Chapter 2: Back from the Dead

I blinked slowly back into consciousness. I’d been knocked out enough times to know the feeling all too well but I also knew that I’d certainly never been hit this hard. My mind flickered like a light-bulb as I struggled back from oblivion.

I did a quick mental body check. No part of me seemed to be crying out in agony but I had a few nasty aches in my torso and legs. I groaned as I tried to infuse life into my body. Behind me I heard the crunch of footsteps.

I crawled upright in agonising slow motion and turned to face the approaching figure.

I visibly flinched. It was the police man who’d stopped my car, the man I’d knocked to the floor. His left arm was cut and bleeding and hung limp at his side. But clutched in his shaking right hand was a gun. He gave a crooked smile of pure hatred and aimed at my face. I grimaced as I faced a loaded gun for the second time in a day.

I took my only option and flopped to the ground. The police man lost his composure for a second. He’d obviously not expected that move. And that of course was what I was counting on.

As he leant over my ‘unconscious body’ he let his gun drop for a second. I leapt at him full force. Two minutes ago I could barely stand but I knocked him down with all my strength. Fighting for your life is a powerful motivator.

I wrestled frantically, my hands closing on the barrel of the weapon. He gave a snort of rage and tugged back. I headbutted him and the next few seconds were lost amidst a flurry of furious violence. Eventually I twisted my body and flung him flat against the floor.

I stood, shaking with adrenaline. He wasn’t moving. I picked the weapon off the ground, resisted the urge to shoot him in the back and walked away. Now I wasn’t been throttled I had a chance to examine my surroundings. I immediately got the urge to lie down again.

The streets of the Slum District I called home were usually cramped and narrow. The roads were sandy and windswept. The houses were tiny huts grouped together with alleys threaded between them.

The whole district was now a rubble heap.

The houses left dotted across the area were burnt out shells. The ones that weren’t were small mounds of brick and stone. The place looked like someone had lit a fuse and blown it to the ground. I remembered the orange flashes that had knocked me out. I was lucky I wasn’t lying under a pile of brick. I might be the only person who wasn’t.

But what struck me the most was the silence. The quiet emptiness of a mass grave. The rest of the city still gleamed in the distance. But not the Slum District.

Someone had blown up the shield wall. I hoped they weren’t still around. Because if they were I was fresh out of ideas.

If the attackers were brave enough to blow up a city district then how could I stand in their way?