I checked the panel above the front glass of the bus as the dark started to finally fall like curtains signaling the end of the show outside the windows. There were 4 more stops left till I would get near me and Rick's house-and I knew that it would be so easy for the Hunters to just pick me out of my life for real this time. But now, I had a plan, I had received feedback, and had hope-and in addition, I had vowed that I would never quit till the end. And I would do my best to keep that promise.
Still, as the bus shortened centimeters to our house in tiny jerks of the engine, I couldn't just push down the feeling of nervousness-and furthermore, adrenaline had suddenly pumped itself into my veins and my index finger suddenly started tapdancing on my thigh and I had to swallow precisely 3 times a minute, and that can be called strange easily, for people, on average, swallow only once a minute.
I knew I had to calm myself down any second, since if my heart was still beating like crazy while I was sneaking up behind a horde of Hunters, they would easily hear me out and get me, and who would want that? So I tried to think of a method that Rick had told me of...
He had suggested two methods—his so-called 'White Paper Method' and the 'Eraser Method'. The first involved me thinking of a really empty paper, then letting my entire mind be filled with white. It didn't work as great as it had already done for me when I was a kid, because I kept filling that white paper with how the Hunters looked like and how they might be torturing Rick that instance. The second method involved me erasing myself from the tip of my toenails to the tip of my last hair on my head. Well, it was kind of starting to do its thing when the bus rasped to a stop and its doors squeaked open.
Hell. It was already time to get off.
Hoping that my heart would have slowed down by then, or that the Hunters would have bad hearing, I stepped off the bus and miserably watched as it flew away down the road, leaving behind a grey cloud of exhaust. "Dang it," I said out loud. But what could I do? Everyone I knew had helped me out enough and now, they needed me to solve the rest of the problem out.
For Chris, Douglas James, and Rick, I said inside my head.
Then I set off down the road.

The building that had served as our headquarter for months was quiet peaceful-the dark of the night was over it softly like some blanket, and not even the sounds of people from the neighboring stores, apartments, nor pubs, could be heard. Though such nights weren't common, they still existed, so I didn't take huge account nor weariness for that fact.
Once I was only 2 blocks away, I started to hyperventilate with no reason(alright, there was a reason literally: I was getting closer and closer to the guys who had caused every drastic and major catastrophes in my life, and there was little possibility that I would be able to give them a strong uppercut and finish them once and for all tonight). I knew the White Paper and Eraser Method was going to be no use to me, so I pressed myself to the brick wall of the nearest building, just like every character in an action movie does before lashing out to shoot and kill, et cetera. But the thing was, I wasn't in those movies, movies weren't real, nor I had any weapons with me. When I realized the last fact, sweat started to pour out of myself like crazy as some crazy solutions started to shoot into my head(for instance, I still had a few dollars-so, maybe I could buy a tiny pistol or something from the nearest gun shop? -That was totally insane and unrealistic, Jack, I scolded myself).
So, in the end? I came up with nothing, but with the single, already-existing fact: I know a bit of martial arts, and my only goal here is to save Rick from the Hunters' hands, not kill all of them. Also, if I somehow get in, I might be able to get my hands on a gun or something.
Sighing the longest sigh probably in the history of sighs, I quickly flipped myself to the other side of the wall-where our headquarters was full in view-and keeping to the shadows, tumbled down the street as if I was one of those guys who had just gotten out of the pub.
As the building got closer, I still found nothing unusual about it. Then occurred a terrible, insane, shitty thought: what if, just what if, Rick had already been killed and the Hunters, jeering, had left his body behind and back to their place?
It was an insane and unrealistic thought like the prior one, but it still made me run.
And like hell I ran.
I dashed down the street, each second getting me closer to the front door, its brick walls, (the dead body of)Rick. And I would just have kept going like an electrocuted mad dog, straight into the house, when I saw something.
It wasn't a CCTV camera nor a black-clad HUnter.
But a single bird.
Alright, here, I am not talking about birds that have cameras and recording devices inside its eyes and belly, but a real, alive bird.
That was kind of common-yes, birds at night flying around, doing whatever thing they tended to do in the neighborhood-, but the fact that I had seen no other breathing life being on the streets tonight made me slow down in my tracks.
The little guy was just standing on this thin legs on the building I was just passing-only a block away from the headquarters-, staring dumbly down at me, then noticing my alarmed gaze on it, it flapped its wings and rose into the air like other birds would do. Then it fluttered away with the wind, somehow, to the roof of the building right next to my headquarters, and had just sat down, probably relieved that it had just put some good amount of distance with a glaring, alarmed human down there-
-when it got zapped.
And I mean it, guys. It got zapped like Frankenstein had gotten zapped, like criminals back then or in China had gotten zapped.
To be specific, the poor fella suddenly froze, and I swore I could hear a tiny, subtle electronic snap in the air before it went totally rigid, even for a bird, and fell over, splat. And as far as I know, I knew it was already dead.
From then on, some strange mixture of feelings came rushing into me: anger, surprise, frustration, shock, then, hope.
Yeah, hope-Rick was still alive and inside the house.
-And the Hunters were with him.
-And I would have to be much more careful.
After seeing the incident, all I could do was press myself back to a wall and watch the spot where the bird was lying limp on its back on the roof. If I hadn't seen him die, I would have literally charged straight inside the house and get zapped like him and died, and the Hunters, proudly, would be shooting my crying uncle Rick with a pistol.
Jesus, Jesus-things were far more serious than I had ever expected.
Though the situation was just like a few minutes ago-before I saw the bird get zapped, before I charged for the house-, this time, some useful ideas came to me as if my brain had finally noticed how serious matters were-what if I kind of brought out their attention and turned it away from Rick? Though I might get killed by that, it was better than coping with Rick's death, at the least...
Well, it was one of the most brilliant ideas that I had come up with, though not the best of my brain, but it was all I had for now. And with an unexpected surge of motivation(maybe, my brain kind of got encouraged and smarter when the shock of the bird's death got the hell out of me), I pushed myself off the wall and ran to the other streets, leaving the headquarters behind. If you think that I was insane, you're kind of half-right. I felt pretty crazy self, but still, it was all for Rick.
My eyes searched like a search beam in some military camp in the night until they found a single wooden beam stuck with a pile of garbage that flies were buzzing about, right next to a plastic trash bin. It was the first time I had ever thanked god for finding smelly trash in front of my eyes and I ran to the thing and pulled it out-and somehow(thank Lord), it was by the length that I just had wanted it to be-about 6 feet or something. And from here you can confirm that I still had my wits and brain-wood conveys electricity less than metal, so I would be able to test the boundaries of the electronic trap they HUntershad managed to put on.
Now, all I had to do was approach, climb, and enter.
I quickened my pace and doled back over to the building I had just been passing by, the headquarters and the building next to it(yeah, where the bird had died) now in my view. By Lord's name, I would only have a single chance to do this, and if I failed, there would be no hesitation before I would be killed by the electricity flowing on the roof...
Keeping to the shadows, I crept closer to the two buildings, breathe short and sweat coming out again, but gripping my wooden pole helped me, and its light garbage-y smell made me concentrate somehow on the huge task that I was now going to accomplish.
Finally, without getting zapped and killed cold, I reached the building next to me and Rick's headquarters and with the utmost care and fright, I touched my thumb to the wall of the building next to our headquarter. Bloody hell-it was a simple miracle for me to be able to think of that swore 'bloody hell', for that meant that I was still alive even when I had touched the wall!
Right-the electronic fence was only on the roofs.
Now, I carefully squeezed the wooden pole in my hand before pushing it into my belt, and somehow, it stayed stuck there. And though I knew that I would look like a total maniac and acrobat with that long pole stuck to my pant belt, it was inevitable and impossible to be done in any other way.
So, after it was dealt with...
I started to climb.
I placed a foot on a short window ledge and feeling nor hearing a slight buzz, I heaved myself up and then reached out with my hands for the next ledge or protruding feature on the smooth wall of concrete. At least this building was kind of new and its ledges didn't give up. I hopped to my feet once I was firmly gripping onto the ledge, then reached out once more for the next...
I went on climbing like that for minutes-and I am not very sure with how much time exactly passed as I climbed, closer and closer to the electric field of death, to the dead bird on the roof. However, I tried my best, trying to connect or 'pretend' that each minute I was spending was making the Hunters intensify the level of torture being down on my uncle, trying to force out an answer on where I was, or to give them access to the bank account we had-but I knew Rick well enough. He was a man o extreme perseverance and hope, and all I could do, while scaling the wall, was hope that such attitudes of him would stay with him loyally for tonight like other times...
I finally reached the top, and while my limb muscles shivered and groaned inside their cases of skin, I tilted my head up a bit over the last ledge-the roof-and peeked a look at the dead bird. Yep, it was out cold as stone, beak slightly open, legs still and stretched out as if it was pretending to be dead when it was already dead. The electric force must have been, and still would be, strong and missive, to easily kill a bird. But I had read somewhere that people were barely damaged by a 5000 voltage shock, and I just prayed with my heart that the filed would have a charge of less than that amount.
I finally pulled out the long wooden pole from my waist band and using it like an extended limb of mine, stretched it over the expense of the small roof and slowly, approached the place where the bird lay, dead. Would the wood transmit more than 5000 voltages of electricity to me if the field was stronger than that?
I hoped not.
IN a breathtaking(and here, by this term, I mean it negatively) moment, the tip of my dear, smelly pole skimmed the edge of the place where the dead bird lay, and just like before, I wondered if I was in a slow-motion image of the last second of my life, falling back to the ground, dead like the bird, and never to get up once more. However, my eyes watched as the pole swung over the space and then, back and forth-and realized that I couldn't be dead if my eyes and brain worked.
At least luck had been on my side for that moment.
Almost crying out a 'Hallelujah', I rolled onto the roof, but since I just couldn't push away the feeling of fright of the space where the field must have existed, I stopped there and got onto my feet, then checked if all the parts of my body hadn't been shot down, cut in half by a red beam of laser, et cetera. And sure, no parts had been severed.
However, it was only a short amount of time after a sigh of relief from my mouth when I heard something.
Something buzzed quickly, as if someone far off int he distance was spraying mosquito killers with its schhhmrf sound at the air, and it continued for 5 full seconds(i know this, since I counted by Mississippi) until it turned off and I was left with the every silence of the night once more. And believe me or not, after another 5 seconds of that silence, the buzz resumed.
Hell, the Hunters were smart.
The trap had been an automatically-turning-off-and-on system, and while the bird had been unfortunate enough to somehow land on the roof during the 5 seconds when the electronic fence had been turned on, I had been fortunate enough to swipe my wooden pole through the space during the 5 seconds when the fence had been deactivated.
With a moment of horror, I finally noticed that the Hunters were playing with me.
Nah, they weren't-to rephrase it, they had requested me to play a game.
And in this round(maybe, the title of the round would be this: 'The Roof'), the thing I had to do was get across the roof according to the timing, then jump to the roof of the headquarters.
This was insane.
yeah, but that was the exact definition f the Hunters: those fuckers were insane fellas who liked to play around until they got the sum of money they wanted.
Thus, I had no choice but to do the game. And I wasn't going to let myself down.
I listened to the slow, 5-second-tempo-Rhythmen beat of the electricity flowing on the roof for a minute, then just as the electricity shut off, jumped off the ledge onto the roof itself.
And I ran even crazier than when I had raced for the house before I saw the bird drop dead.
My legs were a blur of skin and pants and the wooden pole was balanced in my right hand as I streaked across the platform, countering the Mississippis inside my head like a spell.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, 5 Mississ-
I arrived at the other end so fast with so much force that I nearly toppled down the entire height of the building and I swayed(the wooden pole actually helped) on the narrow piece of concrete, breathe going in and out of me hundred kilometers a minute. And just behind me, I heard a sharp buzz right below my heels-the electric fence. I must be lying down there, breath cut short in my air tube, if I had been just one second late...
Sighing out loud, I looked down at the space below me, the faraway, grey ground, then took a deep breath before I swung my arms and jumped for the next quest.
I flew over the one meter between the two buildings before precariously finding myself on the other side-the roof of me and Rick's headquarter. Below the platform, RIck could be watching me or being tortured...
I listened to the roof this time, just like I had done at the other roof, and also, heard the rhythm of the electrical field. And the worst thing was, the rhythm was kind of erratic until I finally made out a steady rhythm out of it. The thing I wasn't sure was this: if this rhythm was better or not. this rhythm, to explain, had 7 seconds for the deactivation of the electrical field-and, 6 seconds of electricity. It definitely didn't seem like a huge improvement, though.
But, I was ready for this from the experience a few seconds ago.
So I was attempting to run across the roof to the end trance to the floors below when-
-The door itself opened first even before I could make a hell of a run for it.
-And walked out three Hunters(hooded and in dark uniform as usual) and Rick(he was bloody as I had feared, but at least, he was alive), and, (surprise, surprise-and I am definitely not being sarcastic here, I was surprised for real) Douglas James himself.
Wait. What the hell was the guy doing here?
Had he been the one to code the roof to have an electric field every 5 and 7 seconds? Was he still on the bad-
"Jesus, you're having that look as if you're thinking that I did something wrong and you're accusing me, son," James barked his string of criticism in less than 2 seconds, making him one of the fastest rappers I had ever heard. But I was still to shocked by the appearance of every one of the fellas existing on the roof to reply to an apology.
"Rick?"was what I finally came up with to say as my eyes, once more, focused on him. He looked as if he had just been freshly beaten up and kicked all around like hell, but looked at me with a sense of victory through a bloodied eye(the other was swollen shut. Hell.)
"Tell me what's going on," I next called out to Douglas James, who looked at me with a sense of seriousness and pity. However, the guy, without speaking a word, thrust up his hands and two Paris of handcuffs came jingling up into the air. And the best part of the scene was that those handcuffs were circling the wrists of two of the Hunters, who, I am sure, swore beneath their hoods and growled like angry lion cubs. James flashed a single smile at me the first smile I had seen him smile) then dug his hands into his pockets, probably looking for the last cuffs to restrain the last and third Hunter. me and Rick looked in his direction expectantly, suddenly hopeful that matters had finally turned out the way we had willed.
Then, James froze.
"Shit," He murmured,d then started to rummage his pockets harder like hell. "Why?" I called across the length of the roof. "Shit," Jame ignored me and continued to do his act. "I just turned off the electronic field system and I am sure I brought enough pistols and handcuffs-" He kept swearing and ranting like that, but suddenly, I wasn't focused on him. I could still hear the tiny buzz of the electricity flowing on the roof, according to its strange rhythm, and out of the corner of my eyes, watched as the last Hunter nodded very slightly at the other two, and stepped forward, feigning the act with the pretense he was stumbling. And when he looked up, when his gaze from under the hood met mine, when he smirked, I froze.
"Fuck!" Douglas James was yelling at himself and he sighed a huge sigh and looked up at me, face drooping.
"We shall just have to call the cops in the middle fo the night to haul these away," He was saying, when a look of panic flew across his irises as he turned to look up in my direction.
The Hunter had made his final dash, his final strike, his final jump and he ran to me, both hands digging into his pockets for something I could predict well-guns. And I knew I had been int he perfect position all the time-the crevice of several floors right behind me, the next roof a meter away, and the other roof flowing with electricity...
Then it occurred to me.
The electricity.
James had planned it all-he had lied that he had turned the system off when it was still turned on...
But the thing was, the man kept hurtling towards me, now two guns gripped tight in his hands and knuckles white, finger not he trigger tightening... Shit, why wasn't the electric field working now? Come on, James...
I watched in ultimate shock and pleading as the finger finally pressed deep into the gun, onto the trigger, and two bullets(the one from the gun in his right hand was a second earlier than the left) exited its hole with a bit of a bang and smoke and came, spinning round and round in slow motion to me...
-when James' field did its thing.
The field zapped-and, obviously, the man got zapped.
He tripped with a yelp of surprise and horror and just as I wriggled and ducked as best as I could from the bullets, his knees hit the floor, breaking through the invisible lines of electricity, and he yelped so loud, mouth pressed to the floor of the roof, as the electricity continued to zap him for a full 6 seconds.
Just as the stray bullets passed me, just skimming my limbs, he went still, as dead as the bird, as cold as stone.
And we all gaped at the body, then the others' gaze turned to me, then to Douglas James, some filled with fright and horror at the loss of a comrade, some filled with victory, and, relief.
And among those moments of staring and gaping, a single thought was in my brain and it was this: I hope it's now all over, man.
-And the thing was, it was all over.

Douglas James took a giant breath before wiping his fingers and deleting his string of codes(the codes for the electronic field) on his computer and resuming stuffing pizza and cups of coke into his gut, while Rick barely sipped a single cup of soda into himself and digging deeper into the covers on his bed in the main room of our headquarters. Meanwhile, I just looked around at the two, thinking of random things, such as how dinosaurs had mated, where Chris' soul must be right now, and then, where the dead, unfortunate bird's soul must be right now.
"I finally feel as if I paid for the atrocities I have done with your friend, Chris-though it'll never be paid completely till I die," Though he must have said those words to promote some easy conversation, James only lengthened our silence. During that, I slipped the tip of a random pizza into my mouth and by the time I had finished chewing, I had decided to change the topic.
"So, what're you going to do?" "Me?" He asked back. "Yeah," "I promised I won't return in your life, but I broke that promise. but this time, I would try my best to keep it. I am going to write and, if possible, teach some high school students. At least, I hope that'll be possible. And, one more-I am going to go on a global trip. To the Bahamas. England. The Koreas. Japan. China-" "I got it," I smirked, and he grinned back(fortunately, he had just swallowed his food and his teeth were clean).
"So what of you?" He asked back.
"I want to be normal. I want to go to high school, where I belong. I realized that yesterday. I just can't cope every day with action and drama and guns and everything. I'm not that age yet." I answered.
And after that, we lasted into another session of silence, and this time, no one broke it, but merely RIck's light snores.
And now, I thought about how nice it felt to be keeping promises-yes, if you remember, the promise I had made to Chris and Rick.
The promise-
-that I was never going to quit.