The bearded man’s attention had been fully focused on his futile attempts at releasing himself from the thick, black, inky mess that entangled him, as his fingers clawed and pulled at the tendrils wrapped around his throat. The color in the man’s face turned from his natural light peachy skin tone, to a shade of red, as the blood rushed to his head and eyes, causing veiny lines to appear as though they would burst at any moment. Vin made a last ditch effort to push the suffocating man off of him, and with the little strength he had left, tipped him over on his side as the serpent-like creatures continued to squeeze and crush. The bearded man writhed and kicked on the ground, making one last attempt at catching a breath of air that would never come, until all movement ceased.

Vin’s head pounded and his vision wavered, but not as any normal headache or migraine that one would experience at any given time. This was much worse. An almost indescribable feeling of a thousand knives carving and tearing through the gray matter for what seemed an eternity, and visions that became distorted and skewed to a point where reality was difficult to grasp. He could hear the commotion around him, the indecipherable voices of the cop and the woman, the muffled noise of the traffic ambience, and the final choking & guttural breath of the now dead attacker laying next to him. The experience was unlike any drug or drink he had ever consumed, no, this didn’t have even the slightest euphoric effect. 

[i]This had happened only once before, but not like this...[/i] 

It was the one thought that resonated in an otherwise tangled mess deep inside his head. He tried to forget that day, only a couple of weeks prior, that changed everything and yet the nightmare rushed back like a scorned lover you could never escape. His body however felt weak, as the last vestiges of strength seemed sapped from him, an apparent and unfortunate side effect of a power he knew nothing about. A curse, perhaps? The dark wiry tendrils slowly released and retracted from the dead body, making its way to their place of origin -their host as it were- as the tattoos shifted, reformed, and realigned back to normal.

Vincent turned his head to the other side, and while his vision continued to blur and sharpen uncontrollably, he could make out the faint figures several meters away. There were the three attackers and what appeared to be identical looking men aiming pistols at them. Vin tried to speak but either he couldn’t hear his own voice or the words wouldn’t form, and yet his senses were still intact, albeit, marred at the moment. He glanced over at the young girl, cuffed, and sitting on the ground nearby the cop, words were spoken between them, yet Vin couldn’t understand it. 

He locked his eyes on the woman though, focusing as best he could on her hazy form, and slid his arm along the gravelly pavement to an outstretched position in her direction. There was considerable distance between them, but he didn’t know what else to do as he suddenly felt completely immobilized from head to toe, with nothing but a single thought.

[i]Fuck, I wish I’d never left the house today…[/i]