Chapter Five: Waking Up

Four Years Earlier

                Consciousness slowly flowed back over José. Groggily he attempted to stand up. His head felt as if someone had driven a railroad spike into it. He walked over to the side of the boxing ring to hold onto the ropes for support. He looked out into the warehouse and saw a disturbing, yet not completely unexpected sight. What could very well have been the whole crowd was lying dead all over the warehouse. Bodies were everywhere. By some miracle or just plain luck José had managed not to get shot. Maybe the mobsters forgot about him when the firefight broke out, or maybe they assumed he was dead. It didn’t matter. He was alive and they were dead. José hopped off of the platform and landed on the ground with a squish. Squish? José looked down and saw he was standing in what used to be Mr. Wallace’s head. Those bastards. José figured it was high time to get out of there. He made his way through the scores of bodies until he got to a small door that led outside, he pushed it open.

                Rain blanketed him once he was outside. He didn’t care. He just needed to get away. He didn’t know if the crime lords survived or not. Regardless, he knew that someone would be showing up on the site soon, a firefight like that doesn’t stay quiet for long.  He had no way of knowing how much time had passed since he had blacked out.

                José started walking fast down the empty dim rain soaked street. As he was passing by an alleyway a man stepped out in front of him pointing a gun at José’s head. You’ve got to be fucking shitting me, José thought in utter frustration.

                “Don’t move or I blow your fucking head off,” the man said. “Mr. Linguini wants to talk to you.”

                “I bet he does,” José replied with a hint of sarcasm.

                “Okay, bub. Let’s not keep the bos-” the man stopped talking right there because something else entered his mind at that moment. It was a bullet.  The man’s brains erupted out of the opposite side of his head, leaving José tense and looking for the gunman. José saw him. Across the street a man was running towards him through the rain. The man was wearing a long black leather trench coat and a black turtleneck sweater underneath. He was holding a pistol in his right hand. But then the man did something that José didn’t expect. He turned the gun around backwards in his hand and held it over his head. This man didn’t want to shoot José. Nonetheless José bent down and picked up the dead gangster’s gun.