. My theory was that because of his big size he wouldn’t be flexible enough to hit what was less than a meter away from him. He would slam down the table and because I was originally close to the wall, the table would slam into it giving me a chance to counter.

He had narrowly missed me and I think he was only late about two seconds before he could’ve hit me, but what I expected didn’t come true. The table did slam into the spot I was in, but it didn’t hit the wall that was behind me. It simply passed over it, as if it was made out of mist.

What? Did I miscalculate the distance?

Unsettled, I keep slipped between his legs and keep my distance from the big lug while keeping an eye on the frozen Miki. Was she only staring at me maybe because their initial plan failed? Or because she never expected a human like me to damage one of them like that. Either way, I wasn’t going to turn my back on her.