Phantom Pains

Prologue

The boy ran as fast as he could through the dinghy alley, covered in loose trash and spilled unidentifiable liquids. His mind races through his options, but then he stops... and looks up. He takes in a shuddered gasp, eyes wide, "They're still there." The moon glows brightly but only a few stars are visible in the bright, neon city. His arm falls against the wall as he starts to clutch his side.

Danny shouldn't have stopped. As the pain creeps back into awareness he hears them, loud and heavy footsteps and clattering metal. With his pulse racing he grits his teeth, he is NOT going back.

He stumbles into a run, never looking back, but their thundering footsteps are growing louder. Before he can even think, he runs into the closest shop. Ding! "こんにちは、大丈夫ですか？" Danny starts to take everything in, Where am I? he thinks to himself. He doesn't even spare a glance at the middle-aged woman behind the counter. All the labels on the shelves are in characters he cannot recognize. He darts behind the shelves and stumbles on his way to the back of the store, knocking over multiple bags of chips in his wake.

"何てことだ," says the Asian woman as she walks closer. As he closes his eyes, his knees give way, and grasps one of the cheap metal racks, simultaneously bringing it down with him. When they open again, the woman is kneeling over him, frantically speaking into her phone, "はい、彼はたくさん出血しています！ 外に銃を持った奇妙な男がいます...いや、私は彼を動かすことができないと思います." She reaches her small hands towards his wounds.

"Is the room supposed to be spinning?"

"You speak English?" the light blue-haired woman says while she sets the phone down and puts it on speaker.

"Yeah," the room continues to spin and his body just feels so heavy, "listen, they're coming. I need... get out of here."

"Help is on the way. You're gonna be alright," she takes a shaky inhale, "Just keep breathing okay?" she says with a reassuring smile.

Ding!

"We've just gotta keep pressure on this wound, right? That's what they do on TV."

Tears are falling as the sound of large combat boots grows louder.

"No...go, please!" Danny pleads with the woman. "You saw me! They-" his whispered cries were interrupted by a loud bang.

Danny's eyes went wide as a familiar green light flashed and the kind woman's head falls onto the white tile with a sickening crack. Her lifeless eyes stare at the ceiling with a still burning hole in her forehead.

"No..." He can't scream, he can't speak, all he can do is cry.

"あなたはまだ私と一緒にいますか？ プロのヒーローが近づいています," a black combat boot stomps the cellphone into oblivion.

"Target is incapacitated and all witnesses have been eliminated. Pick up required on the corner of 34th." A bald man in a freshly blood-spattered white suit towers over him. Its cold, emotionless eyes glare down at him from under his shades with utter contempt. "Yes sir, agent S."

Another bald man grabs him from under left his shoulder and pulls him up, dragging him towards the door. "No, please! HELP!" 

Ding!

"Shut the hell- Gah!"

A swift foot swings into his face from above at a break-neck speed. The blood-splattered man puts a finger to his earpiece, "We need ba-." The dark-haired assailant quickly uppercut him without a moment's hesitation. Danny falls back onto the ground, but this time he meets concrete. Through the light of the store window, he can just barely see the man's face as the man grabs his long gray scarf and quickly apprehends them before they can even reach for their weapons. Two beams of green light arc towards the man as three more agents in white suits are seen running towards him.

I have to help. Danny desperately claws at the metal collar around his neck to no avail. He lays on his back, any energy he once had was now gone. The stars. At least I got to see the stars.