Neon District: Redux

Part Two Chapter Eight: Pride

       He didn't understand why he found himself walking along the garbage ridden shores of Ash Town. Maybe it was because he couldn't handle being near the Neon District any longer and this poor excuse for a town was what he could call "a vacation." Or maybe it was because he thought himself to be just right for this town: a poor excuse for a man.

       Zoo wandered the shore line with his hands in his pockets, not minding the bitter cold prickling against his bare arms like knives. The shipping containers that were littered near the beach of garbage have already turned off whatever make shift lights they had for the night. Everybody having gone to bed or just laying there pondering their lives. 

       Zoo was doing the latter, but he walked as he did it.

       The murky waves of the black as night river splashed across his boots and receded back into the river. He continued to pace until he came across a dark lump protruding from the blackness of the river along the shore line. It must have been some garbage people illegally dumped here, but it was not like the government cared.

       They stopped caring a long time ago.

       But as he approached the heap, it started to take shape the closer he got until he noticed that it wasn't garbage, but a man laying face down in the rubble. Zoo knelt down beside the man and felt for a pulse. To just his own luck the man was still alive.

       He flipped the man over for his face to look up to the starry sky. He appeared just a bit younger than Zoo did but it was hard to tell with the blood and mud that stuck to the man's face. Zoo's eyes studied the man's body up and down when his eye latched onto the man's legs.

       Well, leg.

       One of his legs was gone and all that was left was a bloodied stump just above the knee where his pant leg was tied up tightly around the opening of the wound. This man must have gone through hell and it was amazing how he was even alive.

       Should Zoo bring him back to the Syndicate with him or should he just leave him here to die? He's already on deaths door anyway. 

       But that thought disappeared when the man slowly opened his eyes and grimaced as the pain in his body took over. The man then stared up at Zoo's face and his lips moved slowly like he was trying to tell him something. Even without any words coming out, Zoo could already tell what the man was trying to tell him.

       "Thank you."

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       His head hurt like hell when he managed to open his eyes again. Damn, Yuka. She got him pretty good.

       Zoo pried opened his eyes and took in the scene before him: Abby limping away with blood trickling down her pant leg, Manzo Ogawa watching her escape, and... Yuka holding Sam's motionless body. How many minutes have gone by since he was awake? How did this happen?

       He got himself off the concrete without taking his eyes off of Yuka, who didn't seem to be crying while she held a corpse in her arms. She didn't seem to care that Zoo was awake now, but Manzo sure did. 

       "Ah, Zachary! You're awake!" Manzo greeted him with a sly grin. 

       "What happened here?" Zoo asked, already knowing the answer.

       "Well..." Manzo started, poking his thumb over towards Abby who had rounded a corner, "the young miss over there got herself slashed, but I am not going to do anything else to her. She has earned herself a head start." He then poked his thumb over towards Sam: "Mister Farrow sadly earned himself a bullet in the noggin."