[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/vTkvz7xD/Punisher.jpg[/img][/center]
[indent][sub][COLOR=black][b]Location and Time:[/b][/color] [I]New York City; Mr. Greene's Goods[/I] - [I]1:31 PM[/I][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=black][b]Issue #1:[/b][/color] [i]Routine[/i][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][INDENT][sub][COLOR=black][B]Interaction(s):[/B][/color] [I]None[/I][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][COLOR=black][b]Previously:[/b] [/color][I][url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5177833]Exhale[/url][/I][/right][/SUP][/indent]
[color=black][b]"No miss, we don't sell diapers, I'm sorry."[/b][/color] I reply to the customer. 

Behind her amber-tinted shades encrusted with plastic gems, I can see her eyes narrow. [b]"I come here all the time and the first time I ask for a specific product, you [i]don't[/i] have it?"[/b]

I've never seen this woman come to this store in my past ten years of working here. [color=black][b]"We just don't carry them. There's a Walgreens a few blocks away. They should have some."[/b][/color]

She scowls at me. Her expression would belong better on the face of a hotshot young socialite that's never worked a day in her life, not the poverty-stricken single mother working two jobs she probably is. [b]"Well good then. I guess I'll take my business there from now on."[/b]

She pivots to the door and walks away. [color=black][b]"Please come again."[/b][/color]

The line of customers she was holding up moves forward, the first of them casting me a sympathetic glance as he places his six-pack of beer on the counter. I scan the item, swipe his card, and accept the payment on the register screen. [color=black][b]"Have a good day,"[/b][/color] I say to him as he leaves.

Next customer. Scan the item. Take their cash. Put it in the register. [color=black][b]"Have a good day."[/b][/color]

Next. Scan the item. Swipe their card. Accept the payment. [color=black][b]"Have a good day."[/b][/color]

Next. Scan. Swipe. Ching. [color=black][b]"Have a good day."[/b][/color]

Next. Scan. Take. Ching. [color=black][b]"Have a good day."[/b][/color]

Next. Scan. Swipe. Ching. [color=black][b]"Have a good day."[/b][/color]

Before I know it, I'm on break halfway through my shift, smoking a cigar out front next to the ash tray. I've done this whole song and dance too many times to count over the last decade. This routine has become my entire life and my entire life has become routine. Why am I even doing this? I don't have much going for me in life. All I do besides work is wait to go to work. Is there something that I'm waiting for? Is there something I should go looking for?

I snuff out the cigar and walk back inside. Break's over. I'll save the existential ramblings for later.

Scan. Swipe. Ching. [color=black][b]"Have a good day."[/b][/color]

Scan. Take. Ching. [color=black][b]"Have a good day."[/b][/color]

Scan. Swipe. Ching. [color=black][b]"Have a good day."[/b][/color]

I repeat that routine for four more hours, and then it's over. I walk out of the store and start heading back to my apartment. Back to regularly scheduled brooding: what can I do to shake up this routine? I've done everything I can to leave my old life behind me, but everyday it seems to be calling back to me. It's a specter looming over me, howling my name. I've done my best to ignore its cries, but how long can I keep that up?

A scream in the alley across the road. There it is again, crying out to me. I glance over, see two men standing over another man, sobbing and shouting as he lays bleeding on the ground. I've managed to walk away so many times before. "It doesn't involve you", "they probably picked that fight", all sorts of placating excuses running through my mind. They used to help. Lately, they haven't been. And they sure as hell aren't right now.

I make a beeline right for the alleyway. The perps are two guys, both around half my age and around the same size as me. One has a baseball bat soaked in blood. The other? He's on the ground with a broken nose before he even has a chance to see me coming. Out of the fight before it even begins.

Slugger backs away from me and raises his baseball bat. He swings, I duck while raising a hand to catch the bat. The hit stings as it connects, the nerves in my fingers and palm screeching out, but I power through. I slap my other hand on the bat and pull. He jerks towards me and I bring a knee up into his crotch. The bat is in my hands now. I flip it around and grip the handle tightly.

Reel back.

Inhale.

Swing.

Exhale.

I don't give him time to get up. I bring the bat down on his head, then I do it again, and again, again, again, again, again. If his head was a watermelon, I think Gallagher would be proud. I give it one final swing. He won't be hurting anyone ever again.

I turn to his friend. He's backed up against a wall, blood streaming out of his twisted nose as he watches on in horror. I walk up to him, kneel down to be at eye level with him. [color=black][b]"You see your friend over there?"[/b][/color]

He jerks his head up and down.

[color=black][b]"Do you want that to happen to you?"[/b][/color]

He rapidly shakes his head no.

[color=black][b]"Then get out of my sight."[/b][/color]

He pulls himself up and sprints out of the alley. I don't think I've ever seen anyone run that fast outside of Olympic races. I turn back to the young man they were beating on. He looks up at me with a mixed expression of reverence and fear. I offer him a hand up and he takes it. [b]"T-thank you,"[/b] he says, his voice shaking.

[color=black][b]"Don't thank me. Just get yourself to a hospital and try to steer clear of this part of town."[/b][/color] He nods, then limps out of the alley. I look over at the corpse of the assaulter and sigh. Hopefully no one saw that. I tuck the bat under my arm and pluck a cigar into my mouth, lighting it. Inhale. Exhale. I leave it in my lips, keeping it held in place with my teeth, and start the walk back to my apartment. The streets are dead right now and I can't even begin to express how thankful I am of that.

It's only when I've stepped into my apartment and closed the door that the reality of the situation dawned on me. I killed a man for the first time in ten years. The mingled catharsis, regret, and disappointment is a strange feeling. I swore I wouldn't do this again. There was no reason to. Especially these days with all the heroes running around in tights. There's no need for a person like me anymore, if there ever was any need.

I clean the bat off with an old rag, then toss the bloody rag and my clothes into a garbage bag. They're ruined now. The bat finds a place in my closet and I find a place in my shower, rinsing off the excess blood. I watch the pinkish mixture of blood and water wash down the drain. Used to have to clean blood off myself every night. Some nights I just didn't. I'd like to say it was for a scare tactic, but in reality it was because my hygiene wasn't even existent anymore. I was a machine with one purpose: killing.

Would I really want to go back to those days?

Later on, I lay awake in bed pondering that question.

Do I really want to go back to those days?

Of course I don't. I left them behind me ten years ago.

Do I really want to go back to those days?

Maybe. Evil is like a plague. You wipe out all the rats and it's gone, right? But you're forgetting about the fleas, tiny, innumerous, too small for the folks in the big leagues. There has to be someone wiping out the fleas.

Do I really want to go back to those days?

... No. It's a fool's dream to go back to that life. To go back to the killing. I'm past my prime, if I went for the stunts I pulled in my youth I'd get wiped out before I could even tell what happened. I don't want to die. And that's the end of that.

I close my eyes, fall asleep, and dream of drowning in an ocean of blood.