The Hidden Genre (C. H. H. Ain't Dead 01)

chapter twenty-one

JOE WARNED her about this, but not once did Margarette think she would see it play out. Her life flashed before her eyes as quick as the shot echoed throughout the courts. The scream was terrifying as a body beside her hit the floor as if it was dropped from the sky. She managed to take a glance. It was a teenager that got hit in the abdomen. Blood raced towards the tar beneath him as he moaned uncomfortably. Almost everyone ran for their lives as if he was a ticking time bomb. And he was. But he wasn't going to explode. He was going to die.

This thought never crossed the minds of those who were taught to look out for themselves. The streets was all about the survival of the fittest. Margarette herself prepared to flee the moment Joe's warning took hold of her thoughts. So when push came to shove, she fled.

The gun shot gave the light post such a fright that it went out as if it fled as well. Payton had every intention to give Isaac a headshot, but ended up getting one instead. His body fell stiff on the ground with potential to become cold and non-living like the weapon that skidded on the floor.

The gun had nearly made it to the Gospel Rapper's face before Luke got involved. Isaac looked death in the eyes, but surprising, he saw no one. No one came to his mind. Not even Ruth, never mind his mom. No thoughts of joining his father either. Did it all happen too quick for his brain to process the possibility, or did he really not fear death?

"Thank you, Father," Isaac mumbled as a tear involuntarily rolled down his cheek.

Luke had slowly sneaked up to Payton during the silence. The situation was too tense for anyone to hold off the temptation of wiping out their enemy right there and then. The gun, Cash Money had on him, made it enviable. One didn't have to live in the streets to see that it was only a matter of time before Payton turned to it for answers. There was no way the celebrity was willing to witness the death of someone close to him. Even abandoning him like what happened at the orphanage was better than permanently leaving, as much as Luke was wrong about Marge doing so back then. She had abandoned him without his knowledge this evening. But her reactions would prove to do more good than harm.

The lights from the other posts got brighter as if they were working harder to try and help in anyway possible. Soon the humans could see through the darkness around them. Isaac and Luke were the only ones left. They stood over a teen with a bullet in him, and an adult who showed no signs of getting up anytime soon. Both had nothing in common but a lack of a possible future. A pond of blood slowly formed around the kid.

"He's losing a lot of blood," said Isaac.

Luke couldn't stand the sight. The teen was much better off, he had a bullet in his stomach, but it just sat there. The butterflies in Luke's stomach became pacmen and began eating him from the inside out. He tried to control his breathing like Isaac, like he was taught at North High, but witnessing someone get shot again brought back memories he didn't want to remember. The celebrity left the state, travelled the world, filled his brain with the beauty that it had to offer, yet one spark of the past formed an uncontrollable blaze of it. He crouched down to try and corner the pacmen into dead ends, but it didn't help much.

Isaac's body slowly adapted to the situation as he took control of his breathing. He calmly focused on the two bodies he had in front of him.

Should he put pressure on the kid's wound, or check if the man was still breathing?

The kid moaned as if instructing he was alive and needed help more urgently.

"Maybe you really should become a boxer," said Isaac as he put pressure on the wound, "you knocked him clean out."

Luke chuckled, "Now's not the time for jokes, bro."

"And what about a thanks?"

"There is never not a time for that," he replied, grinning, "thank you."