As Akira lay bleeding on the pavement of his apartments parking lot, he wondered how this came to be, a mugger taking his wallet, bike and life.

The rushing of blood drowned out the sound of distant traffic and the mugger riding away.

The metallic scent of blood filling his nose, shoving aside the scents of gas and garbage of before.

The bad luck that was his life. . . And watching it pass through his mind as he faded away would be so much more interesting if he weren't dying.

A safe harbor baby, wrapped in an Akira movie t-shirt, he had obviously been an Asian baby. Black hair, light blue eyes, all that entails.

So from then on he was Akira Doe, passed from home to home, foster family to foster family.

Some were good, one was a dream with a devastating ending, a few were terrible, most indifferent.

Aging out in the end, disgorged into an apathetic world to work on his own, he had hoped to save up enough to buy a cheap used car and move to a better place, all for naught.

It was a lonely, insecure sort of life.

Working part time jobs and putting himself through college. . . for not much in return.

He buried himself in fiction in his scant free time.

His skills as an artist helped, but he had pursued a trade and found so had many others.

He worked at a gas station for not much, had no friends or family.

He had long learned the world was uncaring, and in the end it had killed him it seems.

His day began just like any other, get up, eat something, dress, head to his minimum wage job, get something to eat, it's the heading home part that was interrupted.

Such a normal, boring day. . .

He had been looking forward to the release of a companion novel to his favorite series, daydreaming about it had he biked home.

He had parked his bike in front of the fleabag apartments he shared with a mostly absent party boy, and found himself looking down the barrel of a gun.

The four story apartment, cracked beige paint and rusty stairs and balcony fading away to that shaky bit of metal and the smell of garbage, B.O and sewage.

The skinny, twitchy white boy demanded, "money! Or I shoot!"

Akira reached slowly into his pocket, and the guys gun went off.

A deafening bang, Akira blinked and it was over.

His chest hurt, was his first thought as he sunk to the ground.

Twitchy jumped, rushed him and yanked his wallet and his bike away and took off.

Akira sank, bleeding to the ground, his eye sight blurring.

He wondered how long it would take someone to find him, would anyone even care?

And everything faded away.

There was nothing, just a darkness around him as he contemplated his life.

He had accomplished nothing, had no one and now was gone.

"Do you want this to be your end?" a distorted voice sounded in his head, uncaring and remote.

"I don't want to die, but what do I have to live for?"

"A second chance in a new life, will you take it?"

He examined himself and the darkness around him, took an unneeded breath and, "yes, I'll take it."