The Prologue To Nothing

It's like being in a bad Scooby-Doo mystery. Specifically, the one where the gang ties you to a chair and Velma has you choking on a homemade silencer. Yeah, I didn't like that episode either.

I get a quick breath of air as the gun is pulled out of my throat, but I lose it just as quickly as the butt of the gun meets my temple. Someone to my left asks me where the girl is. At least, I think that's what they ask. I can't really tell, but that if I was beating the shit out of me that's what I'd be asking myself. Either my ears are bleeding or this guy has the pronunciation ability of Batman with some kind of throat cancer. I think it's my ears.



The gun goes back into my mouth and the same question is asked from the same guy but louder and with a couple f-bombs thrown somewhere in there. I can't tell what he looks like. There's only one hanging light in this room and he's not exactly standing under it. That and I'm pretty sure my eyes are starting to water from the pain. Or the fear.

Probably the fear.

All I can see now is the brunette with the thick rimmed glasses and the adult freckles. In another time and place I probably would have found her kinda hot. Like, not obviously hot, but in the way where you knew that somewhere under that thick orange sweater Velma must have had a smoking body.

I honestly don't know where the girl is. It really wasn't any of my business. Should I have followed her? No that would have been weird. The gun's back against the inside of my cheek. I can taste the freshly filed gun barrel as my tongue struggles to make room. There's only two kinds of people in this world who like to ask people questions while they put shit in their mouth: thugs and dentists.

"Do you go to school?"
"Mphrffle af buffdff."
"No kidding! I have a nephew who's going there in the spring! What do you study?"
"Fuff youf dufe."

I'd like to tell you the story where I spit in someone's face and tell them to go to hell. Where I have my hands untied from the chair the whole time and I'm waiting for the right moment to grab the gun. I place the barrel to Velma's temple and turn the tables on Freddy sitting in the shadows. The victim becomes the hero. The John Mcclain. The Maverick. No not Maverick, politics ruined that title. Just the glorified bad-ass.

God knows I want to be telling that story, but I promised he truth, and the truth is I cried. I cried like a little bitch. I don't know where she is. Hell, I technically still didn't know who she is. So I tell them. I tell them everything.