Crystal Man ❥

CHAPTER I: OTIS

Otis had fallen in a deep slumber, the rapidity of his men managed to save him from bleeding to death: there was something with Otis Sullivan that he kept well hidden, but some of his most trusted men knew the truth, knowing him for so many years.

The man moved imperceptibly all the time, sleeping for two days and two nights until he finally opened his eyes, which he immediately closed for the excruciating pain that came from his head and arm that had wrapped tight. He gritted his teeth and hissed as if the inspired air could help the pain disappear and sat on the cot, looking down on his lap. "It's a matter of mind... your pain is all here." He whispered to motivate himself, then clenched his teeth again as if God had heard him and warned him that he was also present and Otis had no chance of escaping his eternal pain.

One of the gang's men entered the tent unaware of the fact he was up as he thought Otis was still in Morpheus' arms and was surprised, almost frightened, to see him sitting. So much so that he jumped on the spot and Sullivan looked at him crooked, his lips clenched in an expression of pure confusion.

"Dick, what's wrong with you?"

"Is you awake yet?" the man asked sarcastically, but that made Otis even more confused.

He looked around and blinked his eyelids that were still getting used to not closing in the light that seeped into his canvas tent, before looking at Dick another time, now with black eyebrows that rested directly on his eyes so furrowed.

"Dick Cavanaugh, you better talk now if you don't want to make me even more irritated than I already am. A bandaged arm won't stop me from banging you by the first sheriff we see."

"Boss, I was just- nothing... nothing.  It's been two days, you have been sleeping nonstop. You hasn't touched food or drank or stood up to take a piss."

In fact, Otis felt strange. Like drunk, drunk from too much sleep. He hated sleeping too much, his body always reacted negatively as if the night before he had celebrated something, even if unfortunately he had no reason to party in the shitty situation in which they were.

"So, how are you feeling?" Dick sat on an old moldy wooden stool that had been placed there as the men took turns to check that Otis was alive, in fact he was there because it was his turn.

"How do I feel..." Otis repeated himself, trying to think about how he could describe his health at the time "As a dead man, a dead man brought back to life by force. Motherfuckers don't let me die, huh?" He closed his eyes for a few seconds before hearing Dick's shrill, irritating voice again that made his eyebrow frown.

"Then the usual." He ventured a joke, then crossed one leg over the other and his foot moved nervously.

He was playing with fire, but Otis wasn't as hot-tempered as he looked.

"You rabid dogs are bastards... but bastard dogs are loyal too." Sullivan commented, thankful, after all, that he was still alive and that he did not die from an accident as stupid as the one he had two days before. He dared not imagine being remembered as 'The dead one at the horse race'. Dick Cavanaugh coughed his throat clear and leaned his back against one of the tent's masts, then he started. "So, what do you want to do? I mean, with those two who almost killed you."

"Who?"

"Who? Sullivan- don't you remember what happened...?" Dick asked immediately, with a wrinkle of disbelief and wonder forming between his arched eyebrows. Otis promptly shook his head.

"Sullivan? Who is he?"

"Is- How? Sullivan is you- Otis Sullivan. Shit..." Dick got up from the stool in a hurry to head for the exit and let the others know that Otis Sullivan, their boss, had lost his memory.