Blood Lust: 1

“Yes judge...” A tall 40 year old, well groomed man, stood out of his chair. Dark circles hung under his eyes. Despite his pale skin, the bruises on his arms and face, and the scratches on his left cheek, he stood tall and confident. He thought back to the past few weeks, filled with sleepless nights as he prepared for the task ahead of him. Jack Savage faced the jury for a few seconds, then turned back to the judge. “Yes. I am here to represent myself.”

“Myself...” Jack sat back against the cool walls of room, “I’m all by myself”. He looked around slowly, just as he had for the past three years, taking in the cement walls and grime covered lights, one of which had burned out a few weeks ago, the other casting a faint yellow light on the wall opposite to him. Along with the walls and lighting were only two features. One was the bed Jack was currently sitting on. The other was a slot in the wall where, in a few hours, food would be dropped through. Jack thought to himself, “Soon it will come.”

It was coming. The sirens in the distance, the helicopters overhead, the gruff voices in the street, they were all coming for him. Jack began to imagine the police, only a few minutes away, guns drawn, body armour on, coming for him. Jack was snapped back to reality by the sudden realization that there was a faint smell in the room. He looked down at the sawn off shotgun in his hands. Gunpowder from the shots he had just fired. As though waking up from a dream, Jack looked around to regain his bearings.

The “Central Office of Data Storage and Processing” was eight stories high, made of red brick walls. Peering out of the small, half open window on the sixth floor Jack was able to see a handful of police cars pulling up to the front of the building in a panicked frenzy. The sound of a helicopter overhead startled Jack enough to remind him of his task. Stepping over the two bodies in front of him, Jack walked over to the man, slumped over in his chair, blood dripping out of a gaping hole in his chest. He reached into the man’s pockets and retrieved a 2GB flash drive. Placing the flash drive in his pocket, Jack quietly exited the room, ran down the hall to his right, and blasted through the fire escape. Sliding down the steel ladder, and jumping the last few meters, Jack then safely landed in the dark alley below, hidden from the police on the street by a few overfilled dumpsters. Jack began to escape into the safety of the dark alleys and side streets. “I have come too far,” he thought, “too far to be stopped now.”