This time, he could not see.
The world was just as it had been since he was nine years old.
Matt was kneeling on what felt like gravel. The ground was wet and the smell of petrichor was still fresh in the air. It had just finished raining. He could recognise the scene very well and quite frankly, it triggered a lot of emotions inside him.
Matt stretched out a hand and felt the body. The body of his father.
"D-Dad?"
He couldn't control his tears. Without an ounce of control over himself, he shook the prone form of his father lying before him. Just like he had done in his childhood.
His dead father didn't move.
The sounds and smells of the surroundings faded away for Matthew Murdock. All he could hear were his own screams of grief as he shouted at the skies, hoping for God to send back his father's soul from heaven.
"Admirable! I never knew you loved your father so much."
Matt Murdock froze. The voice sent a deep chill down his spine. He heard the heavy footsteps approach in his general direction. Matt wanted to get up and fight the man but something kept him frozen to the ground, as if he was chained. Was it intense shock and grief? He didn't know.
The Kingpin came to a stop right before Jack Murdock's body.
"Fathers have a great role to play in our lives." Fisk said. "They shape our perspectives and our behaviours in a way that we don't really understand until we sit back and introspect about it when we reach adulthood. Don't you agree, Mr. Murdock?"
Matt knelt shivering on the ground, too emotional to reply. His hand was still clutching his father's wrist tightly.
"The reason I say that, Mr. Murdock," Fisk continued, "is because I see a lot of your father in you. He can take a beating like nobody can and still come back with determination. I have experienced that personally with you. You've been like a cockroach in my kitchen. No matter how hard I try to squash you and throw you away, you find your way back into my kitchen to disrupt my peace and my work."
Matt could sense Fisk's anger in his words. His teeth were grinding hard as he spoke.
"I also sense another behaviour of Jack Murdock in you. You both can take all the beating in the world and still fight back. But when life gets tough...when faced with a serious decision...Jack Murdock decided to throw the cards and run! He chose to desert you instead of being there for you and protecting you all because he wanted to win a fight for his son".
Fisk knelt down and Matt felt his face closer to his. He didn't want to hear the rest of the words from Fisk's mouth but Matt still couldn't move his limbs.
"Isn't that what you did too, Mr. Murdock?" Fisk hissed at him. "Just because a stupid nurse you cared about died in your hands, you chose to desert an entire city and your friends instead of staying and protecting them. And you call yourself a hero?"
Fisk spat in his face.
"Hell's kitchen doesn't need Daredevil. Hell's kitchen needs someone stronger like Kingpin. I can lift the place to greater heights that the Devil can never dream of. I will rebuild the city on the graves of those very friends you so dearly love."
Matt found his voice. "I-I...You promised. You wouldn't go after them. You wouldn't dare go after Karen and Foggy..I swear I will.."
A giant fist found Matt's face and he was knocked down to the floor.
"You can barely protect yourself, Mr. Murdock. How are you going to protect your friends from me?"
Matt struggled to get up. He heard another set of footsteps approach him from the side. It was a woman's and the smell of cologne was enough to let him know of her identity.
It was Larissa Rodriguez.
"Cobarde!" She bristled, disappointment simmering in her voice. She felt heartbroken. "COWARD!"
She slapped him hard in the face and Matt felt his face burn as if it was set on fire.
Slowly, he put his knuckles to the gravel and pushed himself up. He could no longer smell the petrichor from the surroundings. He tried to feel for his father's body but all he felt was wood. It felt like a wooden pew. It made no sense to him.
When he sat up, Kingpin and Larissa seemed to have disappeared.
He tried to perk his ears and nose up, as he tried to guess where he was. The smell felt very familiar but the place was utterly silent.
Clinton Church!
Kingpin and Larissa's words were still ringing in his ears. Matt thought of praying but he didn't know what to pray for. There was so much things that he wanted to pray for, so much things he wanted. A normal life, for instance. But he was almost a hundred percent sure those prayers wouldn't be answered.
Sometimes, he wondered if anybody's prayers ever actually got answered by God.
He breathed deeply and tried to focus on the sounds that he was hearing. There was nobody in the church. Except for a pair of footsteps that seemed to come closer and closer, there were very few sounds that he could hear. So, he focused on the footsteps as they became louder. He turned in the direction of the footsteps as they approached him.
It was Stick. The heartbeat and the smell were unmistakeable.
"What are you doing here?" Matt asked.
He tried to get up and face Stick but suddenly he realised that he was chained tight. He couldn't move even an inch. The chains were cutting deep into his muscles.
"What-What is this?" Matt struggled.
Stick didn't answer. He walked closer and stood beside him.
"I was wrong about you, Matthew." He said after a silent pause.
"Stick..."
"I wanted you to give up your attachments to those people you called friends. But you were adamant. I had almost lost hope that you would ever ditch them and turn into something useful. But now you have ditched them...I should be proud..."
"...But you have become something I don't even recognise, Matthew. I wanted you to give up attachments so that you would become a soldier. I thought giving them up would make you stronger. But alas, looking at you now, I sense that, you have become a weakling. A spineless creature that must be put to death."
Matt struggled again. "Stick..."
There were five more footsteps. Two men were ushering in two hostages and they threw them down to the floor before Matt Murdock.
Matt recognised them instantly. "Karen! Foggy!"
His friends struggled against their bonds just like he did. From what he sensed, they were gagging against a tape to their mouths.
The fifth man walked towards them. "Finally, I get to do this in front of you, Murdock!"
Matt's heart skipped a beat. "Poin... Bullseye?!"
Matt scuffled against his chains so hard that he could feel the chains forming lashes on his chest and arms. But he didn't care. Bullseye's presence was enough to instil insurmountable terror in him.
Bullseye walked around the hostages, playing with them. "Why am I here? So that I get the pleasure of murdering your friends before you, Murdock. Why else?"
Matt wrestled against his bonds and dashed against the pews. "Stick...help me! STICK!! UNTIE ME!"
Stick stood still. "Prove me wrong, Matthew. Prove me you have got the stomach for this."
Matt heard Bullseye unsheathe two knives. Karen's and Foggy's heart rate accelerated by threefold.
He used every ounce of strength he possessed to fight back against his bonds but the chains were too tight for him. The pain was too unbearable but he didn't care. Even if it meant tearing his limbs apart, he wanted to get in time to save them...
To save Karen...
To save Foggy...
But the chains wouldn't move.
Matt slumped.
"Please, Stick! Help me!" He pleaded. "I don't have the stomach for this. I thought I did but I don't. I am a coward. I can't do this. I can't watch while my friends suffer...PLEASE!"
Tears streamed down his eyes again.
Matt heard Stick unsheathe a sword.
The sword slashed at Matt's neck...
Matt closed his eyes and screamed...
But the pain never came!
When he opened his eyes, he was kneeling down again, in a pool of liquid in an unknown place. Matt's hands and lower body was completely wet. The liquid was very warm and slightly sticky. He rubbed the surface of the liquid trying to guess what it was. It seemed to fill the entire room he was in, at least up to the knee level. And it kept increasing.
With shocking realisation, Matt realised that it was blood!
Whose blood? Matt wondered.
"Matthew", He heard a familiar voice.
It was Sister Maggie.
"The blood..." Matt couldn't talk much. He was too shocked and confused.
"James 4:17, Matthew." Sister Maggie spoke from somewhere nearby. "'Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.' I hope you remember that."
Matt nodded, fervently. The blood was nearing his stomach now.
"Matthew....do...the right thing...even if it's not easy!" Maggie's voice was fading out.
"BLOOD!" Matt called out. "WHOSE BLOOD IS THIS?"
There was a pause. Then he heard the answer from the distance.
"It's the blood... of people you could save in the future, Matthew!"
He woke up as if he had been slapped awake!
The horns of vehicles on the road outside the motel had died down. The dampness of his room and the smell of cats was overwhelming. Matt searched for the sound that had woken him up. There were a lot of them around him, from nearby rooms. He heard mobile phones ringing and radios sounding. Smell of burgers reached to him from a room below him.
And then he heard it.
"Clinton Church..." The radio crackled. "Gunshots were heard at Clinton Church at Hell's Kitchen. The cops have been alerted and they're rushing to the spot as we speak. There seem to be a handful of civilians inside the church. So, we hope the cops manage to secure the situation before something happens. We will keep updatin-"
Matt stood up from his bed with enormous force.