"What do you mean they are all dead?"
"As in not breathing, they are taking the eternal nap, they are now were..."
"Shut up!" Michael interrupts the goon abruptly. "Just shut up!"
Knowing a thing or two about self-preservation the goon does not need to be told twice; Although Michael did, which Jonah is quite grateful for seeing as Michael is known for only speaking once and shooting second.
After a few seconds of silence and Michael staring through Jonah sitting opposite his desk, Michael shifts back into his chair making a point of taking the gun from the desk and lazily holding it in his lap. "Ok, and the product?"
Jonah having rather enjoyed the extra time breathing and having started thinking of retirement plans which seemed quite appropriate given you narrowly escaped a savage attack, is now thinking that possibly he might have been counting his chickens a bit soon.
"Burned." He says simply, looking down to possibly pretend there is no gun and no bullet coming and that the shot he just heard was in no way related to his current predicament.
The bullet that tore through his shoulder, however, was not informed of this game of pretend and sighed as it exited the back before hitting the opposite wall. In fact, no one ever considered a bullet capable of pretending. It could not pretend though, but that is beside the point because it would just have been nice if someone asked.
"Ouch! That fu...dging hurt!" Jonah cries, and presses his grips his shoulder trying to pull it inward in hopes it might realise there is a hole and try to fill the gap.
Michael raises his eyebrows like his mom use to do knowing she might get another reason to slap him; "You are lucky you did not swear. For that I will save you from another bee sting."
Calling shooting people bee stings made The Bullets' wish to play pretend all the more sad but unfortunately no one knew that bullets had hopes and dreams so their demise never got any protests.
Jonah did not swear because of another odd quirk Michael is known for, "Watch your mouth around the dead." He always said before making the instructed person dead as to prove a point. That and in their line of business there was always someone dead around so swearing just was never a good idea.
"Who did this?" Michael asks, ignoring the goons obvious discomfort at having to give a correct answer. Since everyone knew it had to be either the Bolivians or some other gang what Jonah wants to answer would obviously be the wrong answer except for it actually being the right answer.
"Some demon kid." Jonah says slowly, regretting that he actually had an upbringing in which his mom always said "Integrity is telling the truth."
In retrospect, Jonah figured that was a trap his mother had devised.
Using his keen sense of survival Jonah quickly continues, "I promise, this kid was a demon, I saw it all from... uhm.. my perch as I was laying cover fire for the guys and Jenny."
He pauses for just a split second to not give Michael too long to think and describes in full the strangeness he witnessed.
"It was like he grew stronger the more people he took out. Literally, there were these tentacle-like threads of light streaming into him and the men seemed to more sag to the ground than get knocked out. He looked strange, as though his fists had no skin, they were just bone but covered in energy..."
Sighing and placing his head in his palms, Michael looks at the desk and then back at Jonah then points the gun at him and focuses hard on his "You made me do it look."
"Please I am telling the truth. Get the Thread Reader. They will confirm." Jonah pleads hastily as tries to shrink himself just to be safe.
"Sure you do not want to be shot instead?" Michael asks with concern, the Thread Readers were a last resort. He did not even like using them on people he hated. This was the second hit to their production in a month. The previous survivor had the wit to say it was a street gang but something told Michael that it was in fact not.
That same something was now standing behind Michael and although he could not see it, It could definitely see him.
It could see when little Michael lost his favourite toy and cried silently in his room not letting his parents know he cared it.
It placed the memory of another toy which was never played with but always present, always set aside in favour of other toys. A shabby-looking figurine of a boy wearing a skeleton jacket.
"You will be read." Michael decided.
The Thread Readers in simple terms were mindreaders, but with a big difference, they could jump the threads between shared memories.
Jumping between shared memories given all participants are present, dead or alive allows them to confirm any stories, even unlikely ones like a demon kid taking out an entire heroin operation facilitating the demise of thousands of bullets.
A thread reading came at a cost though. Most people's minds were too fragile to handle more than their own inner voice and that of another entirely different mind. It is thought that simpler people did not have this issue, but as it stands they never see interesting enough things to be read so no one really knows.
Michael sits back and silently flicks his hand to the door indicating for Jonah to leave.
"Oh, and send in Gia." Michael announces to the room as Jonah opens the door.
taking a fantasy leap into the challenge this week, hm? hehehe love it
curious to see what kind of pull/power Gia has. i hope she's tough... i'm a sucker for strong female characters! hehehe
Hmm now I should make a role for Gia. !PIZZA
Cool! Nicely Done, Pen!
I am visiting from @dreemport
Thanx, !PIZZA
I just loved it! I really enjoyed supernatural swing to your story.
Intense and entertaining alike. Nice work!
Thanx, hopefully I can keep the momentum !PIZZA
I love the personification in this piece - giving a voice to the inanimate... feels like a dark comedy in a way. So many directions this could go in... and seems like there are repressed issues to be dealt with... with a lot of projecting... interesting one... looking forward to part 2!
I dropped in from my favourite Port in the world ... Dreemport #dreemerforlife
!LUV !hivebits !PIZZA
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Haha think the bullet part was my fave everything else was decoration. !PIZZA
Yes! that's what I loved...the personification haha Nicely done, Pen!
Beautifully scripted, good one here
That leap of fantasy into writing makes me drool. Can't wait to see the next part. So lovely to have read this tonight.☺️
Should say it is so bad you got a little sick then maybe the next part won't be disappointing :P !PIZZa
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