The Benefits of Death (Season 1)

S01 x E01

Episode 1: Dying Without Trying (Part 1):

It all started on one fateful day in the small town of Kicksburg, Montana - a small town so small that you could've invited the entire population over for Thanksgiving dinner and (provided you owned a mansion or at least a big yard) still had enough room for everyone to sit down. Today was by no means a holiday in any sense of the word, though it had been three days since a massive local event had transpired, and the people of the town were still reorienting themselves after partying hard. What event had this been? None other than the ceremony of local celebrity Mark Simmons getting legally married for the first time in his life.

But I'm sure you all have read more than enough about that guy at this point.

Instead our main protagonist is a fellow citizen who wasn't as wealthy as Mark, but was nonetheless quite happy with his peaceful, blue-collar existence. He was a young man by the name of Ike, in his thirties with a physical appearance comparable to that of Phil Collins (more accurately the way he looked in 1981). As for today, he was busying himself strolling about town and running errands for his family. Unlike most of the civilians, he had already readjusted to his normal lifestyle.

However, such was clearly not the case for a few of the more lowly folks. What remained of their rowdy party-animal-esque attitudes from the recent wedding was still showing through. As Ike kept moving along, minding his own business, he tried as best as he could to pay them no mind, that is until he passed by a jewelry shop and was immediately taken by surprise as a bullet whizzed by and shattered the window adjacent to him. He looked to his left to find a couple of thugs across the street in a heated argument (clearly still wound up and easily triggered as a side effect of all that partying), each with a pistol at the ready as they stared each other down.

"You take that back right now, you bastard!" One thug yelled.

"Make me!" The other yelled back.

"Don't tempt me, fucker! Or I'll... !" The first thug threatened, only to be cut off as his opponent ran up to him at a deceptively high speed and knocked him to the ground with an uppercut to the face.

The downed thug immediately swept his leg to knock his enemy to the ground and quickly stood up, pointing his pistol down at him. The second thug then fired off his own gun, intentionally aiming beside his opponent's face to avoid killing him. This was enough to make him look in the direction of the bullet, giving the shooter just enough time to get up and hurry off.

Meanwhile, Ike continued to nervously eye the scene, slowly walking away in the process, though he quickly halted at the sound of more incoming bullets. The formerly distracted gunman proceeded to fire at his opponent, though all of his shots missed, prompting him to start running in order to more easily secure his target. By this time, the fleeing gunman had stopped right in front of Ike, unaware that he was standing behind him. He fired back at his pursuer, but missed each time. The fight was abruptly brought to an end as the closest shooter did a midair split as he jumped over an incoming bullet, which instead hit Ike right in the side of the chest and caused him to recoil as he dropped his shopping bags. The blood-curdling scream he let out as a result was enough to bring the two thugs back to their senses.

"Oh shit, dude! I'm so sorry!" The nearest shooter said, dropping his gun and inspecting Ike's wounded body.

Ike could only groan and pant in response, tightly clutching his torso and fruitlessly trying to hold back the blood cascading out of his fresh bullet wound.

"See, dumbass? This is why you don't just go starting fights out in public like this!" The other shooter said, having just now made it over to the scene.