It was 0200 when the sound of gunfire and sirens woke Marcus up from what was a decent sleep. This was one thing that Marcus absolutely despised, being woke up in the middle of the night by gunfire and sirens. This time it was worse though, bullets had shattered his bedroom window and he did not exactly have the resources to go out and buy some plywood to board it up nor did he have the money to have a new window put in.
Dawn arrived in East St. Louis, Illinois and Marcus was woke up by the morning sun. As he pulled himself out of bed he was still tired and less than thrilled with what had happened the night before. He looked at the broken window in disgust and thought to himself, "Great, just great, now I have to fix this damn thing."
After staring at the window in disgust for a couple of minutes, Marcus finally headed into the kitchen to fix himself some breakfast. Like most everyone else in the hood, he had very little to eat and what he did have was outdated food from the local food pantry and just like most everyone else, he had to use powdered milk for his cereal since he could not afford milk from the store.
As he sat there eating his cereal, he sighed in disgust over his life situation. He thought back to a time when things were not quite as bad, times when his family was alive and his mother was working two jobs to try and save up enough money for them to move to a safer city and his elder brother was doing the same. He leaned down and sighed, "Why? Why? Why did everything have to turn out like this?"
Once he finished his breakfast he knew that he better go out and do something that he wished he didn't have to do. He knew that he would have to remove some plywood from one of the abandoned houses to use to cover the window that had been shot out the previous night.
Marcus grabbed a gun and put on his hoodie before heading out as it was a bit chillier than normal and it was not exactly safe for someone to walk around with their face visible. He walked down the street and noticed that over half of the houses in his neighborhood were abandoned and had been so for quite some time. For him though, that wasn't exactly a bad thing, it was an opportunity.
He found an abandoned house that had a window boarded up with a piece of plywood that was the exact size he needed. On many days, there were usually a couple people out ripping plywood off of windows or acquiring other things they needed from the abandoned houses but that day was different, no one else was outside and it was silent.
When he approached the house, he immediately began to rip the plywood off the window and given that the window had been boarded up for quite some time, the nails holding it in place had begun to rust so it was easy for him to remove it. Once he removed it though, he looked around to make sure no one was around since now he was a target. There were plenty of people out there who would have absolutely no problems taking him out for the plywood.
The journey home would not be so easy as the plywood was slowing him down considerably and it wouldn't be long until he heard voices. His very first though was that someone had seen him with the plywood and he would be proven correct as bullets began flying his way. He attempted to shield himself with the plywood but one bullet made it through and struck him in the leg, causing him to drop it.
He saw three men charging towards him, guys who were much bigger than him so the survival instincts the city had taught him kicked in. He pulled his gun on the three and opened fire. They continued to fire at him, striking him in one of his arms and once again in his leg but his accuracy was far better as he wound up getting head shots on all three of them.
Despite being in a hell of a lot of pain and suffering gunshot wounds, Marcus went to grab the plywood to get it home but would freeze when he heard sirens and a voice yell, "Hands up in the air, NOW!"
It was the people Marcus hated the most, the police. He was not about to comply with them given that it was one year ago to the day that he saw his brother put his hands up only to get shot by a crooked cop. Instead he ran as fast as he could into an abandoned house, hoping that the police would not find him.
He heard them rushing towards the house so he headed upstairs into a dingy bedroom with little in the way of light. He did notice that there was a closet so he rushed into it and closed the door, hoping that the cops would not find him.
Marcus became more paranoid as they rushed into the upstairs bedroom, walking around with their guns drawn. Just as it sounded like the police were going to leave, some dust stirred up Marcus's allergies and he sneezed. Almost immediately bullets began to fly through the door. Another struck him in the leg, causing him to not only scream loudly, but to fall back into a mirror.
Marcus knew the mirror was there but something didn't seem right, rather than simply falling to the floor, he found himself falling through a portal of swirling colors. He had no idea what was going on but the last thing he remembered was falling on the floor on the other side before he knocked himself unconscious.