As Eric was running for the hills, a syndicate member far away could just barely see an outline of him. This was in favor of Eric because the member was most likely not going to follow in pursuit of him. Every step that Eric took became more and more difficult. He was climbing up a hill for his life, but the hill kept getting steeper and steeper. Eventually, his footing began to slip covering himself with the blood red dust of the mountains. Looking for safety, he found a cave that was only a couple more feet ahead. Step by step, covering himself in more bloody dust, he finally reached the mouth of the cave, but from his perspective it was the mouth of the beast. It consumed him. Inside it was dark and because he could only see out of one eye it became even darker. Then he heard a noise in the corner.
"Hello?" he demanded.
"Who are you?" a voice answered
"Nobody. Who are you?"
"Nobody. Mind if I turn on a light?"
"Please."
Then the light revealed their faces, and they then realized right there who they were speaking to.
"Val?" Eric questioned with excitement
"Eric, what are you doing here?"
"Running. I thought you were in prison."
"I was. I guess I got the same answer as you, running." She chuckled a little while saying this.
"Your husband-" Eric was then cut off.
"I know he wants to kill you. He has a mighty good reason too."
"Are you kidding? I'm innocent."
"Hell, the murderer of it." Val chuckled a little while she replied. "Kiddin, of course. I don't believe my husband is right for trying to kill you, but you also got us all into this mess. Val was careful with what she said to Eric because Eric truly could never handle the truth of his own actions.
"I know you didn't kill anyone. Not even JJ."
Eric heard those words and fell into a bottomless pit of shame, and all he could picture in that moment was falling more and more out of dignity. He never showed it though on the surface. Then he replied with "You're one hundred percent right."
The air was cold and snakes and lizards were seeking warmth at the time. A lizard interrupted the conversation with Eric and val, and a snake followed deceptively close to the lizard. Stalking its prey, the snake hid in the darkness and the shadows, lurking for the right moment to strike at the lizard. The lizard was slowly consumed by the snake.
"Eric, I think there is something you should know. "I think Jose got the syndicate to arrest you."
"It would make sense." Eric replied. "There were some people back in town wearing dark suits and chasing me wherever I went. I managed to even ki-" He then cut himself off, not wanting to reveal the truth to Val. Suddenly, the sound of rustling feet was heard, and a member of the syndicate presented himself.
"Are you Eric York?" The member asked.
"I am. What do you want?"
The member then proceeded forward to Eric and tried to slice his head off with a machete, but Eric dodged out of the way, but not quickly enough, because the blade seared the skin on Eric's face in the same spot as his bad eye. Eric fell to the floor in pain, and the member grabbed Eric by the collar and dragged him out of the cave. Val tried to protest this action stating, "You can't do this! He is an innocent man!." But she was immediately cut off by the member who shouted back at her. "Quiet you!" Then another guard presented himself and took Val with him. Val tried to break free from the syndicate member, but it was like she was slowly being devoured. Eric and Val went down the hill and then the both of them were loaded into the back of a van, and the members of the syndicate drove Eric and Val to the hideout of the syndicate.
Winter was one of those miracles of the world. Calming and peaceful, it sent millions into celebration, but it was filled with deception. This was one of the incurable curses of winter. Sadly, winter also brought the flu, diseases, and suffering, as well. What pains that it brought, old men, shivering from the intensity of the cold, wrapped themselves in coats that never stopped the icy wind's blow, and the children, orphanages filled with thousands of unwanted children, casted aside from society because no one had the time for them, and each one of them just as innocent as the next, praying, wishing, begging for someone to love them, and the immense difficulty that they had to endure, for the rats, mice, spiders, roaches, and all of the unwanted things in this world were locked away in those terrible organizations. Those children are human beings, abandoned at birth, and then punished for it by locking them in a bird cage allowing them to never fly because no one looked out for them. Does not every human deserve the same, dead alive or forgotten? The stranger to us is the devil, and we have forgotten the difference between the criminal and the stranger and interlinked them as the same.
In the back of the van, Eric and Val were getting tossed around like salad.
"Where the hell are we going!?" Eric tried to ask the two members of the syndicate, but instead of them answering it was Val.
"If I had to guess, we're most likely going to the syndicate headquarters."
"That's not good."
"Well I don't know what you're going to do about it seeing that we are locked up in this van."
Suddenly the van stopped, and the members grabbed both Eric and val. "Put this on." One of the members commanded. It was blindfolds for both Eric and Val. After they put the blindfolds on, the members opened up the door and led them into the stairwell where the syndicate hideout was just below. Walking down the stairs, Eric felt that sinking in his chest once more. He felt himself falling further and further from dignity, and it was like every step he took down those horrid, wretched, awful stairs made him forget what dignity even was. Then, after three hundred and ninety stairs, they all reached the bottom. Suddenly, after that, their blindfolds were taken off, and it revealed the truth of the syndicate. Eric and Val marveled at the gold floor, and the chandeliers, they both thought they were in paradise. But the red walls immediately threw out their original beliefs and made them believe that they were in the pits of hell. Then Eric and Val were led into a room, and that was the room where the heads of the syndicate met.
"Eric York, the pain that you have caused for the syndicate and Jose has led us to the conclusion that you should be killed like a dog, but the syndicate has agreed to keep you alive on these conditions." The first head to the left spoke.
"And what would those be jackasses?"
"How dare you speak to the heads like that! That right there is enough cause to kill you right now." The second head of the syndicate commanded harshly. He then calmed down and said, "We are giving you grace though, and I respect the decision that was made by the syndicate."
"This meeting is completely unlawful. Threatening to kill me? I mean have some sense of decency and dignity here. I am completely innocent in the law's eyes." Eric made sort of a sour face while saying this.
"You still do not quite understand the complexity of the situation that has presented itself to you. We are the law!" the third head stated, and quickly the entire room except for Val and Eric bursted out into laughter. "We own the police. We own the courts. We even own the judges."
"Your conditions are as follows Mr. York You will be locked away in one of our prisons below this very room." The fourth head blew those words towards Eric with the same significance as what a snake is to a lizard. "Your prison time for killing a syndicate head will be one hundred years."
Eric revolted back. "You can't do this, I am innocent. I am innocent!"
"Listen to me!" The syndicate to the very left spoke with great haste, "You are in The West." We own The West! We are practically kings if not gods amongst mortal men! Now, if you behave and listen to what we tell you to do your punishment may be reduced, but until then you are dismissed! Throw him into the pit!"
Eric was then escorted out of that Godforsaken room, but just before he left the syndicate to the very right had one last thing to say to him.
"Oh, Eric on your way out, would you admire the red on our walls? The walls were painted with the blood of our enemies. Do not try anything stupid."
After that Eric was taken away from sight to a place where it can only be found in nightmares
"As for you Val," The first head of the syndicate to the left spoke, "Why are you with this, this, clown anyways? What does your husband think about it."
"My husband doesn't know about it, your honor. I haven't seen him in a couple months. Obviously, you tyranny heads have seen him. Since I know he's the one that called for this attack in the first place towards Eric."
"On the contrary, my dear," The second head to the left spoke and rattled Val's bones with disgust when he did. "We made the decision to attack Eric. We would have killed him if he did not slip through our fingers so many times. Your husband wanted him dead, and we saved Eric's life."
Val thought about these things, but then she replied with, "Then what do you want with me?"
"Well, since you have asked, we wanted you because you colluded with the enemy." The third syndicate to the left spoke.
"You speak of Eric like he's the enemy. He's one man, not a Goddamn army."
"That may be so," The fourth head to the left spoke his word, "But the amount of people that he has killed in his arrogance quite exceeds one man."
"But he didn't kill no one. I was there one the day that Alex and Richard died. Their own stupidity put themselves in the grave." Val shouted in protest at them
"See, this is where you have it wrong," The first head to the left spoke, "If Mr. York never threatened JJ, JJ would not have been killed. As for Alex and Richard, if he wasn't there, his arrogance wouldn't have gotten them both killed. Now, I have heard enough of you as well. So, I sentence you to thirty years in the pit. The same conditions apply to you as they did to Eric."
With that said, Val was escorted to the pit as well.