Awake

Alex opened his heavy eyes, the sunlight bearing down on him was the only indication of how long he might have been unconscious. He could still feel pain in his chest and leg where the knives had injured him but the pain felt dulled as compared to before.

"Fuuuck..." Alex groaned as he sat up, the pain in his chest flaring up when he did.

He instinctively placed a hand over the cut on his chest which only caused the pain to worsen again and another grunt of pain to escape him. Slowly, and without touching the cut, Alex lifted his shirt to see if it was as bad as it felt.

'It doesn't actually look too bad...' Alex thought in surprise. He was expecting the cut to look far worse than it did but it wasn't like he had much knowledge about what it should or shouldn't look like to begin with.

'It doesn't look infected... I think. At least it isn't bleeding anymore.' Alex thought as he let go of his shirt and went to check his leg next. He placed two fingers from each hand into the hole in his sweat pants and pulled in opposite directions.

The soft material ripped apart easily, leaving a large enough hole that Alex could see his wound clearly. Unlike with his chest, this cut was about as bad as he imagined it to be.

'That doesn't look good. I should consider myself lucky the blade wasn't very long or this would have definitely been life threatening. Seems it stopped bleeding at some point... a stroke of luck i suppose.' Alex let out a small chuckle as he realized how lucky he was to be alive.

Not only did he end up in a fight with an ability user but he managed to escape and survive the wounds he had received in the process, not many could say they've done the same.

'Well, I'm alive and that's all that matters right now.' Alex thought as he began looking around. He had run through the various streets and alleyways at random and had no idea where he was now. It was clear he was in an alleyway somewhere but that's as much as he could tell.

'I don't see any people and there aren't any doors or windows here either. I guess nobody uses this alleyway since I wasn't found... Actually, nobody would have helped even if they did find me.' Alex thought as he remembered the situation of this city and its people.

Practically everyone was so poor they could barely afford to live. After paying their bills and buying food, the majority of the people in this city would be left with next to nothing if they were lucky and nothing at all if they weren't.

Alex and his family, like most, usually fell into the category of 'unlucky', it was because of this that he did the only thing he could think of to make money and joined one of the gangs in the city.

Alex specifically joined the smallest and least violent gang there was in hopes of minimizing the violent and 'evil' things he would have to do in the future. Unfortunately for Alex, the gangs leader stepped down from his position a week after Alex joined.

The new leader of the gang was a violent and sadistic man who wanted more power than he deserved and it was because of him that Alex was sent to murder someone. Oscar, the man Alex was sent to kill, was a member of a rival gang and was apparently someone important for their future, or so Alex was told.

'Seems he was important because of his ability. His gang was probably hoping he would be able to grow strong enough to help them rise to the top in the city. A regular person doesn't have any chance of killing an ability user one on one and they knew that...its probably why they sent the newest recruit, me.' Alex thought with anger and frustration as he realized how disposable he was to them.

He had initially tried to refuse the order given to him to kill Oscar but the new leader threatened to kill Alex's family if he didn't do it. Alex was also made aware that he wouldn't be allowed to leave the gang either, his family being used as a threat once again.

A terrifying thought suddenly appeared in Alex's mind at this moment, pulling him away from the anger he felt towards his gang, that anger was replaced with fear and concern.

'I didn't manage to kill Oscar. Then does that mean... surely they wouldn't... I know I failed but its not like they could blame me right? I never had a chance to begin with! They probably thought I would either get lucky, which was very unlikely, or i would die trying. But... I didn't die.' Thoughts like this continued to swirl around Alex's head until he came to a realization.

'If Oscar and I are both still alive then the gang will assume I ran away, disobeying their orders, in which case my family...' Alex quickly stood up from the ground, fighting through extreme pain to do so.

'I have to go back. I have to try again.' Alex began walking at a slow pace, pain shooting up through his leg with every step. Tears began welling up in Alex's eyes as the pain continued to worsen, almost becoming too much to bear.

'I have to kill Oscar no matter what it takes. If I cant kill him then I'll just have to die trying. Its the only way to keep my family safe. Staying Alive to help make money will be pointless if the gang kills them due to my failure. At least if I die, they will have one less mouth to feed...'