Under the glare of a bright afternoon sun, two figures sat on a park bench, looking perfectly relaxed as they spoke in low tones. However, their moment of respite was short-lived. A sniper's bullet streaked through the air, locked onto a lethal trajectory toward the man's head. The aim was flawless, yet the bullet never reached its mark. Whether by a stroke of dumb luck or a sphere of chaos shifting the world around him, a pigeon fluttered directly into the path of the lead.
Instead of a terminal impact, only a hot streak of blood fell onto the man's black hair.
The conversation died instantly. "Shit," the man cursed, reaching up to touch the warmth on his scalp. He moved toward a nearby fountain to wash away what he assumed was bird droppings, only to realize the truth: it wasn't open defecation, but a ransom paid in feathers. The bird had died on his behalf.
On a normal day, an ordinary person would have simply been revolted by the dead animal and looked for a place to dispose of it. This man was not ordinary. The moment he saw the carcass, his eyes didn't search for a trash can; they scanned the skyline. He searched for the vantage point—the one place a sniper could maintain such a targeted shot.
Despite his desire for secrecy, he knew he was compromised. He pivoted back to the woman on the bench and barked, "Leslie, let's go!"
The sniper had already begun packing up, certain he had executed his plan flawlessly and without a single hiccup. However, when he moved to the open window of the unfinished building to admire his handiwork, his face twisted into an expression of pure dismay.
Gritting his teeth, he hissed, "Stupid modern weapons. That's why if I want anything done right, it has to be done up close and personal."
He abandoned the rifle right there on the floor. His attempt at concealment was unstylish, to say the least; he simply tossed a large black cloth over the weapon. While it might hide the silhouette from a stray onlooker outside, anyone entering the room to inspect the building would easily spot the bundled fabric and realize something was hidden beneath.
He didn't spare another moment on the "modern weapon." He sprang from the opening of the unfinished structure, using a series of rapid acrobatics to kill the momentum of his descent. He rebounded off a street light, caught a thick tree branch, and rolled across a nearby canopy until the lethal drop was reduced to the force of a short jump.
He hit the pavement safely, but he had no time to admire his own gymnastics. Ahead, he spotted his targets—the man he had hoped to kill and the woman he was holding—weaving through the afternoon crowd at a dead sprint. The sniper didn't hesitate. Like a lion closing in on its prey, he lunged into the street, boosting through the obstacles of the city to secure his kill.
Exhaustion eventually clouded Leslie's judgment. Her muscles ached and her legs felt like lead, leaving her confused as to why the man was driving her so relentlessly. Risking a glance over her shoulder, she saw nothing but the empty street. She allowed herself to relax, slowing her pace as she fought to keep her emotions in check. Even in her weariness, she felt secure; she held a loaded pistol aimed toward the pavement, certain that if an enemy emerged from the shadows or lost their stealth, she could close the distance and put a round straight through their head.
It was a fatal lapse in judgment. The moment she slowed to a standstill to rest, a sharp, invisible force hissed through the air. There was no struggle—only the sickeningly clean snap of bone and sinew. Just like that, her right leg was gone, severed entirely.
Kilometers ahead, the man finally skidded to a halt. He knew the gravity of their situation too well to linger, but he stopped to catch his breath. He turned to speak to Leslie, only to find himself shouting at shadows. She wasn't there.
A terrible premonition washed over him. He scanned the surrounding area, desperately hoping she had simply found another place to rest just out of sight. But the silence was absolute. He stared back the way he had come, looking into a dark abyss hoping to find her retracing his steps to find him but, the abyss offered no answers. He ran the numbers, calculating the odds of retirning to where he had just escaped from and performing a successful rescue; they were depressingly low. With a grim expression, he turned his back on the darkness to move forward—until a sharp, blood-curdling scream tore through the air behind him.
Everything went black. When the man finally opened his eyes, the world had shifted. He was no longer in the narrow, dark alley that he was resting, but he had somehow climbed to the top the roof of a skyscraper, miles away from the park. He was clutching Leslie with white-knuckled intensity. She, too, seemed to have succumbed to the darkness; her eyes remained closed for a long, agonizing moment until she finally stirred.
Leslie scanned the jagged skyline, her face contorting with bewilderment. "What happened?" she whispered.
The man had already spotted a service stairwell. "I don't know," he replied, his voice distant and absentminded
"One minute we were down there, the next we're up here. I have no idea what's going on." He paused, looking out over the city. "I just know we're safe. Maybe we finally have a superhero in this country." He chuckled dryly.
Leslie let out an awkward, jagged chuckle, her gaze boring into him. "Some hero, huh?"
"Yeah," he replied, shifting uncomfortably under her intense stare. He checked himself, wondering if his clothes were torn or if he was somehow exposed, but he looked perfectly intact—as if scaling a skyscraper were a trivial, effortless task.
"Makes you wonder, though," Leslie continued, her voice hardening "If the person who wanted to kill was really after you... or perhaps this 'superhero.'"
The man felt the weight of her implication. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Leslie's expression curdled into a mix of anger and disgust. She looked down at her crudely plastered leg—the stump where her limb used to be—and then back at his clean, untouched visage. The man returned her stare with a look of mischievous innocence and aloof irresponsibility, layered over a simmering, underlying rage.