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Chapter One Hundred-Nine
Point of View: Nick


"ENOUGH!" The biggest cop that had poured out of the prison was bellowing. Leon's eyes were red and sinister, like a rabid dog he was practically foaming at the mouth. I stopped fighting to get to him, realizing suddenly that these guards that had broken up the fight were godsends. I may be bigger than him, but Leon wasn't a force I could ever reckon evenly with.

The guard shooshed away our audience - something I was grateful for as well. The other inmates were staring, whispering; I couldn't handle it. I was embarrassed, and I regretted turning back. Once I'd gotten up, instead of going back after Leon, I should've walked away.

I was 'blessed' with my Dad's temper, though, and I'd doubled back.

I let the guards drag me inside. I was pretty sure I'd just made my situation alot worse. I mean I displayed my ability to hurt others with my temper and that was a major point in the accusation that I'd killed Krystal -- that I'd become angry with her and gone after her.

It was this stuff that I was thinking of - how fucking much I regretted the choice I'd made - when I heard the scuffle behind me.

Now there'd been a lot of commotion back there anyway. Leon wasn't finished fighting. Leon wasn't out to hurt me, he was out to kill me.

The sound that alerted me was the gasp from the first guard as Desi evidently broke free from his grip. Then the 'oomph' from the second guard, and the sound of skin being struck, of bone crunching/breaking... and then, the shout.

I'm not sure who else heard it, but it turned my blood cold.

"GUN!"

I turned.

Leon had the gun at eye level with me, his face still rabid, his eyes glowing, his mouth twisted into the most evil grin I've ever seen in my entire life... I was staring straight into the black hole center of the barrel...

I heard all three shots... they came so fast... and I had no time to think, no time to move... All I could do was stand there and stare into the eyes of the man I was being murdered by.

Leon's eyes were the last thing I would ever see.



Someone was screaming in agony. It was a deep-gutted, unbelievable sort of screaming, too, not the kind that comes from anything other than pain beyond one's wildest imagination. I could only vaguely hear it beyond the haze that filled my mind. It was like living inside of a cloud.

I pawed through my mind, trying to determine where I was, trying to remember what the last things I could recall were.

I remembered Brian giving me cigarettes and that made me smile. I think, I couldn't really feel my mouth to see if it made me smile really or not. I could almost remember standing in the courtyard watching some guys play basketball...

Around me, I could hear commotion.

"For Christ's sake where the hell is the anesthesia?"

"Phil's on his way."

"He's waking up; he just can't yet."

The words were muffled, drowned out by the screaming. Whoever was screaming, I felt awful for them. They were obvious in agony. I wondered what happened to them, what they'd gone through to make them scream like that. It was a broken scream. One that came from someone whose world had been shattered.

I focused on breathing.

But it was amazingly harder than I thought.

Where the hell was I that it was hard to breathe?

I returned to trying to remember where I was.

I remembered Leon being thrown into the courtyard, of trying to sneak away before he spotted me. I remembered the feeling of my skull hitting the wall - and I wondered if that was the vague feeling that I had in the back of my head now - the throbbing that was slowly becoming more intense.

Then I remembered being on my face on the ground, and the other inmates around me watching, laughing, cursing, spitting... I remembered Leon jeering loudly, boastfully.

"Anesthesia's here, doctor."

I remembered charging him, rushing toward him, my mind focused on one thing only: making him stop laughing. Make them all stop laughing. I was not a joke, I was not someone to be laughed at...

The fight itself was a blur... But I remembered certain punches, particular pains. My elbow throbbed where I remembered now that he'd scraped it against the cement, shredding off my skin. I remembered his face as blood broke forth from it like a firework with a well aimed punch of mine.

The screaming around me was getting louder and louder and louder, more and more agonized...Who the hell was this screaming guy?....

"ENOUGH!" the word echoed in my head... the feeling of guards pulling me back... the adrenaline slipping away...

The barrel of the gun.

The sound of the shots...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" I suddenly became aware that the screaming guy wasn't just any screaming guy.

It was me.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" My mouth was open as wide as it could go, my body, which I could suddenly seem to feel every atomic bit of matter within, writhed on the table. I was belted down, I could only move just so far, my stomach pressed to a cold leather table. Someone was holding my hand, enduring it as I squeezed theirs.

Opening my eyes, I was surrounded by a crap-ton of nurses and doctors, tools were laying on a metal tray... "Where the fuck am I?" I screamed.

"It's okay," said a gentle voice. And suddenly there was a guy bent down, looking into my face. He looked like a guy that would be named Phil, he really did. He had a salt and pepper beard that was trimmed close and kind eyes under eyebrows that were bushier than his beard. "It's gonna be okay, son." He brought a face mask to my mouth. "Breathe deeply, Nick."

I tried. The screaming was still coming coming out of me. I struggled, but the mask was hard to resist, and soon the screaming was fading.

"There you go..." Phil said gently, his face smiling reassuringly. "See? It's okay now, huh?"

"Better..." I mumbled.

Phil smiled and withdrew the mask. "Go to sleep, Nick. It's okay. We're going to take care of you."

Phil was cool. His mask was cooler.

The screaming had stopped altogether now.

The haze was returning around me.

This is exactly what it would be like to live inside a cloud.