Almost dead

    A bloody hand found its way inside the cave. Then another and suddenly the while body was easy to see against the weak light of the Moon outside. It was a man and he was barely standing up, visibly shaking, grabbing the rock walls of the cave with every single step he took.  He collapsed as his hand slipped from the wall and his whole body was unable to remain up. He hit the ground with a very loud noise but even that was not enough to be heard over the amount of water that was falling outside.

 The next morning, the man woke up exactly were he had passed out the day before. He first opened his eyes and didn’t move, partially incapable of doing that but also not wanting to risk causing more damage to his very sensitive body. But then he realized, as he moved his hands and fingers, that he was laying on a pool of dark blood. He stood himself up with the help of his hands and a while later he was sitting against the rock wall.

 The pool of blood was almost completely dried and it looked like something out of the ordinary. Especially because, when he touched his stained close, he didn’t feel anything in particular. He hope to know where the bullet holes where, as he remembered what had happened the day before but there was no trace of any of that in his body. He opened his shirt and touched his skin and realized there was nothing in particular happening there.

 The man took a deep breath and looked outside: it was not raining but the weather had not improved that much. It was still very gray and he knew that people would be looking out for him and he definitely didn’t want to be found. He decided to stay in the cave at least another hole day. Maybe that way he would be able to understand what was happening to him. Because he was sure he had been shot several times in the chest and in the back. And now he had no proof of that, no matter how vivid everything was in his mind.

 For water, he decided to crawl to the entrance and drink the droplets that fell from the sky. When the rain picked up, he was able to drink some more and also wash his clothes in the outside, without risking anyone seeing her. He took off his clothes and tried to wash them as well as he could. After that, he just sat inside the cave, his clothes on rocks drying.

 He began thinking about the people that had tried to kill them. They were very vicious and dangerous but not very smart. The cave was not that far from town and anyone would have been there first when it was public he had escaped his death under the hands of real criminals, much worse than he had ever be.

He had actually been a criminal. Nothing too lethal: only robbing stuff and, at most, dealing sometimes with drugs when the times needed it. He knew he wasn’t the cleanest person in the face of the Earth but the only time he had decided to stop his secret dealing, then that day he’s attacked by his enemies who try to kill him but weren’t able to do it.

 And there was that now. He had always noticed, from a younger age, that he never really had problems with scarring or health in general. He had never had the flu after he turned twelve and every time he cut his skin by accident, it cured rather fast. He always thought it was because he ate very well or something like that but apparently there was something really different going on around him. How was it possibly that he survived so many shots? They had him really close, it wasn’t like the bullets missing him by seconds or anything.

 The second day inside the cave, he actually found two of the bullets on the cave’s floor. He wasn’t sure if those too were the ones that had been inside his body but he really couldn’t find another explanation for it. On his skin, he had no scars or markings that showed that he had been the victim of such a brutal attack. He even considered the possibility that he might be going insane. But after thinking it through once and again, he reached to the conclusion that he was as sane as can be.

 By the third day there, he was very hungry. He hadn’t eaten anything decent for a while and he had to go out at night in order to wander around and check if there was something he could eat around there. He was fortunate enough to find a gas station with the corresponding market. The young man that worked there looked at the man in a very suspicious way: the short was still stained with blood and his hair and skin did not look particularly clean. 

 He wandered around the store, grabbing things and also asking himself how the hell he was going to pay for all of that. He decided to be a robber once again because he was hungry. He would have to knock the kid out and just leave as fast as he could. But first, he filled his basket with thing to eat and to drink. There were even freshly cooked hotdogs and he grabbed a couple to eat on the spot.

 The kid in charge did not ask what he wanted as a woman with a pantyhose in her head entered the market right then. She had a gun on her hand and demanded the young man to put every single bill and coin from the register into one of plastic bags he had for anything that people might buy. She did not see the man from the cave, which had been very focused serving all the toppings on one his hotdogs.

 He looked at her fast but had no idea who she was. As the kid opened the register, the man realized he couldn’t let that happen. Something in his mind was opposed to the idea that the place that he was about to rob was going to robbed first by someone else. Granted, he didn’t want any of the money and just all of the food, but it just seemed like that wasn’t something that should be allowed. He looked at her carefully again and, without thinking it through, he launched himself at her, knocking him down.

 She fell to the ground all right but was still holding the gun. She shot twice, the bullets whistling very near the young man’s head. The man tried to submit her but she wouldn’t let herself be dominated. She was very strong and just had a lot of energy that the man form the cave had not. He had barely recovered from all that had happened to him but he still could hold for a bit longer.

 It was then she released herself from his hands and pointed the gun at him. She was about to talk but he moved so she shot twice. The kid squealed behind the counter when he heard the sounds. He was shaking a lot and couldn’t believe this was only his second week on the job. However, he was more surprised when he heard more fighting sounds and moaning and then nothing more.  He was very nervous but everything had apparently ended that night. Thinking of calling the police, he stood up shaking a lot and looked over the counter.

 On the floor, the woman was unconscious, with a big red mark on her head. The man that had come to buy food was beside her, with a can of chili that had been resting in the aisle behind him. He was bleeding from the chest and the young man was about to grab the phone to call the police but then he saw something very difficult to believe: from the guy’s chest, two metallic bullets were coming out as if they were giant pimples. They fell to the ground and then the guy coughed.

 He opened his eyes and looked at the kid, who looked back. Then, shaking too, the man stood up and asked the kid if he could take some of the food for free as he had no money to pay. The young man, surprisingly enough, moved his head affirmatively. The man from the cave then grabbed the basket he had been filling with one hand and the hotdog that was still in the toppings counter with the other.

 Just as he was about to leave, the kid asked him who he was. The man stopped short at the door but didn’t turn around. His answer wasn’t instantaneous, as he needed to think it through before opening his mouth. However, he turned his head around and said “Mr. Dead, kid. That’s me”. Then, he left for his cave. The excitement was so much for the kid, that he fainted.