He looks up into their faces through his one good eye, the other a mess of puss and blood and clenches his teeth as another punch connects with his face, he feels his jaw shift and several teeth move in his head, the room spins violently and he feels another punch connect from the opposite side.

“I don’t know how you survived, but this time I’m going to make sure you stay dead,” A voice says as another punch connects and then silence. For what seems like an eternity he hears no sounds, except for his heart beating vigorously in his ears. Finally he draws up the courage to open his eye and the carnage that lies before him is jaw dropping, if his could. The four men who brought him to this warehouse, lie dead, their heads look as if they had exploded, and Tony Dangika, his former employer, the man he crossed over a fucking woman even though he knew what would come of it, sits in a chair opposite, staring at him, his eyes full of fear, his face bloody, his nose broken, but he was alive, but why?

“He who tries, survives,” a voice says, he looks to his left, squinting into the darkness of the warehouse, trying to see the owner of the voice. He feels something grab him from behind and his bindings are cut and he almost tumbles to the floor, but is pulled back into the seat.

“Who are you?”

“A friend, maybe, someone who wants the same thing Johnny,” the voice replies.

Johnny looks towards Dangika, “I just wanted this piece of shit to pay, that’s all.”

“And pay he will, for all he has wronged, and you will be the vengeful hand that will make him.”

Johnny forces himself to stand, rubbing his wrists where the bindings had dug into and he drives a vicious right punch into Dangika’s head and spits a mouthful of blood into his face and looks around the darkened warehouse for his would be saviour, but still cannot see anyone.

“Where are you?” He calls out.

“Here, there, everywhere.”

“What sort of answer is that? Show yourself?”

The voice laughs, “Johnny, take your anger out on Dangika, release it, you know you want to, you know it’s what you want, this man who took your family from you, stole your life and left you buried in a hole alongside them. Didn’t you ever wonder how you survived, how you managed to claw your way from your grave, haven’t you wondered?” The voice says as a shadow slowly comes towards him from within the darkness. “Do you remember what the lasts words you said before he shot you in the head? Do you remember who you called for and what you asked?”

He stands there memorised, watching as the shadow begins to take shape before his eyes, “I told him even if I had to sell my soul to the devil, I would make him pay,” he says as the the shadow takes the shape of a bearded man in a black suit, with a blood red shirt and three headed skull cane which he strikes into the ground and smiles.

“Well then, don’t you love happy endings?”

END