August Chapel

Am I sorrY?

I guess that depends on 'what for'. am I sorry for the advantages that I took of the environment that I grew up in? No. no one should be. born into a shack-of-a-home on the fifth level of a huge, clustered slum on the outer rim of the city and you've got nothing else to do but survive. So you find different ways.

steal your food.. but sometimes that ain't good enough. so find someone else to steal your food, and then do a favor for them that you're better at. favor for favor. act for act. debt for debt. the system works.. so why change it? flow with it, take advantage of it. those that don't follow the rules of the way things are? well, it doesn't end well for them.

he broke in when i was about.. man.. nine? maybe a year earlier - who knows, who cares. my ma screamed, pop cocked the shotgun and told him to back the hell off. i didn't know until it was too late that his arm around around my throat and he had a barrel to my skull. he wanted wealth - we didn't have any. no one did. so I did what I was taught by those on the street that welcomed me with open arms. I reared my leg back and lifted my heel right up into that man's treasures and then bit my teeth as hard as I could into his damn forearm. am I sorry for that one? hell no.

am I sorry that his finger slipped and the bullet flew through pop's chest? yeah. that one I'm sorry for. But pop always taught me one thing, if anything. 'you never back down'. so I didn't.. ma always blamed me for it, but i left soon enough at around eleven and got my own shack up with some of those that i trusted most - the gang: 'vincit'. i never turned back and I never really regretted it either. they were my family, always had been, always would be. Jonas, our leader, thought I was 'one cool cat'.

He called me crazy because every time I needed to get away? things got too dangerous and hot? not one person dared jump across the rooftops as fast and fearless as I did. Not like I had much to lose... and after a while i became used to the running, the climbing, the dodging. so used to it, in fact, that he started learning from me. my courage was what made me dangerous. my lack of care for my own fate was what made me a nightmare. then he taught me about knives.. and ohhh did i fall in love. not with him - with the blades. there was nothing that could beat the feeling of knowing you had the quiet, sneaky, precise upper-hand that no one else could see until it was too late..

came in hand, too. i joined jonas' small board of 'advisors'.. five of us that knew the ins-and-outs of everything vincit stood for and did. we owned the southern slums. we took what we needed to survived and destroyed those that tried to stand in our way. it seemed some selfish, idiotic rat had a different idea.. there was an arms deal underway but vincit wasn't worried in the least. the gang that could afford the arms? well, they weren't exactly dangerous. they stayed in their north-eastern corner to themselves; 'gigas', a small lot.

it wasn't until a western slum rival group called ground-bound in equal size to vincit hit a little bump. They had always stood in their place.. they didn't challenge us and we didn't challenge them. they were scared of us. they knew we'd stop at nothing to hit 'em where it really hurt. but their ganglord's heart gave out.. and his bitch-ass son got the reigns. his youth and vengence got the better of him and he decided that it was about time for 'vincit to learn their lesson'. and somehow?.. he bought out gigas.. all of them, all of their guns, all of their machinery and vehicles.. and they ran us back ask far as we could go - bloodbath after bloodbath.

it wasn't the members they wanted. it was jonas.. and his advisors. mariah ate a bullet, bjorn got chained from his ankle to the bed of a truck and drug to death against the road. roland and toby just disappeared. who knows if they got out.. but they weren't going to catch jonas and i. we ran from building to building, ducking our heads and firing blindly behind us. we turned tight corners and sliced apart every chest or neck we could to get through.

jonas and I hid it out for a near week in some damn basement cellar like rats.. hell, that's probably all we are right? one of our members got to us, a messenger, and tossed us a letter. jonas opened it. the words inside?

'the wall is down. the seals are broken. south east docks at 3:30am, the boat is your's. run.'

we took it.. we ran with it.. we travelled seas as best we could for never having to have done it before. for the first time in forever, the country was unblocked and unbound - giving us our desperate opportunity to run from ground-bound and gigas' battlefield. not even a day after did we see a small boat.. just big enough to catch over the glimpse of a waking wave..

they had seen us. they were following us. jonas and i were still being hunted.

We travelled as fast northeast as we could. that same day, the storm hit. our persuers fled at the sight of the thunderclouds, but we pressed on. what other option did we have?.. there's not much left to my story after that. our boat did what all boats do in terrible storms. it crashed into half a dozen sharp, jagged rocks. I washed up on a marsh's edge.. took a few tired steps into the forests of what I think might be 'domhan tir'.. and slept in the cold rain. found some arrows and a bow. still have a knife in my boot.. which i obviously feel way more comfortable using. but hell - can't hurt to learn something new, right?

I can't find jonas. didn't hear him, didn't see him. that bastard better be too damn stubborn to get killed by some fucking water...