Hell.
That's where Skyler remained mentally and emotionally for the past hours. Earlier that day, at approximately twelve in the afternoon, Annie was pronounced deceased.
As Skyler sat on his bed in his apartment room trembling, he kept having flashbacks to the moment it occurred. Right after the shot had happened, Skyler heard nothing. Everything had gone silent, as he couldn't even hear his own screaming before he had passed out at the scene.
He faintly remembers waking up in a police station being interrogated, but, he felt nothing. No emotion throughout the entire interview or even feeling in his legs walking back to his apartment afterwards. Everything was numb.....
"Fuck. Why. Why her. God, why are you so fucking cruel," he said out loud to himself in a creepy manner. He was staring blankly at his window as his hands trembled and his finger nails dug into the bed. "Why am I alive. Annie, please tell me."
All of a sudden, Skyler quickly got up off his bed and darted towards his window, punching through all the glass. It left his left hand a bloody mess. Immediately after smashing the window to pieces, a crazed Skyler turned to the lamp on the nightstand by his bed.
With no hesitation, he furiously kicked over the nightstand in aggressive fashion, shattering the lamp instantly upon hitting the ground. He walked across the piles of broken glass shards with his bare feet, not even caring about the deep cuts and blood spilling out.
"Ah ha ha ha ha ha!"
Skyler disturbingly chuckled as he grabbed himself by the head, slamming it into the wall with extreme force. It was so hard that it had left a dent in the wall. He had instantly fell onto his knees, grabbing his head where it started to bleed with his bloody left hand. And with his right hand, he began trying to yank out his own hair. The tears in his eyes began to leak down his face, as he began to break down....
He cried out loud on the floor, gripping the carpet, from both physical and emotional pain. Thoughts were racing through his mind as his heart ached. His throat felt as it was closing as his chest grew tighter. "I wanna die!!!", cried Skyler.
Then, clenching his teeth and fists, Skyler stood up and slowly walked over to his broken window. "ANNIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!", screamed Skyler at the top of his lungs in utter rage and sadness, until eventually, he was out cold...
About five hours later, Skyler slowly opened his eyes. Lying down on the floor, he saw his own blood on the carpet along with shattered glass shards. He just felt tired, and nothing else. Skyler barely felt anything. When he tried to stand up, he instantly fell back onto the ground. His legs were too weak to stand properly. But, after three attempts, he had finally managed to stand on his feet.
"I.....don't wanna be alive." Skyler slowly began lifting his hand to his cheek. In that instance, his hand shook, as he realized that Annie's blood was still on face. It was at that moment, where a switch had flipped in his brain. The pupils in his eyes had shrunk, as his heart started beating a little faster. Pure maddening ecstasy was growing within his chest.
Smiling deviously, Skyler opened his closet by the foot of his bed. Black fingerless gloves, a gray silk jacket, and a gray fedora is all that lied on the floor in his closet. "Dad," Skyler whispered to himself. That was the last word Skyler had ever said....
The clock hit nine in the evening in Echo Valley City. Nearby the main police station, an officer walked down the cold, windy street to do some nightly patrol. "What a pain. Why couldn't they have someone else do this shit?", the officer groaned and complained.
An extremely cold winter breeze then struck the officer with immediate effect. He shivered, saying to himself, "Yeah no, I'm not doing this," and turned around right away. He began to make his way back to the station.
"HELP! PLEASE!", yelled a man's voice in desperation. The sound had come from an alleyway the officer had just walked past. Of course, upon hearing the unsettling noise, the officer quickly bolted into the alley to track the source.
(Photo of the alleyway)
With his left hand by the gun on his waist, the officer stopped a quarter of the way into the alley, as the shadows of the long alley grew darker. "Finally, a situation where my power will be useful," the officer said to himself, before running into a shadow on the wall of the alleyway.
Not even a second later, the police officer came out of a different shadow from a wall deeper in the alleyway. "Damn it, this alley never ends. Once again, my shadow warping was a bust," the officer sighed, turning on his miniature flashlight to see in the dark and creepy alley. "What a shitty night for rain. Anybody here?! Hello!?", the cop called out, pulling out his gun.
But then, without warning, the officer was abruptly smacked across the face with a rusty steel pipe, dropping his gun and falling to the ground. The side of his face had swelled up instantaneously as his blood was smeared on the pipe. Dazed on the cold, wet ground, the officer grabbed his flashlight within his reach and held it forward. The light revealed his gun getting picked up by someone else. "W...wait, I know you. Y...ou're that k..kid from earlier."
The flashlight revealed Skyler, staring down at the officer menacingly in his new attire. Skyler then lifted the gun, aiming it directly at the officer's face, replying, "You're wrong. That kid is dead. And so are you." Before the officer could say another word.........
*Bang*
The bullet pierced clean through the cop's forehead, killing him instantly. His flashlight hitting the ground a millisecond after the shot. And yet....
*Bang*
*Bang*
*Bang*
*Bang*
*Bang*
Skyler kept shooting. His finger had not once slid off the trigger. Nothing but an ominous shadow from his fedora covered his eyes, as his mouth expressed nothingness. The officer's face was unrecognizable as the bullet wounds had nearly wiped all the flesh clean off his face.....
*Bang*
*Bang*
*Bang*
*Bang*
*Bang*
*Bang*
*Bang*
Skyler had unloaded half a clip into the mushy pile of clumpy flesh, blood, and damaged facial tissue. "Powerless. That's how you felt with no way to defend yourself in your final moments. Atleast you took your last breath with a taste of Annie's pain. Now, here you lie on this cold, rainy ground. Dying alone, with no loved ones to even recognize your pathetic excuse for a face once they find your already rotted corpse." Skyler finished his statement by spitting on the dead body, before licking the officer's blood clean off the rusty pipe. Then, he calmly left the horrific scene, disappearing into the shadows with his new power.
Fifteen minutes later, Skyler had returned, dragging the unconscious body of a homeless guy to the scene of his crime. "Wake the fuck up." Skyler mumbled, kicking the guy in the face. The water on his shoe along with the kick itself woke the homeless guy up. The guy trembled in fear upon opening his eyes, as he saw the remains of the officer. Before the guy could make any noise, Skyler got on his knee and put his hand on the guy's shoulder to console him.
"Hey, hey hey. It's alright. This was someone pretending to be an officer, so I stopped him. I'm planning some things and if you help me with this job, I'll reward you. But first, imma have to ask you to get those clothes on," Skyler told the man, pointing at the officer's dead body.
Half an hour later, it was midnight. Fred's Chicken Shack was one of the only open stores at this time in Moonshine City. The exhausted employees inside were getting ready to close the store down for the night. In a move no one saw coming, a "police officer" kicked open the door of the fast food restaurant and hopped over the front counter in quick fashion. The employees were of course very confused and terrified, as the "cop" had bloodstains on the upper half of his uniform.
"I need someone's uhh car keys right n..now!", stuttered the nervous "officer". Without a second thought, a female employee reached for her back pocket and tossed her keys to the guy, unaware that it was secretly a homeless man. "Now! Everyone get to the back room now! This is for your s...safety! Yeah! Heroes will be here soon!" The closing manager looked outside of their office and saw what was happening, so as such, they followed the fake cop's orders as well.
In immediate fashion, all the employees sprinted to the back storage room and hid in panic. Once every employee was in the back, the homeless man in the cop uniform ran to the manager's office. Inside lied a safe with a six digit lock on it under the computer desk.
"9-7-3-9-1-1", the fake cop said in his head before using the combination on the safe. To his surprise, it actually opened. He didn't have much time to process the shock of getting it open though, as he swiftly stole all of the cash inside and stuffed it in a duffel bag he was hiding in his uniform. Then, without a second thought, the homeless guy booked it out of the restaurant with the cash from the safe.
Not too far out front of the establishment's parking lot stood Skyler. He was facing a tree with his hands in his pockets. The area he was standing in made it look as if he was covered in ominous shadows. Running, the homeless man in the bloody cop uniform made his way to Skyler with the duffel bag of cash.
"The combination was just as you said! How did you know it!? By the way I got the keys too," exclaimed the eager man. "Skyler, worked here," he replied, still facing the tree. "Uh, isn't that your name? Also c'mon we gotta get to the getaway car and skedaddle. Since you worked here you should know whose car these keys belong to!" Everything had gone silent for a moment.
"Nah. Skyler is dead. The name's Slick." In a shocking turn of events, Slick turned around and shot the homeless man in the leg, as he fell to the ground on the spot. "Oww! God damn it! OWW!! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!? WE HAD A D-"
*Bang*
Slick shot the guy in the head before he could finish his sentence. Tears were formed in Slick's cold, dead eyes as his hand trembled holding the gun. He eventually took a deep breath and regained his composure, picking up the duffel bag of cash. He left the keys by the dead body, before walking into the shadows of the tree, vanishing from the silent crime scene.
It was on that night, Skyler had died, and Slick was born. For the years to come since then, Skyler used the stolen $47,000 to start an underground black market in the crime industry. He used the cash to invest in weapons and drugs which were sold for higher prices to increase his profit as a newfound broker. He hired black suited criminals to do jobs for him and started multiple other hideout businesses as backups. And so now, he lives his life, as the deadly, smooth, and menacing criminal known as Slick.
Back to the present.....
Lying on his bed shirtless and still in excruciating pain, Slick finished reminiscing of the past. "Thinking back on it now, they would've done society a huge favor taking me out along with her that day...."
Out of the blue, Slick's phone began to ring. It kinda startled him, but he picked up immediately, because he already knew who it was.
"I failed to find the target. Those brats are stronger than they look I'll give em' that. Gave me a run for my money. I did trick them into thinking I was the one after the ghost boy, so they'll have their sights set on me rather than you. But don't worry. Next time, they won't be so lucky. All I know is, you better stick to your word on this deal of ours and bring my Annie back to life, Anxiety."
The man on the other side of the line replied, "I'll stick to my word if you stick to yours Slick. I hate the feeling of owing people. You're my "Plan B", and though I have the rest of the alphabet in plans calculated already, I just wanna get this shit done with. Next time, kill if you have to." Anxiety then hung up.
Slick smirked and gripped onto his gun. "Oh, Brian. You poor, poor bastard..."
(Picture of Anxiety)