In the years that followed Galloway's awakening, he learned to control the power bestowed upon him. He would often wonder why he was so special, why did he deserve such power? The answer never came, and his guilt over that night never left.
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Just as he was musing his options for the night, a female's scream pierced the air and the sound of broken glass followed. The scream came from up ahead, in a seemingly unnoticeable alleyway that had a narrow opening. He sprinted up the street quietly as he could and reached the narrow opening. Looking inside, he could see the silhouette of a woman with her hair put up, and man with a brutish outline brandishing a knife towards her.
Helena?
His vision was still hazy from the alcohol, but he was sure it was her. The man holding the knife was a heavy set fellow with a cap and surgical mask on, the kind with a cross bone design over the mouth. He wore a black overcoat with a dark green turtleneck sweater underneath. His jeans looked faded, with holes littering the front, not by design but by continuous wear.
"I won't say it again, give me your fuckin' money, bitch!" The knife raised towards her throat. The silver blade shone just enough through the narrow entrance that it was visible from the street.
"I promise you, I don't have any!" She turned out her pockets and purse, spilling her wallet and make-up and several coins onto the cracked stone pavement. In one quick swoop, the man reached down without moving the knife from its fatal position. He thumbed through the wallet and threw it against a dumpster nearby. His eyebrows conveyed an expression of insidious intent.
"I guess since ya aren't lyin', what else ya got? Rings? Necklaces? Any jooolary?" He spoke an uneducated dialect. It would have been comical if not for the gleaming knife held against her windpipe. She shook her head slowly and showed her hands and pulled her collar down to show that she indeed had no jewelry of any kind.
"P-please let m-me go." Stammered Helena.
"Tell ya what. I'll let ya go, but how I know ya won't go runnin' to the police." With a quick motion, he grabbed her by the throat and pointed the knife at her navel.
Galloway at this point stepped back and stumbled, his shamble being heard by both occupants of the alley. After regaining his composure, he looked up to see the two frozen.
"Help! Please hel-" her cries were cut short by a big calloused hand that now covered her mouth. The man looked at Galloway with unwavering hostility.
"Back the fuck up, unless you wanna be a hero." The brute barked out words like a caged dog baring its teeth after each snarl. The blade now pointed in Galloway's direction.
That knife looks just like-
He stopped himself from finishing that thought. Rowan's face flashed before his eyes in an instant and he put his hands over his face to try to regain his composure. Gathering his thoughts, he stepped forward into the entrance and replied, "Leave some for the rest of us buddy." He said as he turned to walk away. Walking down the sidewalk, he discovered another alley and slipped into it. The path was dark and littered with trash. The smell of the dumpsters and rat feces was enough to make anyone want to vomit, but he pressed on quietly. Eventually reaching a turn, he poked his head around the corner cautiously and saw the looming silhouettes against the stone at the other end. He could hear voices drift around the corner ahead of him.
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"So, what d'we have here? What do ya have that will make all dis worth it?" The knife was creeping down her coat, cutting the buttons off at each point of contact. Helena looked down at them and to her in that moment they looked like a dozen lifeless black eyes staring at her from the wet concrete. Her gaze shifted from below to the thug looking at her with what she could only imagine was a very perverted smile behind his mask. She tried to make a quick move by smacking his arm away, but he grabbed her hair and threw her to the ground.
"Shouldn' have done that bitch!" he dragged her onto her feet and held her close with her back to his stomach. The knife pressed up against her throat, his other hand began to crawl along her stomach in the direction of her jean buttons. She tried to struggle and could feel the knife's blade began to break the skin of her neck and she stopped. Realizing she was powerless in this situation, there was no choice but to await the terrible inevitable. "I like when they know when to stop fighten."
His hand now at her jeans, and with a swift motion, her jean buttons joined the rest of the lifeless eyes on the concrete. The tears started to well up in the corner of her eyes, her nose stopped up from the mucous. His hand brushed against the lace of her waist band. He looked down to see black lace and he smirked.
"Naughty aren't ya. Probably going to get off to this huh?" His fingers slowly slipped into her waist band. Just as the worst thing imaginable was about to happen, a voice rang out behind them.
"When I told you to leave some for the rest of us, I meant it." The man from before was standing there with a lead pipe in his hand. He could see how horrified Helena had become, so he gave her a wink, as if to let her know it's going to be ok. The thug on the other hand was now furious. He tossed Helena to the side, her head colliding with the side of the dumpster, knocking her out cold. He raised his knife and began to step towards the man.
"So, the worm wants to be a hero? You may have a smart mouth, but that wont do you any good with ya fuckin' throat slit!" he lunged for the man, who just managed to sidestep him, The thug tripped on his own feet and hit the ground, the knife skidded under the dumpster. Looking back behind him, he saw the lead pipe rise up and come down with a crunch on the back of his right knee. The pain spread throughout his body like a ripple on the surface of a pool. He quickly turned around and grasped his broken knee close screaming. "What the fuck! My fuckin knee ya psycho fuck!". The pipe came down again on his left knee, another crunch bounced off the walls of the alley. This time he began to cry. "Please, no more, no more! I'll do anything you want!" he dropped his knees and winced at the enormous pain, holding both hands up to ward off any more attacks from the man standing above him, whose body eclipsed the light from the entrance around him. The man's facial features were blank and emotionless, with a stare that seemed to stretch further beyond the thug, sending shivers down his spine.
The man moved towards Helena and stooped down to put his fingers against her neck. There was still a pulse running through her veins and the man seemed to express a sigh of relief. "Why must the pretty ones always attract scum." He sat up and turned around to look the thug right in his eyes. "You made your bed, now lie in it." He grabbed the outstretched wrist and in the next moment both men were gone.
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Suddenly two men appeared, as if they melted into existence. The thug, shocked and confused, started to vomit onto the stone beneath their feet. Galloway looked around and chuckled.
Right on target
"Where...are...we?" the vomiting man said between hurls. He composed himself and felt dizzy. Looking around, there was something very wrong about this place. The walls were the same cracked and old stone used to build the buildings around them. All over the walls of the alley were what looked like posters from an era where propaganda littered almost every wall during wartime. On each poster there was a woman in military drab holding the head of a mustached man in one hand, and a phallic object dripping blood in the other. The slogan on each poster read Do your part, tear down the oppression. The thug crawled around the stone beneath them in a daze. His breath was ragged and he pulled down the surgical mask and looked over towards Galloway. "Yo man, what tha fuck did you do to me?!" His question filled with anger and hate for this new situation he had no control over.
"You don't appreciate the change of scenery? Well, I don't blame you, in your head, you almost had some pussy before I stepped in and now you see posters with bloody dicks on them. How was the landing by the way, did we stick it? I can't always control the slip when I'm drunk but I feel our little tussel might've sobered me up a little." Galloway's voice was monotonous and calm, not missing a beat or a single stutter.
"What tha fuck are ya goin on about? Ya better come up with an answer that makes sense real quick." The thug, now back at full focus, began to scream, "My knees! My knees!"
Galloway began to laugh, "Ha guess this means you're fucked, no two ways about it buddy. Me too, I can't slip too much at one time. I'll just get tired and pass out if I do." Before the thug could respond, footsteps approached the two men from both sides of this new but familiar alley. The steps quickly evolved into a marching tone as a squad of soldiers dressed in all black appeared on both sides, aiming very large rifles towards them. A lone soldier different from the rest, with more decorations on the uniform, stepped out of the squad and lowered their gun.
"How did we miss you? Are there any more of you vermin around here?" The voice was feminine, but stern. The solder took off her helmet to reveal a battle hardened face, a scar just above a whitened left eye and freckles littered across her cheeks. Her red hair was put up in a knot so tight that the veins around her hairline were exposed.. She walked up to the two of them, both now frozen, and took out two .38 specials. She pointed it below their belts and said, "Ah, the crown jewels. Wouldn't wanna lose them would you? Although, that may be a little too late seeing as her majesty now holds the crown upon her head." She spit in Galloway's face and and with a burst of red hot rage demanded the location of their base of operations. "Where the fuck is it boy, don't make me have to waste you before you can be useful."
"Nothing you could do to me that hasn't been done already. At the very least, you'll be doing me a favor by sending me back. This guy right here though, I heard he knows where the base is." Galloways tone never faltered from playful and condescending.
She whispered into his ear. "How do I know you aren't lying to my face?" Her breath tickled his ear and rested on his neck. The gun now pointed just below his chin.
"Because, that design on his mask, it's our group's flag. That's all I'm going to say bitch!" Then he spit back. It landed in her dead eye with a disgusting slimy wet landing. She knocked him in the side of the head with the grip of her revolver and held it to his head on the ground. Motioning two fingers in the air, two soldiers from the squad behind them came forward and grabbed the thug, pulling him to his feet. His screams of pain echoed against the black night.
"Get tha fuck off me. He's lying, motha fucker broke my knees!" The barrel of a rifle pressed into his nuts. He shut up quickly when he understood his situation, but still couldn't hold back the wimpers of pain. Still on the ground, Galloway held both hands out as if to show no sign of resistance. The woman chuckled and motioned another soldier towards them.
"Watch this one here, and don't let him move." She stepped towards the thug and grabbed him, spinning him around quickly and pressed his body against the stone wall. "Now, be a good boy and maybe you'll like this." His pants were now below his knees, as well as his underwear. She made quick work to expose him. "You look like the type that would've had your way with a girl like me in a place like this against my will, before we took over. You men are all the same, and now it's time to show you what it's like." She grabbed the rifle while the other two held his hands against the wall with their own pistols at his head.
"What tha fuck ya crazy bi-" The words stopped dead as the muzzle of her rifle entered him. He didn't speak after this, but his face showed that he wanted to scream. The tears ran down his red puffed cheeks and every twist and turn of his hips just brought more sounds of his crunched knees with it.
"Sorry honey," she said whispering into his ear, "there isn't any lube in sight." She threw her head back in a violent fit of laughter and began to shove the rifle deeper until she couldn't go any further. "I guess you want it to stop huh baby? It will stop when you tell me the location of the base."
"I DON'T KNOW ANY FUCKIN BASE!" His screams were agonizing, like nails on a blackboard. Her rifle began to twist and turn inside him, making the pain excruciating.
"The base is under us. Right under our feet yes mam!" He lied.
She leaned in, "Oh honey, I know a lie when I hear one. You had one chance, bye bye." She pulled the trigger and blood began to splatter all over the side of the alley wall. His last breath was a scream before the rifle fire tore open his stomach from his insides and leaked his guts all over the alley stone. The smell was putrid and the blood hit the ground and walls with a sickening splat. Steam rose up from his hot intestines as they mixed with the wet stone.
Galloway's ears were still ringing when she pulled the rifle out of the man, now slumped over in his own innards and blood. She blew the end of the rifle and looked like she was laughing once again. The ringing began to fade when he heard her last words.
"I hope you enjoyed the show." Placing the barrel of her revolver against his temple, she then pulled the trigger. Lights out.
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He came to in the alley, back in his world. Looking over he saw Helena, still out cold but breathing.
"Hey now, wake up. Come on, don't do this you got to wake up." Slapping her cheeks lightly had no effect but she was breathing. He took out his phone and dialed 911, leaving an anonymous tip about a mugging and hung up. "Don't worry, you'll make it through. See you later." He whispered to her, brushing her hair back behind her ear. Standing up, he was received back into the shadows of the night as he made his way home.