Ravenwings (Imaged + Completed) [1st in Trilogy]

Part III: Chapter 50

The gun reported a feeble 'click' instead of an echoing bang.

Somehow, for some reason...the gun actually jammed.

 My mind gaped, and I felt faint and tingly all over in shock. It worked? I'm going to live? How was it even possible?

"The f*ck...?" Woodman breathed, then clicked and shot it three more times, with me wincing every time, though no bullet ever sailed into me.

I couldn't even believe it... How...did that happen?

Everyone except for Raven seemed to be as shocked as me. They froze with their mouths gaping as he threw them off and lunged for Woodman, tackling him as I stepped aside and out of the way.

Raven had Woodman pinned to the ground for the second time that day, and threatened him with the jammed gun held to his forehead.

"It's jammed, bird-brain," Woodman laughed at him, and even spat red, bloody spit in his face.

Raven's face wrinkled up with a sour expression, and he aimed the gun aside to the ground for a moment. 

Bang! he shot a bullet into the grass, the barrel so close to Woodman's ear that besides his massive flinch and probable deafness in that ear, his eyes lit up in fear.

"F*ck!" Craig squealed before high-tailing it into the cabin. "Hell no, I don't f*ck with demon magic, hell f*ckin no...!"

Anyone left holding their firearms immediately dropped them on the ground, afraid their guns would be magically jammed. Even Dave, who still didn't seem to entirely buy the whole 'magic' bit, dropped his weapon and backed up to join the group.

Wait, is that what happened? Raven tapped into some sort of...supernatural power?

It was Woodman's turn to face his death. "You'll never kill me, Birdsh*t, you'll never really escape me," he taunted. "You can shoot me, but I'll still be right there with you in every nightmare and every blink. I'm going to haunt you, demon, and in everything you do, you'll see me."

Raven's eyes narrowed as he let Woodman drone on with his manifest.

"In every scar, in every fear, in every basement, in every flashback, in every violent instinct, in every thought, I'll be there with you. I'll always be the third one in bed with you and your wh*re because where you go, I go, and as long as your fear still stirs I will always live on."

"Well, you also thought I'd never speak again, and yet...here we are," Raven refuted. "Maybe you're just more forgettable and insignificant than you thought you were. Or maybe, I'm just that much stronger and better than you, both mentally and physically."

"You wish."

"Maybe you've wasted not just eight years, but also your entire life, because not only will you be happily forgotten, but you and your name ends here; with your body rotting on your lawn, eaten by your own dogs, because as soon as you die your so-called friends will abandon you since you don't benefit them anymore."

Woodman's eyes darted to his supposed friends, who made no move to rescue him.

"I am the only one you have ever shown the real you, because all you know to do is control or hurt anyone who matters before they can get the chance to hurt or control you. You think that you will live on in legend as a ghost in my shadow, but I won't remember you with fear; I'll remember you with pity."

Woodman scoffed.

"You're going to die as nothing; as the small, unloved, evil-reciprocating, broken man you are, with so much self-hatred he tells his friends exactly what they want to hear, and tells his enemies what he secretly tells himself," Raven condemned him. "You're nothing but a victim trying to fill his emptiness by becoming your own — and everyone elses' — abuser."

Woodman swallowed, vacant of a good comeback, the confidence fading from his eyes.

"I don't know who taught you how to hurt people, but the abuse ends here," Raven declared. "I'm not letting you run my life. You'll stay right here, rotting in this field, for all of eternity. You're a scourge to all things worthwhile, and have wasted every breath you've ever taken. You will die in disgrace, with nothing left except the hope that your afterlife won't exact on you the pain and hate that you spread like a virus with every action, every thought, and every word that ever came out of your mouth."

Woodman was speechless. He had no idea Raven was capable of such an understanding; Woodman's powerful, classy image shattered as he was exposed, revealing the naked vermin underneath the mask. 

He looked back to his audience, the 'Wildlife Enthusiasts' minus Craig, but after hearing Raven's speech they looked at him in a new light of disdain; Dave even laughed, and gave Raven a brief applause.

"Anything to say before it all goes black?" Raven asked, cocking the gun with a click.

Woodman scowled, humiliated, and uttered his last words. "I'll see you in hell, Birdsh*t."

And just like that, Hunter Woodman went out with a bang!