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to this:

Two friends were walking along a path through the woods one day when they suddenly stumbled upon a grizzly bear.

“Run!” shouted one friend as he turned around and flee. The other friend quickly followed behind, and when he looked back, he saw the bear was already approaching fast towards them.

“The bear is coming for us!” shouted the friend at the back. “We’ll never be able to outrun it. Quick, find a tree to climb!”

The friend at the front heard him, ran towards the nearest tree and quickly climbed up 15 feet and rested on a strong bough. The other friend, however, was half way up a tree when he slipped and fell to ground on his back. He wanted to get up, but it was too late; the bear was already over him, sniffing his face.

The friend in the tree saw his troubled friend. “Stay still and play dead,” he shouted from atop the tree, “I heard bears don’t maul you when they think you’re dead.”

The friend on the ground already knew this, and he lay still and held his breath. The bear prodded his body with his paws for about several seconds before his nostrils came to the friend’s ear. The friend on the treetop saw that the bear seemed to be whispering something to the friend on the ground.

After a short moment, the bear left and disappeared into the woods, leaving the friend on the ground unharmed. The friend on the treetop quickly descended and rushed towards his friend, who was slowly getting up while brushing off dirt from his pants.

“I’m very sorry,” said the friend from the tree in an apologizing tone, “I know I shouldn’t have left you on the ground just now. The bear was right; as a friend, I should have come down and helped you anyways.”

“What do you mean?” said the other friend, puzzled.

“The bear,” said the other friend, “I saw it whispered into you ear. I’m guessing it spoke to you about being careful with choosing friends, especially ones who will leave you behind during troubled times, am I right?”

“No, not at all,” said the friend, laughing a bit as he placed an arm on his partner’s shoulder. “That wasn’t what he said at all, and I fully understood what you had to do back then; even if you came down, you’d have been mauled anyway. And I wouldn’t want my friend to be mauled just to save me, now would I?”

“But, if the bear didn’t say what I though it had said, what exactly did he say?”

“Owh, that,” replied the friend, smiling towards his puzzled friend. “The bear said that he was really a vegetarian, and that we shouldn’t have feared him. He whispered this to me because he was afraid other carnivorous bears nearby might hear and make fun of him.”

The other friend was speechless.

“Owh and one more thing,” continued the smiling friend, “the bear also said that, contrary to popular belief, the playing-possum trick doesn’t work against bears, because they’re generally too smart to fall for it.”

THE END

KUALA LUMPUR - P. Balasubramaniam, a private investigator who had actively made statements in the past about Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s alleged involvement with the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu, shocked everyone yesterday when he retracted all of his statements against Najib, member of the nation’s think tanks and a powerful member of the Royal Family, saying that ‘it was all just a big stupid mistake on my part, my stupid, stupid god-awful mistake.’

“I wish to retract the entire contents of my statutory declaration dated July 1 2008,” said Balasubramaniam with an unnaturally throaty voice, which probably had nothing to do with his larynx having been crushed by a boot pressing down against his neck. “I…uh…had way too much Heineken that day and I…uh…I think my head bumped against…something, leading me to declare wild accusations against the great and infallible highness, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.”

Balasubramaniam, who came to the conference in a shirt that didn’t quite hide the mysterious bruise marks on various parts of his body, was represented by his lawyer, M. Arulampalam. Arulampalam told the reporters that in no way was he physically pressured and harassed by unknown groups to turn his statements around, and that he retracted his statements of his own free will.

“My client is a reasonable and honest man who would never tell a single lie at all,” said M. Arulampalam while holding Balasubramaniam from keeling over, very unlikely due to a dislodged kidney or a fractured rib as a result of blunt-force-trauma from a metallic weapon such as a wrench or a crowbar. “He knew he had made a mistake of accusing The Great Najib of such heinous crimes, and now he is very, very, very sorry that he did that. Please have mercy on him.”

When questioned about the various bruises and deep cuts on his body along with his disjointed left leg, Balasubramaniam seemed to pretend that the injuries didn’t exist at first, saying “Wounds? What wounds?” When reporters pointed out the iron-shaped burn marks on his arm, Balasubramaniam said, “Ooooooh, that wound. Well, I…I…my wife hit me. And then I fell down the stairs. And my arm landed on a lit cigarette on the ground. Yup, that’ it, a lit cigarette.”

Despite Balasubramaniam’s claim, certain parties felt that there are darker, insidious forces at work behind Balasubramaniam’s decision to retract his statements, which is ludicrous because everyone knows how Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is such a fine example of a nice man who wouldn’t even hurt a fly.

“As I am familiar with the character of Balasubramaniam, having spent hours with him recording his statement, I am very skeptical that he has signed the second statutory declaration of his own free will,” said Americk Singh Sidu, his former lawyer who also happened to be Captain Obvious. “I am convinced he has been intimidated to do so by either threats or promises, as I can think of no other reason.”

M. Arulampalam stayed throughout the conference and answered further questions while Balasubramaniam left in his car, which was dented and scratched in all places with a hole about the size of a brick in the windshield. The car then blew up into a million pieces, with Balasubramaniam in it, obviously due to a faulty gas tank instead of a bomb planted on the underside of the car.

“THAT is, of course, a coincidental accident and has absolutely no connection at all with the murder trial,” explained M. Arulampalam about the unexpected car explosion.

- BERNAMA

BEVERLY HILLS - Area hunk, Rick Astley, has sworn that he will ‘never gonna give you up, let you down, run around, and desert you’, the ‘you’ possibly referring to his anonymous female love interest.

“Her and me, we’re no strangers to love, and we both know the rules,” said Astley while awkwardly swaying his body left to right and slowly swinging his hands in random directions, as if trying to imitate some poor dance routine. “A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of, and you wouldn’t get that from too many guys.”

Reporters met him the first time at a parking lot during the later part of morning, and he was wearing a blue long sleeve shirt with huge shades when they interviewed him. “I just want to tell y’all how I’m feeling,” said Astley, trying to make the reporters understand.

“The’ve known each other for very long,” said a local bartender, who happens to be Astley’s close friend. “Her heart’s been aching for Astley, and all this long she’s been too shy to admit it. It’s great that both of them have realized what’s going on, and that they’re finally gonna play the game.” Promptly after giving his comment, the bartender spun around three times and continued to do a number of fantastic acrobatic feats while two female dancers danced on the bar stage to some sort of 80s song.

Reporters met Astley a second time later that night at the poolside of his house, and he was wearing a black shirt over a large white overcoat. When reporters asked Astley on how he was currently feeling about the relationship, he only replied “don’t tell me you’re too blind to see.”

A pair of his friends, male and female, was also at the poolside. Reporters tried to interview them, but they were busy engaging in some sort of gay interpretive dancing. The bartender friend was also there, wearing very tight short shorts, and he was back-flipping all over the place.

Before reporters left, Astley added that he will also ‘never gonna make you cry, say goodbye, tell a lie, and hurt you,” the ‘you’ again possibly referring to his anonymous female love interest.

KUALA LUMPUR - A recent research conducted by The Institute of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s Thinking revealed that the former Prime Minister of Malaysia possesses a 12th level intelligence, the highest degree of intellect that far surpasses any mortal being.

In comparison, an average chimpanzee has an intelligence level of 2, while great minds such as Stephen Hawking, Einstein, and Tesla are within the level 8 league. An average human is around 5.

“This revelation totally blew us away,” said Said Shahri, one of the members tasked with conducting the important research. “We had professors who came all the way from New Zealand just to examine an exact virtual model of Mahathir’s incredible brain. It took only a few minutes of observation before they came to doubt if Mahathir was ever human.”

“Yes, it is true that I have superhuman intelligence,” admitted Dr. Mahathir, who is now known as Mahathir Prime, who communicated with our reporters using high-level telepathy. “And I must admit that all of my actions during the 20 years of my term as Prime Minister were meant to steer Malaysians into the next evolutionary state of consciousness, thus creating a society comprised of meta-humans. Evidently though, I’ve discovered that you can’t turn monkeys into Da Vincis in one fifths of a century.”

It is widely believed that this is the very reason he left Barisan National only recently. The small and shallow mindset of the party must have been too constricting for his unimaginably vast understanding of the universe. “I had visions, VISIONS I tell you, that would have taken Malaysia to the next evolutionary step,” clarified Mahathir Prime, “but the neanderthals down at the hall of Barisan National were holding me back. The consequence? Oil-prices went up, ministers caught in sex tapes, mongolian women being blown up to bits, 8-year-old girls going missing every month, and Akademi Fantasia still getting air time.”

One reporter from another news agency questioned him about the infamous allegations of rigging judiciary appointments to his favor. Mahathir Prime disapprovingly stared deep into the reporter’s eyes, petrifying him for a brief moment before he dropped on all fours and started to make goat sounds. “Puny mortals such as him do not deserve to have human intelligence,” remarked Mahathir Prime as the brainwashed reporter ran out of the conference hall and shat into a flower pot right next to the elevator.

If this is true, then it explains how a third-world nation such as Malaysia rose from its humble roots as a backwater third-world country that nobody cares about to a modernized, developing country that still nobody cares about. It was Mahathir Prime’s 20 years of unparalleled leadership that transformed this nation from being completely unrecognized by the world into a nation that is at least vaguely recognizable and is often related by foreigners as ‘the large country just north of Singapore.’

According to The Institute’s Chairman, Professor Ivy Tan, Mahathir Prime has proven the sheer awesomeness of his intelligence in more than one occasion. “His mind is so powerful, he once shot his own brainwaves back in time and right into the late Tunku Abdul Rahman’s mind, bestowing him the idea of an independent nation in the first place.”

“During the Asian financial crisis of 1997,” added Professor Ivy Tan, “he almost strained his brain just to hold down the market inflation by sheer telekinesis alone.” Our reporters tried to confirm with Mahathir Prime on whether or not he really did accomplish those feats, but our questions were unheeded; our primitive human voice must have sounded like growling animal sounds to his vastly superior consciousness.

Despite his 12th level intellect, Mahathir Prime is a few points short of beating Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore who currently possesses a 13th level Ultra-mind.

DE_DUST - A counter-terrorist team has successfully brought down a group of terrorists after 5 minutes of violent gunfight in the middle-eastern ruins of De_Dust. It was believed that the terrorists were planning to plant a bomb at a secluded section of the area which was filled with unimportant-looking crates and boxes; the reason for this is still unknown. The terrorists comprised of five members; each wearing different attire representing 5 different terrorist cells from across the globe.

“It was a close call,” quoted Sergeant Sh4aRp_Sh00ta, the commanding officer of the counter-terrorist team, “when Lieutenant S3xorz shot the last terrorist in the head from behind a brick wall, the bomb was already planted and was at 60 seconds and counting. Luckily, Private D3agle had the foresight to buy a bomb defusing kit and managed to disarm the bomb at the last second.”

Ahmed 3leCtrofvnk, one of the terrorists who survived the confrontation and is now held in custody, disapproved of the counter-terrorist team’s method of attack. “They were all AWP sniper whores, and I’m pretty sure that one of the infidel cowards was using wall-hack technology.” Furthermore, there have been unconfirmed reports that some of the counter-terrorist members were camping, a tactic that is frowned upon by military bodies the world over and is banned by the United Server Admins Council.

Despite of the counter-terrorist team’s questionable acts, it is unanimously believed that the terrorists lost the battle because they were all a bunch of n00bs. “There was this one terrorist guy who tried to engage me in a frontal assault using merely his combat knife, while I was clearly holding an M4 Carbine,” commented the Sergeant on the terrorist team’s lack of skillz. “Another team member told me that one of the terrorists tried to throw a HE grenade at him, only to have it bounce off a wall and right back at the terrorist, taking himself out.

However, the n00bness does not fall squarely on the terrorists, as the Sergeant revealed that his counter-terrorist team had one black sheep. “We had this ‘tard early in who kept throwing flash-bang grenades at our faces. Later, he repeatedly shot his other team mates while calling them ‘FAGS’ out loud. He was acting like a real a dick.” There is no need for worry however, for the rogue individual’s misconduct has already been reported to the proper authorities and has earned him a permanent ban from the United Server Admins Council.

“We’ve won the battle, but we’ve still got the rest of the war to fight,” said the anxious Sergeant. “Next week we’re going to De_Aztec, an archeological ruin site in a South American jungle. We received a tip that terrorists are going to blow up a section of the area filled with unimportant crates there, the same as it was here.” When asked of their plans on the imminent attack, the counter-terrorist team explained that instead of taking pre-emptive measures such as red taping the whole place or conduct raids raiding the terrorist camp first, they will engage the terrorist the very second they arrive at De_Aztec, and both the terrorist and the counter-terrorist teams will start on zones furthest from each other where they will spend about five seconds buying weapons and equipment before the fight starts.

Finally, the Sergeant was quoted as saying: “Counter-terrorists win.”

- Reuters

GULMIRA - The peaceful people of the middle-eastern village of Gulmira were saved from being massacred by a well known terrorist group yesterday when an unknown individual appeared from out of nowhere clad in a hi-tech suit of armor and promptly ended the bloody conflict by neutralizing the terrorists.

“We have no idea who that guy was,” quoted a high-ranking US Army officer who wishes to be anonymous. “But we really owe him for this one. Gulmira was way out of our jurisdiction, so our forces can’t do squat about the terrorist conflict. I guess that guy in the suit knew about this and did the business for us.”

When interviewed, the villagers described the mysterious vigilante as ‘an angel who descended from the heavens in a red-and-gold scheme suit of armor.’ The suit was reportedly highly resistant to ballistic damage and was equipped with hi-tech weaponry, as witnesses claimed that the vigilante dispatched the terrorists using what appeared to be ‘energy bursts’ that came right out of the vigilante’s palms. According to eye-witness accounts, other armaments include a small missile that was launched from his suit’s forearm that took out a terrorist tank, and two shoulder-mounted cannons that were used in a hostage situation.

After the last of the subdued terrorists was handed to the local residents, the vigilante flew away on what eye-witnesses described as rocket-powered boots. “When I grow up, I want to be just like that nice man in the cool armor,” quoted Ahmed, age 9, who lost his both his parents in the conflict.

When pressed for details, Tony Stark, chairman of Stark Enterprises, the worlds largest developer of hi-tech weaponry, had this to say: “On behalf of Stark Enterprises and Associates, I would like to declare that we have no knowledge and connection with this ‘Iron Man’ character. However, personally, I would like to say that whoever it was flying in that shiny suit was a pretty nice guy, and a charming one to boot.”

In unrelated news, there have been unconfirmed sightings of a large, green humanoid creature wreaking havoc in several areas within New Mexico. General Thaddeus Ross of the U.S. army was unable for comment.

- AP

GERMANY – Scientists from all over the world gathered at the Zas Wilch International University of Modern Sciences yesterday to discuss the taxonomy of the world’s all-time favourite superhero, Superman. So far, it is largely accepted that Superman’s taxonomic classification is either ‘Bird’ or ‘Plane’, the choice between the two being a complicated topic that has been lingering in the scientific community for years.

“According to my long years of research in a myriad of avian species, I very much believe that Superman can safely be dropped in the ‘Bird’ box,” said Professor Ivan McSweeney, while pointing at a video footage of Superman flying through the blue skies of Metropolis. “See that red cape flapping in the wind? It’s movements appear to be similar to the wing movements of the South Brazillian Flying Cockatee.”

“I have to disagree on the ‘Bird’ hypothesis,” said Carl Limburgher, world-reknowned avionics engineer. “Superman looks nothing like a bird, unless you squint really, really hard. Seriously, the way his cape reacts to wind pressure as he flies in the air proves that he is more of a ‘Plane’ rather than a ‘Bird’.

Scientific opinion seems to fall evenly between the two ideas, with some claiming that The Man of Steel is both ‘Bird’ and ‘Plane’.

“I feel that there is no need to categorize Superman in any one of the two classes,” said Professor Beardy Tartakovsky. “Is it too much to accept that he might just be both ‘Bird’ and ‘Plane’?”

“Superman may have a lot of superpowers such as super-strength and heat vision, but being two things at once certainly isn’t one of them,” said Professor Ivan McSweeny. “Remember Schroeder’s Cat? This is the same thing.”

Despite ‘Bird’ or ‘Plane’ being the two most prominent hypotheses, there are several wild theories that attemp to explain Superman’s true class as a species. For example, one theory states that Superman is actually a Kryptonian, since he was born in the ill-fated planet Krypton before he landed on Earth. Most scientists seem to disregard this idea however, believing that such a fanciful theory is stepping out of the bounds of the scientific method and into the realm of pseudoscience.

“Superman, an extraterrestrial?Are we going to believe in alien UFO mumbo jumbo now? Zheeeesh,” commented Professor Chang Long Wang.

Finally, Professor Charlston McNamara, a renowned figure in the scientific community, had this to say: “Maybe, just maybe, Superman is neither a bird nor a plane, and that he is simply Superman.”

- AP

A Marine and a Monster in Space
Two Friends and a Bear
MAS to Use Hyperspace Technology
Balasubramaniam Retracts All Statements Against Murder Case, Says “It Was All Just a Big Stupid Mistake”
Astley Is Never Gonna Give You Up
Latest Research Reveals Mahathir Has 12th Level Intelligence
Terrorists Dispatched After Failed Bombing Mission
Petrol Price Will Rise by Merely 78 Cents
Man in Iron Suit Saves Villagers
Bird or Plane, Scientists Debate Over the Taxonomy of Superman
Another Story Involving a Kitten
An Event from Childhood
A Scenario of a Boyfriend's Worst Nightmare
You Want a Piece of Me, Boy?
Reaper
Glorious Charge
Dawn of the Killer Bunnies
My Frustrating Sex Life Part 1
My Frustrating Sex Life Part 2
Review of Snakes on a Plane
Tales of the Forest Friends
The Da Vy Jones Code
Exclusive: An Interview with Bill Gates on Xbox 360
Harry Potter and The Day Dumbledore Died on Page 437
Trix are for Kids
Leaked Script from the Latest Harry Potter Movie
This is a Notice for the Mosquito that Flew Around in My Apartment

Sweat rolled down Pvt. Bitterman’s neck as he slowly traversed through the gloomy hallways of the Strogg base, his mind alert and his eyes scouring for any sign of the bio-mechanical aliens. Even in the dark, he could see metal pipes lining the steel walls, and he followed these pipes which he had hoped should lead him to the underground sewer tunnels, where he had at least a slight chance of escape from the dreaded fortress.

He was just about a meter from one among a series of geometrical-themed blast doors when he suddenly heard a faint hiss coming from the dark shadows of the hallway. He turned around to face what ever sort of creature that was threatening him, only to have the hiss coming again from his back. “The fucker is crawling up the ceiling,” Bitterman thought. So he spun around real quick and aimed his double-barreled shotgun about 45 degrees upwards before letting out a shot.

‘Boom!’ sounded the gun, and the buckshot went narrowly pass the shadowy creature and hit one of the metal pipes lined on the ceiling. Steam came rushing out of the ruptured pipes, and the creature squealed before falling from the ceiling and crashing down to a spot on the floor where what little light that was present shed upon it’s misshapen form.

Bitterman only briefly looked at the creature – it was part machine, part flesh, all monster. It looked like something Satan would have spawned from the deepest bowels of Hell, only with a dash of science fiction with its various gothic tech melded onto its already horrible body.

The creature was quick to get up from his fall and charged at Bitterman with the resoluteness of a mindless beast – claws, sharp teeth, and metallic spikes protruding from its body came rapidly at the soldier. But Bitterman only had to move his aim slightly to the center of his view – right at the head of the incoming tech-spawn – and again let off a blast. The creature’s head exploded as it leapt for him in mid-air, and it fell to the ground, forming a pile of mangled flesh and ruined hardware right in front of his feet, dead.

Bitterman shot the creature again, just to be safe. The adrenaline surging within him was gradually subsiding as he crossed over the bio-mechanical carcass and approached the blast door in front of him. He reached for the touch-sensitive panel screen and disengaged the door. The steel bulks that formed the blast door hissed as it slid open, with ominous vapors slithering out from the other side, which was totally devoid of any light. Another hallway.

Bitterman looked beyond the door, into the darkness. He took a deep breath, collecting what little sanity he had left before stepping into the portal and into a new realm of horror.

This happened in a time period significantly later than the previous story. It was a weekday morning, and my parents were just one breakfast away from going to work. I was out in the yard enjoying the refreshing morning air when suddenly I noticed a kitten creeping under my mother’s Mazda Astina, a car that my mother has had for more than 15 years now. Curious, I checked under the car and found that a maternal cat had moved her litter into an open yet dangerous compartment within the bottom of the car, which was directly under the engine. I lay down and tried to coax the kittens out of the hole, but they were afraid of me – they would jump back up into the hole as soon as they saw my hand desperately trying to reach for them.

Then I saw my parents come out of the front door with their car keys, and they were about to drive off to work. I couldn’t even imagine what would happen to the kittens if my mother were to turn on the engine. I tried to warn them that there were kittens hiding under mother’s car, but they just wouldn’t listen – I was, afterall, a small child with a wild imagination. My late grandmother was in the house that day, and she came out when she heard the commotion outside. Gently, she assured me that there were no kittens under the car, but I knew better. I was powerless as I saw my mother getting into the driver seat of her car and turned on the ignition. Her engine roared, but I didn’t hear any meowing – perhaps the kittens had realized the danger and came out just in time. For a moment, I felt relieved.

When my mother tried to back the car out of the driveway, it was then when everyone heard a high-pitched squeak, and my eyes shifted quickly at the car tires. One of the kittens didn’t crawl out from under the the car in time and had his cute little paw run down by one of the huge tires. The kitten limped away, obviously in pain, and I was screaming and crying, at the same time scolding my elders for not listening to me in the first place.

The poor kitten survived the ordeal, but his right paw was permanently crippled, and it had to limp around for the rest of its life. It stayed with us for about a year or two, and the kitten grew up to be a cute little cat until the day it ran away. I never saw it again.

I once killed a small kitten by accident when I was just a small child. I was about ten years old, and we used to have a litter of kittens crawling around in one room in the house, which is where we were watching TV at that particular morning. My younger brother and I were anxiously waiting for The Power Rangers to come up. The Power Rangers was a famous children’s program back then, and we were so excited that we were jumping around the room wildly. I jumped off the couch and landed on the floor, but then I felt something furry and soft squished beneath my feet. I was horrified when I found out that I have accidentally stepped on one of the kittens. The poor creature was paralyzed and severely injured, but it didn’t die - it breathed in short intervals and had a thick line of blood trailing from his mouth. I wept the whole day, and at night I prayed to God really hard for the kitten to heal miraculously. The next morning, I fearfully checked if the kitten was okay – if my prayers were granted – only to find out that the kitten had already died. My father and I buried the kitten at a spot outside of our house later that morning, although that being a long time ago and having grown up now, I've already forgotten where exactly that spot is.

One cold, breezy night, Jamie and Karen are spending some intimate time in a beautiful park. They are sitting on a bench facing a lake, the side of their hips touching each other. The moon is beautifully round and bright, and an opera of crickets chirping complements the romantic scene

“Jamie,” Karen says, her hand slithering over her boyfriend’s lap, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it, sweetheart?” says Jamie, his arm going around Karen’s back and hugging her as his eyes gaze into Karen’s. “You know you can tell me everything. No secrets between us, right?”

“Owh, Jamie,” Karen replies, her eyes turning away from her before her face becomes a bit down. “You’re so sweet and all, but I’m afraid that you’ll-“

Before she can finish her sentence, Jamie releases his hug from her and stands up from the bench and faces her with a stern countenance. “Karen, please don’t say that there’s another guy.”

“No, Jamie,” she replies with a voice belying hesitance, “I love you, and only you Jamie. You know that’s true!”

Jamie is relieved to hear those words from her, but it still isn’t over. “But then what, Karen? What is it that you’re having a problem telling me?

Before Karen can open her mouth to reply, her eyes catch a faint glitter, like that of a small piece of shiny metal, from afar. She knows what it is, and quickly she grabs her boyfriend and pulls him to the ground before a small metal object narrowly whizzes pass them and hitting the wood of the bench. Perplexed, Jamie gets out of Karen’s embrace and stands up, only to see a deadly shuriken sticking out of the bench.

“Jamie, get down!” Karen yells. Still in bewilderment, Jamie quickly hits the dirt, just in time for two more shurikens to fly just above him.

“Holy crap!” shouts Jamie, panicking. “What the heck was that?”

“Jamie, that thing that I’m supposed to tell you,” she says, her eyes searching the shadows around them. “The truth is, I’m really-“

Her last words do not get to escape from her mouth before she is interrupted by sounds coming from a nearby bush. Two ninjas, dressed in black attire, jump out of the shadows before drawing their deadly katana swords.

“Heiya!” shouts one of the ninjas. “Karen-san, surrender the secret information now, or you shall meet your doom!”

“Come and take it from me!” Karen shouts back as she draws two pointy daggers that before were perfectly hidden underneath her sweater. Jamie gapes. “Stand back, Jamie darling, this fight is beyond you!”

One of the ninjas flies toward her with a flying kick, but she is fast enough to step away from the attack to land a hard stab into the ninja’s crotch. As the ninja falls to the ground and rolls side to side in agonizing pain, the other ninja closes in and swings his katana at her. She manages to intercept it with one of her daggers, and swiftly she uses the other one to impale his arm. The ninja collapses, with blood gushing out of his arm.

The other fallen ninja, after recovering from his injury, comes to aid his partner. What follows is a scene straight from a Jet Li action movie, with two ninjas battling a single woman with killer moves like Neo. Jamie only stands at the side, awed and dumbfounded by this turn of events. Karen has got a lot of explaining to do.

About five minutes later, all the ninjas lie on the ground, their breaths exasperated and their bodies beaten. Karen sheathes her daggers back inside her sweater and slowly approaches one of the ninjas who looks like he is still able to talk. She crouches down to him and roughly snatches him by the collar with one hand, her face looking fiercely intimidating.

“Who sent you, scumbag?!” she roars with one tightly-clenched fist shaking in front of his face. “Who do you work for? The Illuminati? The Secret Neo-Nazi Organization? The Hidden Soviets?”

“That, my dear spy, is something that you will never find out.” Swiftly and painfully, the ninja twists his head, effectively breaking his own neck. The ninja would rather commit suicide than to divulge any information about his secret faction. Karen then turns toward the other ninja, only to find out that he has done the same thing.

The scene turns quiet again, with only the chirping of crickets filling the air. Karen’s fierce face slowly changes into worry as she turns toward her boyfriend, Jamie. “Look, Jamie darling, I need to explain something to you but I need you to be a bit understandi-“

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” interrupts Jamie, with things becoming more clear for him. “I understand that you’re a super-secret agent who knows kung-fu and is working undercover for a the government for god knows what reason. I’m cool with that. I mean, it’s weird and all, but we’ll find a way to live through it.” Jamie smiles as he walks towards Karen, reaching out to hold Karen’s soft, blood-soaked hand.

“But Jamie darling, that’s not what I was trying to tell you. I mean, I know that hiding my secret identify from you was wrong, but it wasn’t it.”

Jamie is let down. “Then what is it, Karen? What else could you possibly be hiding from me that is bigger?”

“Well,” she says hesitantly, her cheeks turning red. “I’m seven weeks pregnant with your baby.”

The grim chamber had been quiet, buzzing only with the faint sounds of electrical currents and small machine parts, before the loud lock mechanism of the blast door leading into the chamber was initiated. It whirred in a series of spins, twists and clicks until the mechanism was complete, and the blast door slowly slid open with steamy white vapor rushing out due to pressure from inside the airlock. The air soon cleared, and a silhouette of a large man was seen at the mouth of the entrance. The man stepped out, shedding light onto his topless, muscular body and his ragged, orange pants, and much lower were bar-linked shackles fastened around his ankles. His head sported a crew cut, his chin was stubbly, and his face bore many scares, along with a stern countenance of a grizzled war veteran. His eyes were dark; his pupils were so large that it almost swallowed all the white, perhaps a deformity caused by prolonged cryogenic suspension. And he had a cigar in his mouth, its wispy grey smoke gently drifting in the dark, moist atmosphere of the chamber.

He had been a prisoner frozen in lifeless suspension in a cryogenic coffin. Now he was about to become a Marine.

The man proceeded to walk calmly across a catwalk and onto a round platform that was at the centre of the small chamber. There were two foot holes fixed on the platform, and the man placed both his feet inside them. As soon as he did, small robotic clamps came from beneath the platform to disengage the shackles before firmly fastening his feet to the foot holes. The clamps then disappeared out of sight, and the platform slowly rose about several feet higher before halting. The man stood idly on the round platform for a while until a pair of tendrils came down from above and grappled the man’s wrist before slowly raising them higher, draping both of his arms just above the man’s head. Soon a whirring sound was heard; it was the power turbine, charging up and preparing to initiate the assembly of the Terran Marine Power Armor.

A computer screen came down in front of the man, showing the current progress of the power suit-assembling process. The word ‘ACTIVE’ was blinking at the end of a string of commands on-screen.

Robotic arms, which were fixed around the chamber and before had been dormant, then began to come alive, retracting from the walls as they were about to start their work on the man. Several of the mechanical hands procured a set of chassis and fastened them onto the man’s torso and limbs. Others helped by placing wires, tubes and mechatronical parts around the chassis with screws and bolts before covering them by welding pieces of armor plating onto the chassis. The plates were ultramarine blue, and they suffered from small dents, scratched paint and other signs of wear, perhaps taken from an older set of armor that had been through combat a few times. The mechanical hands worked from the ground up; the man was half-way through the process, and already his lower half was fully covered with high-tech armor while the machines worked on the aegis along with the insertion of plasma cells that will provide almost perpetual power for the battle suit.

One of the hands had finished implanting an artificial spinal cord to the back of the man’s actual spine. The two rows of needles on the artificial spinal chord automatically and subsequently embedded themselves into the man’s back, making impulse signal contact with his brain He would be able to command almost full control of his power armor just by willing its movement with his mind. Next was the extension gauntlets; due to the bulky nature of the power armor, the pair of robotic gloves would serve as an extension of his actual hands by the manipulation of gyro-servo devices that was placed within his grasp before the machines welded the extension gauntlets together with the armor around his forearm.

The process was 80% in completion; almost all of him was covered with metal while several tubes were pumping cryo-fluids into the armor cooling system. The tubes dislodged themselves and disappeared after they were finished, and the tendrils that had been draping his arms came down slowly before releasing his wrists. A pair of huge, round pauldrons bearing his unit ID on the left side and the insignia of the Terran Dominion on the right side came down and were attached to his shoulders. Once it was done, two exhaust ports at the back of the power armor started to light up; the suit was testing overall system functions for optimal performance. Everything tested well, and all the bonds that constricted the man’s movement were loosened. The man was now one with his power armor.

The finishing touch; an automatic rifle was lowered from above just within reach of the man’s mechanical gauntlets. The rifle weighs 60 lbs and uses depleted uranium shell cartridges for ammunition. It can fire up to 2500 bullets per minute in both automatic and in rounds, and it is also capable of launching a frag grenade that explodes on contact. It is the standard-issue firearm for the Terran Marine Corp.

And then all was done. Standing on that platform was no longer just any man. He was now a Marine towering 8 feet tall and fully clad from head to toe in power armor 8 inches thick, armed with a powerful gun, frag grenades and other devastating gadgetry. But all the armor and firepower won’t be enough once he is in the battlefield. He might have to face against the esoteric, relentless forces of the Protoss warriors. He might have to steel himself against the frightening claws and talons of the nightmarish Zerg swarms. He might even have to battle against other Terran marines, men and women serving their own factions with guns like himself.

No, the prerequisites for being a marine are more than just mere material armor or weapon. It takes stoic courage, guts of steel, and a special kind of sanity. These qualities are both a marine’s true weapon and shield against the horrors of war that await him. Any man can slip into a power armor and go into battle, but only a few can make the return journey alive.

‘ASSEMBLY PROCESS: FINISHED’

The Marine stepped forward, embracing his new amalgamated self. He had been in cryogenic suspension for longer than he could remember, and now he stood as one amongst millions who will bring forth the military wrath of the Terran Dominion. Just as the ice had thawed from his body, the same was with his mind. With the cigar still burning in his mouth, he pondered how he had lived his life before, how he was now, and the role that he was about take in the big picture of things to come. Four words came to him, and he uttered it grimly before bringing the glass visor down to hide his face:

“Hell, it’s about time.”

My head was throbbing with pain. Flickers from a hanging bulb above me seemed like blurry flashes to my tired eyes as I sat on an old wooden chair in front of an equally-old wooden table, trying to drown the pain away with a full glass of water on my right hand-side, now left third-quarters, while at the other side lay a silenced pistol, the only friend that I could count on in my years as a high-profile contract killer. The gunshot wound on the left side of my stomach still felt unbearable beneath the red-stained swathe of bandages around my mid-section, although it would have been worse without the painkillers and the anesthesia shot I applied to myself half an hour ago. I had never known dragging my bleeding self the short distance between the hit scene and the shoddy getaway apartment could be so harrowing.

Sirens. Police Sirens. Even in my weary state of mind, I could hear them coming without looking out the window, its twin panes flapping from the gentle night breeze. Not just one, but from two police cars, and then came some more. It didn’t take long until the whole police department parked outside the apartment building with their cruisers and their black vans. I imagined they were then scrambling all over the place, evacuating civilians in the vicinity and blocking all possible exits out of the apartment building while the dark-attired spec-ops team geared up before the inevitable storm-in. The whirring of helicopter blades filled the air outside while bright spotlights shone at the windows and balcony of my apartment. Apparently, I was trapped.

But that didn’t worry me. Or at least, it didn’t worry me as much as what had happened at the St. Lacroque Theater. The scene where I had been shot.

I had a contract hit for a Francesco Orleon, a hot-shot politician famous for denouncing several other political personalities for getting their hands dirty in bribery. He didn’t really care much about justice; he also lived in a glass house, and he merely used the scandal to spearhead his own agenda of being elected as the next mayor of Paris. Naturally for such a politician, he had a long list of enemies, and he just happened to tick off the wrong sort of people – the sort who had strong ties in the organized crime business.

I was lounging rather excessively in one of the exotic resort islands in the Caribbean one day when I received an encrypted message through my ‘agency’, telling me that several distinguished ‘clients’ were looking for someone with my ‘special talent and high degree of skill.’ I made a call, planned a date and place, and all was set. The next day I took the first flight to Paris and met them there at a disclosed location. They gave me Francesco’s bio, particulars and other important information, and I gave them my word and my contract that Francesco won’t see another day after 28th of March, with a fee of $200,000 – a down-payment of $50,000 and the rest after the job was done.

Everything seemed to be going as planned. Francesco and his wife were at the St. Lacroque Theater, just like the info in his file said. And so was I, dressed in a black three-piece suit and a pair of shades, carrying in hand a briefcase of death. When the stage went alive with various exotic art performances, I was hidden behind a shadowy corner unpacking and re-assembling the sniper rifle that had been tucked in pieces in the disguised briefcase. I had Francesco in my scope and was about to pull the trigger when I heard someone shouting at me. It distracted me a little too much that my shot missed just about a quarter inch from his ear, but a quarter inch miss has just about the same effect as a quarter mile. I tried to snipe him again, but it was too late; his security team was quick enough to whisk him and his wife away from the opera house while everyone else ran in panic from the alarming shot.

Knowing that I’ve blown the job, I proceeded to my getaway plan. I snuck quietly out of the shadows and blended in with the torrent of the crowd rushing out of the theater, trying to escape from whoever pointed me out. As soon as I got out in the open, I whisked out of the crowd and lost myself into the dark labyrinth of alleyways. I ran through tight corridors amongst trash bins and juvenile graffiti, and for a moment I thought I was clear, but when I turned a corner, there he was.

The man, who was about my height, wore a shirt and slacks under a leather coat, stood only several feet away and was aiming his gun at me. “Freeze!” he shouted, an indication that he was with the law. I had a good look at his visage and found myself in a feeling of uneasiness. The way he looked at me was as if he had known me even before the events of that night. That was impossible, since nobody really knew who I was or what I looked like due to my thorough discretion in making witnesses who recognized me disappear. “You won’t escape this time, hitman!” shouted the person again.

FBI, CIA, MI6; who knows who this guy was. He must have had followed my case for months now, trailing the crumbs of dead bodies that I had left behind on my previous hits. You can’t be the most notorious and elusive contract killer in the gun-for-hire trade and not be pursued and hunted down by various law organizations around the world. The only reason the FBI didn’t put me on their Top 10 Most Wanted list was because they weren’t even sure that I existed. They had no name, no picture, no bio; all they had of me were spook stories about how politicians, company CEOs, celebrities and other famous figures took a bullet, poison, or a bomb under the car seat, while the perpetrator – me - vanished as if into thin-air. I was a ghost, a rumor, a ‘fabrication of the media as a result of public paranoia towards assassination conspiracies.’ I was that good.

But this guy in front of me, he knew that I wasn’t just a story, and that I was as real as the killings that I’ve done. And for some reason, I seemed to remember that mug of his from somewhere too, only that it was tucked inside the deepest recesses of my memory for me to know for sure. Perhaps I saw him on a contract hit I did three months ago in Peru. Maybe it was the job at Croatia. He felt like a recognizable shadow to me as I was to him.

I needed to act fast. The sound of footsteps rushing far behind me suggested that the police were on the prowl, and in front of me was a man with a gun. So I did what a desperate assassin would do after botching a mission and had nowhere to go; whip out a piece and let it settle things out. My hand was fast on taking out the silenced 9mm Glock pistol from my black jacket, but not fast enough to out-race the man’s trigger finger. Before I knew it, a sharp pain blew at my gut which had me down on my knees. I reached down to clutch the wound, and a warm, wet feeling surrounded my hand. When I held my hand up to see it, it was covered with a coat of crimson, with thick drops of blood trailing down from my palm and onto my cuff. It was then that my mind started to fail me as blood drained out of my brain and as it filled with feelings of doom and helplessness.

During all my years as an assassin, never had I been shot in any way. There were close calls, but to have a bullet traveling almost as fast as the speed of sound and sink deep into your flesh, the tremendous momentum coupled with the blunt end of the bullet piercing your skin and ripping through your sinewy muscles and tendons was a new, excruciating experience for me, which couldn’t come at a worse time than during that tense moment.

The man saw me kneeling down in pain from his shot and thought that he had me. But I was too stubborn to give up. With a small ounce of strength and a large keg of determination, I lifted up my gun and fired my shots. All of them missed him as he dodged aside and fell behind a wall. That gave me time to think before he comes out and pops another one that will take me down for good. I thought, and when I couldn’t think of anything, I thought harder. It was then that my mind was distracted by my watching my own blood dripping and trailing its way along the asphalt and filled the embossed texture of a man-hole cover.

That was it. I reached for the man-hole cover and tried to pry it open with one bloody hand while my other hand shot suppressing fire towards the general direction of the wall the stalker was hiding behind, hoping that he wouldn’t have the guts to spring out and take another round of shots at me. It didn’t take long before the man-hole cover popped open like a bottle cap, and a repugnant odor quickly rushed out of the hole and assaulted my sense of smell. Dubious movements and noises within the dark sewer made me think thrice about going in, but I had no other choice if I were to escape from this corner. And so I descended into the darkness, leaving my pursuer only air when he went out of his hiding for his turn to shoot.

The sewer was dark and grim. The tunnels were so devoid of light that I had only my outreached hands for navigation and my instinct as a compass as I waded through a stream of sewage water that was high up to my knee. The unbearable wound in my gut didn’t help, and my mind was racing, wondering over and over again who that mysterious man was and the consequences of him now trailing my every move. Sounds of rats and the creepy feeling that roaches were clinging onto my body made my skin crawl, but I steeled my nerves and stumbled forth until I came to a part of a tunnel with long light fixtures lined on the side of the walls. Then I came to dry pavement, and I walked for about half a mile through the twisted maze of tunnels and climbed out of the nearest man-hole and up into the streets above, to my relief.

I looked around the area once I got out, taking deep breaths of air to purge the vile gas that polluted my lungs as I checked on my wound. I found no exit wounds behind my back, so I figured the bullet was still buried inside my gut. I was in an alley leading out into a street, and I recognized the place. It was an unpopular part in the far edge of the city where the streets and sidewalks are usually empty as the clock approaches midnight, which is what I counted on to avoid unwanted eyes. Across the street and three blocks away was my getaway apartment, a fall-back place where I planned to hide if the hit job turns out to be a failure, which it did. I was about to cross the street when a young woman came from my right carrying a plastic bag, perhaps groceries and take-away dinner. She was probably walking home after closing shop, and she gasped, petrified at the sight of a bloodied man with wet slacks.

She had witnessed me, which I thought I couldn’t let her get away with. My hand was half-way towards my silenced gun in my jacket, but I second-guessed and decided that there had been enough shots fired for one night. Scared, the lady dropped her bag and ran away, probably thinking that I was a crazy psycho lunatic loose from an asylum somewhere and just gutted a homeless person. She might have went to the police to report me and have the entire department chasing after me as soon as they were certain that I was the man they’re hunting in the St. Lacroque incident, but my head was too woozy for such things to matter. The woman disappeared into the darkness of the night, never knowing how close she was from having a bullet swiftly embedded into the back of her skull.

I continued forth, crossing the street and hurried towards the getaway apartment with my head hunched and my hand clutching my gut to hold the pressure, with patches and splatters of red stain trailing in my wake. Finally I reached the apartment building and whisked pass the guy sleeping behind the reception desk. Since the lift was out of order, the flight of stairs felt like a descent into hell, with each step being a cringe-inducing torture as the malformed flesh in my wound twisted and turned. I was soaked in sweat and blood once I reached the 5th floor, almost drained of my mettle. Quickly I went inside my getaway apartment and locked the door behind me. But it still wasn’t over – I had to do something about my bullet wound.

I struggled towards the bathroom and opened the shelf behind the mirror up the sink. There sat a bottle of painkillers and an anesthetic syringe. The pain subsided a bit once I took both supplements, but the hard part was yet to come – the accursed bullet was still in me.

I closed the windows and the doors to the balcony before I turned the ceiling fan on three and sat down on one side of a bed. I took my jacket and ripped off my bloody shirt to give the wound some air, and I found out to my horror that it looked twice as bad as I thought it had looked like when I glanced it 15 minutes before outside. I took a deep breath and shoved a finger into the bloody hole, trying not to cringe as I probed for the bullet. I couldn’t stand the pain, so I reflexively pulled out the finger just before I cried out and fell onto my side. I collected myself and sat back up, determined to dig the little piece out before gangrene sets in. This time I chomped down a piece of white cloth and continued to shove the finger inside again, the pain much more excruciating the second time. Finally I felt a cold piece of metal touching the tip of my finger, and I kept digging and coaxing the bullet to come out of my flesh until it fell out and bounced off the wooden floor before rolling onto a floor mat.

I had only been through half the crude medical procedure – I had to stop the bleeding and close the wound before it gets infected. I took out the silenced gun from my coat, dislodged the bullet cartridge, and popped out a bullet. I reached for a knife from a drawer and carefully dismantled the cap at the base of the bullet so that I could access the gun powder inside. Once it was done, I sprayed some of the powder around my wound, and, with a piece of cloth once again in my mouth, I lit a match stick and dropped the flame onto the wound. My gut lit up like a firecracker, and the pain was too much that I fell out of the bed and rolled around the floor writhing and moaning in extreme agony. I lay on the floor for several minutes, taking rapid breaths while the sweat from my forehead and the pain in my gut evaporated under the healing winds of the ceiling fan. Soon the pain disappeared completely, and I got up and opened the windows and the balcony doors again to greet the calming draft of Parisian night air as well as admiring the nocturnal, romantic beauty of the City of Lights.

I reached for a roll of bandages.


And that was how everything went. After a long shower to rid the funk from the sewers and a new black 3-piece suit fresh out of the closet, I sat alone in that small room with a thousand thoughts swirling up like a maelstrom in my mind. I lifted the gun from the table and stared at it, my draping fingers gently probing the cold, smooth surface of the man-killer, examining the nozzle, the butt handle, the recoil, every inch of it as if it was the clearest thing that I could comprehend at the moment.

“Attention, suspect!” boomed an all-too-familiar voice from a megaphone outside the building. “This is Special Agent Clarkson from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the man who shot you earlier. We already have the entire building surrounded. There is nowhere else to go. Drop your arms and slowly walk out of the building with your hands up!”

Clarkson. That name stuck to mind so easily as his face had been, seeing as this person had been my bane for most of the night. What was an FBI agent doing in Paris anyway? And even if someone had known that I would assassinate Francesco, how could they have known that I would be executing it precisely at this very night, at that theater? I couldn’t have possibly been tipped off, since I’m sure all my negotiations and contact lines were completely secure. This Clarkson person knew too much about me. Too much for either of our sakes.

I was still deep in thought when several smoke bombs hurled through the windows and rolled on the floor, filling the entire room with black, suffocating smoke. Apparently the Gendarmerie Nationale, the French equivalent of the SWAT team, was about to go in. They were bringing in the big guns after me.

My time was up, and I needed to act fast. I finished what was left of the glass of water and picked up my gun, the butt handle squeezed tightly in my hand as I crossed towards the door. I avoided the windows – snipers had probably positioned themselves outside, ready to put me down at the first sign of my limb. Instincts told me that a team of six special-ops guys were rushing for my door right about then, so I just stood next to the door and spied through the peephole for their coming.

Just as I predicted, through the peephole I saw bulbously distorted images of the black team coming in from a staircase at the other end of the hall that ran straight facing my door. Each member hastily took their positions in front of my door as they wait for their captain to give the hand signal. I saw my chance in this and, with all my might, kicked the door down into pieces of wood and splinters. The team was taken aback from my sudden action, and if that wasn’t enough, the black, suffocating smoke that had stayed pressured inside my apartment instantly rushed out and enveloped them, bewildering them even more. I quickly stepped out and into their line of fire, and it was during that intense brief moment when time seemed to slow down for me. A hue of blooming sepia tone started to fill my sight which gradually came down to monochrome. It was the spirit of my gun taking over me.

Like a mongoose swiftly dodging the venomous fangs of a cobra, or a housefly whisking with ease through a barrage of swats, so was my perception and reflex when it came to close combat with firearms. All of us pulled the trigger, but I was like a formless phantom to them, swiftly moving through the smoke and evading their shots. I managed to plant three bullets inside three of their craniums. Another one of the remaining fired a line of rapid shots aimed at my face, but it was only a matter of moving my head just a little to the side as the bullets zipped pass a few inches away from my ear before I pointed my Glock at him and responded in kind.

Four down, and in a microsecond the other standing two were about to rain bullets at me. I dodged to my right when they fired their shots, all of them barely missing me as they punch holes through my flapping jacket. I landed on my side, and, with an aim that was perfect and true, I fired two bullets – the first one pierced through a guy’s throat, ripping his windpipe, while the second dug deep into another guy’s chest. The former victim died instantly. The latter collapsed onto the floor and tried to moan in pain before realizing that he was puking red from having his lungs drowned in blood. He tried to crawl away on all fours when I approached him, and when his fortitude failed him, he dragged and clawed across the floor like a slug. He flipped over to look at me, and I could see his eyes wide and unblinking at the terrifying sight of the Grim Reaper wading in smoke like a ghost and slowly approaching him in a three-piece suit with a pistol in hand, along with the ultimate realization that his death was near. I pressed one foot against his chest and, with my gun aimed at his head, swiftly ended his misery.

When the smoke settled, six agents of the law lay dead with their walky-talkies buzzing in French, and my perception cleared once more. I couldn’t waste any more time – the two hallways met together at one corner, like the shape of an L, the corner being where the door to my apartment was, or had been. I heard more voices of rushing boots coming up the staircase at the end of the hallway in front of me, so I turned to and ran for the other hallway for the emergency stairway. I passed four rooms on my left, and once I got to the fifth, I heard more of them coming up the emergency stairway. I was trapped, but it is when I’m cornered and desperate that I’m the most creative and resourceful.

I turned to the apartment door on my left and kicked the door open. I rushed in uninvitingly, hoping that nobody was in, and went straight for the balcony facing the roofless atrium of the apartment building. I looked up at the sky, the square opening of the atrium perfectly framing the crescent moon along with a formation of faint stars hiding behind soft sinewy clouds. I accidentally knocked a flower pot off the railing, sending it plummeting five floors down and crashing onto the rooftop of a garage below. It was a long way down.

But I had no other choice. I had to risk the fall. I climbed over the railing and, after a deep breath, leapt off the edge of the balcony. The plunge was a bit long, but when it came to the landing on the garage roof, it felt like I had broken every bone in my body even though I was perfectly fine and in one piece. I got up and brush the dust off my coat. I looked down from the garage roof and saw a couple of police patrolling along a tight corridor, and they were about to pass a spot right under me. When they did, I jumped off the roof and right onto one of them, instantly breaking his neck, while the other one stumbled and fell from my sudden descent. I hurried back up to my feet before he did, and when he was still on his fours, I got to his back, cupped my hands around his head and snapped his neck. The body count was raised to eight that night.

Quickly I dragged their lifeless bodies inside the garage, fearful of anyone else stumbling on them. I undressed myself and hastily exchanged my bullet-ridden attire with one of the dead police; the police cap, blue shirt, black slacks, baton, shades, cuffs, pistol, badge, everything, right down to the most miniscule detail. A few finishing touches and I was done, and I looked exactly like one of them; just a cop amongst the army of law enforcers crawling out there that night hunting for a sneaky assassin. His walkie-talkie was buzzing, so I had to shut it off before I hung it on my belt.

I went into the nearest door, entering back into the apartment building. I crossed several hallways, brushing against several special-ops guys who were rushing upstairs looking for the hitman who was no longer there. Then I came through the main hall at the reception and out of the main entrance of the building for the whole army of police officers to see. Not one of them recognized me, which might had been credited to the shades and police cap that hid most of my distinguishing features.

I walked down the stairs from the main entrance to the sidewalk. The atmosphere was buzzing with activity as the cops were moving everywhere to do small errands, most of them uniformed while a few others in plain-clothes. I kept my cool as I mingled amongst the crowd of police who stood by their cruisers and their guns at the ready, yet I couldn’t help feeling like I was swimming in a tank of sharks while wearing a shark costume; the dreaded feeling that any one of them could bust me at any time. All it would take was an officer with a keen eye and a substantial amount of curiosity and it would be curtains down for me.

Then it dawned on me; perhaps I could take this chance and look around for my pain-in-the-neck friend Mr. Clarkson. My eyes were scouring the place for his face before I felt a hand tapped on my shoulder from behind. I turned around to face a cop

“Hey, buddy,” said the cop in French. “I got a couple of guys who went inside the building and they were supposed to come out five minutes ago. I saw you coming out of the building just now, so did you see either of them?”

I know French, but it had been a while since the last time I spoke in that tongue. Five or six years perhaps, and I was a little bit rusty. So I braced myself and spilled it out:

“Oh, les. J'ai trébuché dans eux quand j'étais là dedans. Ils ont dit qu'ils ont trouvé quelque chose que menerait au meurtrier et qu'ils allaient le payer la note.”
(Oh, them. I stumbled into them when I was in there. They said they found something that would lead to the killer and that they were going to check it out.)

“Oh, I see,” replied the cop, satisfied with my answer. “You know, you don’t really look too good. There are still one or two donuts left in the van up there, so feel free to help yourself.”

I nodded in agreement and turned away from him. Then my sight fell upon a police cruiser with its front driver seat door opened, the keys still dangling from the ignition. Nobody seemed to mind about the car, so I walked in and stepped into the driver seat as if the car was mine and closed the door. I turned the ignition until the engine roared, released the hand break, strapped on the seat belt like a good police officer, stepped on the clutch and pedal, and drove out of there to my freedom. I glanced at my rear view mirror to see the cops still clueless about my sneaky escape. Suckers.

It wasn’t long before I left the twist-and-turning streets of Paris and was cruising smoothly down the highway, abandoned by all worries of apprehension. I turned off the cruiser’s buzzing intercom and switched on the radio, although it was unfortunate that all the songs were in French.

Then I wondered about Mr. Clarkson. The man who had known me. The man who shot me. The man who would hunt me down as long as he breaths. The man’s existence threatened mine, and I couldn’t have that.

I had to kill him. Somehow.


Clarkson woke up to the buzz of his alarm clock, rising up from his bed and yawned to greet the morning air in his lovely house in a Los Angeles suburb. He tapped the alarm and rubbed the crud out of his eyes, just to be pierced by blades of light that came from the windows of his bedroom. When his eyes were finally well-adjusted to the early day, he turned towards the alarm clock again to see that it was 9 a.m.

“Gosh, I must have expired last night,” he thought to himself. It had been an entire week since the events that took place at Paris - the attempted hit on Francesco Orleon, the confrontation with the mystery hitman in the alley, the manhunt in the apartment building, all of them were still fresh in his head after all those days. He had been putting too much effort in the search for the hitman, and obviously it had taken a toll on his health by depriving himself of much rest. He had noticed this and decided to have the next day off from work.

Sluggishly he got off from the bed, pushing the white sheets away from him before slipping on his comfortable fluffy slippers. He noticed his wife Amanda wasn’t on the bed next to him, probably off to her secretarial job at the law firm. It was Tuesday morning, so he figured Kyle and Kim were already in school by now. It was one of those rare moments when he has the entire house all to himself, although the morning felt weird to him - as if something was out of whack.

After a long, refreshing time in the bathroom, Clarkson came down the stairs in his casual shirt and shorts and headed for the kitchen, hoping that Amanda had left him with some grub for breakfast. Nothing, or it seemed that way when he looked at the kitchen table, which was clear except for today’s newspaper. He was about to open the fridge when he noticed a note stuck behind a magnet:

Scrambled eggs are in the microwave, honey. Take good care of yourself, kay?

xxxAmandaxxx

Clark turned the dial on the microwave to ‘medium’ for five minutes, making himself a cup of coffee while waiting for his breakfast to heat up. Very soon he was on the kitchen table eating his plate of warm scrambled eggs and drinking black coffee as he read the newspaper. He was glancing through the headlines on the front page when one suddenly caught his eye.

‘Mystery Man Hunter Still at Large a Week Later’

‘Darn it’, thought Clark as he was reminded of his duties again as the FBI agent who was in charge in apprehending the notorious assassin. He couldn’t help but feel that he was responsible for his slippery getaway from Paris that night, even after he had received several tips from reliable contacts about the attempted Francesco hit. The hitman could have killed another person right about now and it would all be his fault.

His coffee mug was already half-empty when he felt a mild pain suddenly coming from his stomach. At first he thought it was nothing; probably something bad he had eaten last night, but then the pain grew and grew to the point of intolerable, and it wasn’t long before Clark was on the floor moaning and writhing in pain, his hands clutching tightly at his belly for dear life.

He was painfully crawling towards the phone on one side of the kitchen wall when an ominous figure stepped into his view. At first he could not recognize the man through the terrible pain he was experiencing, but then it came like a flash. He recalled the face of the man who now stood before him, his stern countenance looking down at the pitiful Clarkson.

It was the Hitman.

“Don’t try to move,” said the Hitman monotonously, “It will only hurt more. Since you have about four or five minutes left, give or take, perhaps this is the best time for us to get to know each other.”

“You…you…how…,” mumbled Clarkson through his gritted teeth. The Hitman then walked over to the fridge and pulled a carton of orange juice, reached for a glass from one of the shelves and helped himself with the beverage.

“Oh, and don’t worry about your wife and children,” said the Hitman before drinking from the glass and wiping the yellow residue off his lips with a handkerchief. “It’s not my style to harm people unnecessarily, although the same can’t be said about the two stake-out officers who were guarding outside your house. I can’t help but feel sorry that I offed them too brutally. Maybe you can send my apologies to them once you die.”

“What…do…you…want...from…,” said Clarkson, now lying on his back in spasms, too weak to even finish his sentence. Greenish froth started to dribble out from the corner of his lips, and he could feel his vision fading as the whites of his eyes swallowed his pupils; both were symptoms of the deadly poison.

“What do I want?” replied the Hitman as he crossed to Clarkson’s side and crouched to meet his face, his fiery glare locked dead into Clarkson’s lifeless eyes. “I don’t want anything from you, Mr. Clarkson. In fact, my life was already fine and dandy before you came into my picture. You followed me around and struck me when I was most vulnerable. I can say this, Clarkson; that night was the most…unpleasant night I’ve ever had in my life, and it’s not something that I’m willing to endure again, ever.”

“You…monster…must…be…stopped…,” said Clarkson, now almost blind and barely able to speak. He was in his last breaths.

The Hitman grabbed the collar of Clarkson’s shirt and pulled his face even nearer to his, his ominous breath falling eerily onto the pale skin of Clarkson’s face. “I don’t blame people for calling me a monster. Hell, if I were them, I would call myself a monster. I’m a killer, and I’ve always have been. They say once you taste blood, it changes you forever. I wouldn’t know, because it’s been a part of my diet since day one. What is worth killing for, you might ask? I wouldn’t know, since I hadn’t any other choice. In taking a man’s life, all I can say is…it’s easy, and more difficult than you can imagine!”

The Hitman’s parting words only fell on deaf ears. Clarkson was already gone.