//------------------------------//
// Pittsburgh in December 
// Story: Equestria's Ray of Hope 
// by The_Darker_Fonts 
//------------------------------//

Raymond spun around in confusion, snow slightly blurring at the movement.  It couldn’t be.  There was no way he’d been followed, this far across town, to this late in the night.  But there they were, two figures, trudging through the light snow and across the empty street towards him.  It was too dark on that side of the road to see any faces, but he knew for sure that it was Jackson and Kaleb.  Still them, and always them.
Looking behind his back, he saw an empty alleyway between a wall splitting a house and a 7-11 gas station.  He turned intentionally and trudged towards the space.  Perhaps if he could circle around the building, he could sprint away from the two looming beings and get back home quickly, before they noticed.  
Swallowing a lump in his throat, he practically ran through the falling snow towards the safety of the alleyway.  Slush splashed as he stepped over the curb and onto the simple gravel sidewalk, the wetness seeping through his shoes.  He still wore sneakers, despite single digit weather.  There was no money for boots, and as such, he went without.  Now he was chilled to the bone, his too small coat unable to keep him completely warm through the chill.  He puffed a breath into his gloveless hands, rubbing them to maintain heat.  He might need them if things went south, he thought grimly.
A more sensible part of him told him that there was no way he would be able to square off with two fourteen year olds and survive, but the part of him that wanted to survive the ordeal encouraged him.  He continued to puff breaths into them as he turned the corner.  Glancing back quickly, he saw the two rushing across the street as a blue suburban van honked at them.  Picking up his pace, he looked back to the alleyway, only to draw a sharp, strained breath of fear.  
There, at least ten feet tall, was a solid concrete wall barring his path.  It was covered with all sorts of graffiti; curses, symbols, and more than one nude figure all screamed at him.  He ran up to it, pressing his hands against it to make sure it was real.  The frigid, solid, grainy concrete met his hands, slick solidified spray paint staining it here and there with urban disorder.  He looked around the alley, only seeing a metal door in the side of the building as a possible exit.  That, and the now blocked entrance to the alleyway.  
The two older boys were walking down the alleyway quickly now, rushing towards him at a frightening pace.  They were now close enough to distinguish one from another.
Jackson was the slightly taller one, standing a good foot taller than Raymond.  He wore a checkered wool coat, the red and black a seeming promise to Raymond.  His black plastic-fabric snow pants made a crinkling sound as it moved in sync with its wearer’s steps.  He was glaring dangerously behind thick eyebrows, his green eyes feeling like sharp pine needles pressed against Raymond skin.  Unlike the usual, he was frowning to go with his glare, instead of a menacing and sneering smirk. 
Raymond was in deeper trouble than usual.
Beside him, Kaleb glared too.  The same height as Raymond, he wore a thicker coat.  He was one of the few rich kids in the ring, and his golden earrings flashed it like a prostitute in Hill District.  There was a running joke that whoever could best him in a fistfight would have the pleasure of ripping out those earrings and selling them.  They still jingled there, unclaimed after six months.  His own black snow pants were glistening with water from slush and snow, his snowcap moist from some of the splash that must have occurred when the van had passed by them.
Taking a deep breath, he gulped down another lump in his throat.  
“Hey,” Kaleb called angrily.  “Mind tellin’ me why ya led us halfway across town?”  He followed the question with angrier curse.  “We’re soaked now, along with bein’ pissed, so congratulations, ya’ve screwed yaself ova’.  Anything ya want us t’ tell ya family when they’re buryin’ ya?”
“Woah woah woah woah,” Raymond cried defensively, holding up his hands.  “What’d I do wrong?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Deang,” he shouted getting up in Raymond’s face, their eyes meeting in a flash.  “Ya di’n’t show up t’ the meetin’ with Diggs, and then ya’ off by ya lonesome when ya’s supposed t’ do a job with Sam.  Whaddya mean, ‘What’d I do?’  Ya done screwed up, that’s what.”
“I told you, like I said last time, that I was doing school crap,” Raymond protested.  “You can’t blame me for wanting to make sure I keep good grades!”
“Yeah, but this time, we had folks watchin’, and low and behold, ya weren’t out,” Kaleb produced, punctuating the last three words with heavy pokes in the chest that set Raymond slightly off balance.  “Whatcha gotta say ‘bout that, huh?”
“I was at the school,” he continued to defend.  “Ask Ms. Breden!” 
“Oh I will,” he assured, rubbing his chin for a moment, looking down as he nodded his head in understanding.  Suddenly he grabbed the collar of Raymond’s jacket and shoved him against the heavy wall of concrete behind him.  “I’ll ask her why ya’ such a lyin’ little bastard.”
Knowing that he’d been caught, he began to fight back with the first insult he thought of.  “Taller than you,” he spat, grabbing onto the bully’s wrists with his own hands.  
Kaleb threw his head back in bitter laughter, before looking over to his companion and asking, “He is a bit taller than me, ain’t he?”  As he asked Jackson, he had begun to raise Raymond off of the ground, until he was a good head higher than Kaleb.  “Why don’tcha help me shorten him a bit fer me, eh?”
 Laughing with his leader, Jackson strode up to Raymond.  Scruffing up his hair almost playfully, he suddenly made a fist and slammed it against Raymond’s head.  Kaleb’s grip held steady, but the force of the hit on his head knocked him to the ground otherwise.  Raymond cried out in pain as his feet hit the ground hard, sending shock into his ankles.  Instantly he knew that his left leg’s ankle was sprained.  He was lifted up against the wall again, which unintentionally allowed his feet to be in the perfect position for a counter attack.  
Using his right foot out of fear for further damaging his left ankle, he rammed his foot into the older boy’s groin.  The young man cried out in pain, letting go of Raymond as he stumbled backwards.  Jackson glanced over to his cursing partner in confusion.  Landing on his bad ankle primarily, Raymond crumpled to the ground with another cry of pain.  Racing to get back up, he saw the two were now standing a good few feet away, seeming to recuperate from his sudden strike back.  
“Get the knife, ya idiot,” Kaleb yelled furiously, still slightly bent over from the impact of Raymond’s kick.  Growling in response, Jackson threw up the left side of his coat, and before Raymond could try to talk his way out of an even worse situation, stainless steel flashed in the night air.  
However, despite the aggressive motion, Jackson seemed to doubt for a moment.  “Kaleb, we ain’t gonna knife him, are we?  He’s just a stupid kid.”
“Yes we are, ya idiot,” he yelled.  Raymond wanted to try to make a run for it, but he knew that if he did, that knife would end up somewhere bad.  Instead, he made sure that he had moved slightly to the side of the wall, and more towards the metal door.  “Or if ya don’t, I will.”
Hardening his gaze, Raymond shouted, “Hey, idiots, I can hear you both.”  Getting into a defensive stance, he gestured towards himself.  “Come on, come and get me.”
Sneering at the tinier opponent, Jackson succumbed to the taunting. “A screw it.” 
That seemed to signal the fight had begun.  Jackson slowly began walking towards him from the front, quickly swinging out his knife to both probe Raymond and keep him back.  From his right, Kaleb had begun to slowly flank him, keeping his hands in semicircle fists.  Keeping his gaze steady on the knife that was occasionally flashing here and there, he began circling sideways.  Always, he kept vision on the feet of the knife’s possessor, making sure he wasn’t caught off guard by a sudden rush.  There was no real movement of aggression from either side, only slow paced circling, until suddenly, Kaleb rushed him.
Cursing, Raymond threw out a quick punch, twisting his hand as it connected.  Unfortunately it missed its originally intended mark, striking the other boy’s shoulder instead of his face.  It still slowed him and made him back up for a moment to reconsider his strategy.  After all, despite their constant estrangement, he’d been the one to teach Raymond about fist fighting in groups and against knives.  So, naturally, he knew what Raymond was thinking, and Raymond knew it.  
Attempting to force Raymond into a corner, the two began pressing in closer in from his front, squeezing him away.  At first, he refused to give them ground, instead cautiously swinging out hooks and the occasional punch, but it wasn’t until the knife grazed one of his knuckles that he realized how futile the attempt was.  Begrudgingly, he began giving up ground, trying to delay the inevitable death match fight just long enough to figure out how exactly he would win it.  He could always try to run, but that seemed about as likely of succeeding as it would if he engaged in a fair fight with them.  
Blood pumped in his ears, adrenaline rushing through his veins as he tried to figure out how exactly he was going to even survive this fight.  No one knew he was here, no one knew what he’d been doing to get him into this situation.  He was completely alone in this situation, and he had to get back home.  Taking quick, deep breaths, he continued his backpedaling, until suddenly something barred his path.  Something small and cold pressed against the middle of his back.  The door handle.  
The delay was brief, deadly.  As soon as his pace faltered, the two charged him in near unison.  He ducked under Jackson’s knife swing, but right into Kaleb’s kick.  He pressed forward, though, shoving Kaleb.  The older boy stumbled back before suddenly slipping in some slush and falling backwards.  He landed with a loud, wet smack, that left him immobile for several seconds.  Not wasting a second on watching him, he turned and jumped backwards, just out of reach of Jackson’s knife.  He rushed into Jackson, grabbing his knife hand with both of his,  trying to wrench it out of his grip.  After several more seconds of struggle, he managed to pull his hands down low enough to knee it, which knocked the knife right out of Jackson’s grip. 
Jackson instantly bent down to grab it, but Raymond was ready for it, gripping his coat collar and slamming a knee into his gut.  A loud whoosh of air escaped the taller boy as the wind was knocked out of him.  Not finished, Raymond rammed an uppercut into his gut before pushing him away.  Too weakened in the moment by the strikes, the boy fell backwards and into a puddle of slush.  Seemingly in the clear, Raymond now hurriedly bent down to grab the knife himself.  Suddenly, a foot was shoved against his chest, hard enough to cause mild pain and shove him to the side.  
Landing in a puddle of dirty water of snowmelt, Raymond used the momentum to continue a roll that led him to his feet.  Looking around, he saw a snarling Kaleb holding the wet knife now, blade flashing as his hand shook in anger.  Behind him, Jackson was standing up, glaring at Raymond hard.  Brushing a bit of the remaining slush off of his coat, Kaleb continued to approach him, the knife now pointed towards him.  All three seemed to stop in a unanimous agreement for a breath.  Raymond stared the two of them down,  and they him, measuring each other up before they engaged again.  
This fight was obviously not what the older boys had expected from Raymond, by their confused cursing and anger.  Raymond, on the other hand, had been expecting to be bleeding out of his stomach at this point, and was pleasantly surprised not to be yet.  That didn’t mean he could keep this up though.  His breathing was already quick and short from the exhaustion of the fight that had taken place.  He didn’t have any experience with lengthened fights against one opponent, but against two, he knew there was no fair way to win.
Once again, Kaleb suddenly jumped towards Raymond, a daring move that brought no purchase but a heavy kick to his knee that nearly extended it backwards.  Shouting an angry curse, the boy continued his attack, slashing the knife downward.  Catching his wrist, Raymond began struggling to wrestle the knife away from his older opponent.  This time, however, he hadn’t disabled the other one, which allowed him to circle from the side.
As Raymond continued to struggle for possession of the valuable weapon, Jackson had come from his left.  Keeping his eyes still on the knife and the four hands enclosed around its hilt, he saw Jackson lay out a hook into Raymond’s floating ribs in his peripheral vision.  Raymond let out a pained yell, but continued to hold the knife strong at face level.  Forcing himself to tense up, he braced for the next hit, which came with vicious speed and intent.  Yelling in pain again, he suddenly found a strength in him, something that hadn’t been there before in his chest.  
He pushed against the hands of the opponent in front of him, releasing his grip.  This set Kaleb off balance, and yet again he tumbled to the wet alley floor, head smacking heavily against the stone.  Making a fist with his right hand, he turned before the next hit came, instead landing the tight fist square into the older, taller boy’s stomach.  This forced a cough from Jackson and he heaved with the force of the strike.  Before Raymond allowed him the chance to react, though, he swung his other hand into the boy’s stomach, landing yet another heavy hit.  This one also caused Jackson to cough, but this time, a bit of blood joined the spittle.  
Swinging his right hand again to smack into his stomach, Raymond suddenly felt it caught by the boy.  It was desperate, but weak, allowing Raymond to rip his hand from the boy’s grip.  With both hands, he grabbed the boy’s head, and with all of the force he could muster, he threw it to his right.  Time seemed to slow as Jackson flew sideways, his feet dragging across the slush covered ground, and into the metal doorknob.  There was a sickening crack as his skull smacked into the doorknob, which was suddenly painted red by the older boy’s split skull.  
Jackson crumpled lifelessly to the ground, slumping into the slush.  Red tickled into the darkened water of the alleyway.  It stained the little snow, and made it look strangely like the tiger’s blood snow cones they sold in the summer.  Dazed, Raymond barely noticed as a blurry figure rushed up to him, and it wasn’t until he felt something collide with his stomach that he realized who it was.
Raymond looked downwards, to his stomach, staring at the knife now embedded in it.  Slowly, pain crept through him, though it seemed distant, like a faint burning, or like the feeling immediately after he cut himself.  He knew there should be pain, and that it would come, but it wasn’t there yet.  And slowly, it came.  It felt like the fires of hell itself were burning his stomach.  He looked up from Kaleb’s bloodied hand to his face.  
Raymond’s response was immediate.  He shot both hands up to the older boy’s face, one on his temple and one on his chin.  Without a second thought, and before Kaleb could realize what was happening, he jerked his head sideways.  
A series of wet pops and cracks echoed in the alleyway as Raymond broke his adversary’s neck.  The body of Kaleb fell silently into the muck before him, his head angled in a sick fashion to the side.  
The pain suddenly hit him, and hard.  He gasped at the sheer force of it.  It felt like lava burned his stomach where he’d been stabbed.  It wracked his whole body, causing him to shake.  Instantly, he went to the ground.  
He could feel the blood trickling down his stomach, the knife still jutting out of where the pain was concentrated.  He held as still as he could while he looked around for anything to help him.  His mind was blurred by the shock of the whole occurrence, but a sharp thought pierced through the confusion and pain.  
The police could help him.  
Scrambling, he searched Kaleb’s pants, which had a squarish bulge in the pocket he could see.  Wallet, not a phone.  Groaning in pain, he resolved to push the body over.  He practically shrieked in pain as he put all of his life into pushing the body over.  As soon as the body was over enough, he ripped the coat up, revealing the pocket, which gratuitously held a rectangular shape in it.  
He pulled out the phone.  As he did so, he felt more of his blood leak out.  Groaning loudly, his hand flashed to the wound.  It came back sticky red.  
Turning the device on, he scrambled across its screen to open up the emergency call option.  His fingers left bloody prints on the glowing glass screen, but he didn’t care.  Rapidly tapping in 9-1-1 on the dial, he held it to his ear.  
The ringing lasted only a few seconds, but it was seconds that Raymond wasn’t able to afford.  Already, a combination of pain, shock, and cold was threatening to shut down his system, and he was too weak to resist.
“Nine one one, what’s your emergency,” the operator’s answer came.  T was a masculine voice that sounded lazy and too marred by liquor to be bothered, but it might as well have been an angel’s voice as Raymond responded.
“Stabbing in the alleyway,” he murmured, horrified to find his voice so gurgly and slow.  “By 7-11… off of Brooklyn and Edgebrook… send help… please.”
The operator responded with something that sounded panicked, but the fuzzing of Raymond’s mind overtook all sight and sound.  He slouched against the side of the alleyway, the cold slush seeping through his thick jeans and into his very bones.  The phone fell haplessly into a puddle, but Raymond gave it no heed.  His head fell back against the metal door behind him, bouncing several times on the cool surface.  He didn’t feel it, couldn’t feel it past the burning pain in his stomach and freezing cold body.  His gaze remained unfocused as he stared up at the cloudy, glowing sky above, blurs of white drifting past and onto him, clinging to his eyelashes.  
Helplessly, he pressed a hand against the wound in his stomach, attempting to keep pressure on it, but it did nothing more than increase his pain.  Time seemed slower than it should have been, and more than once his eyes threatened to close, but some part of him that still had self preservation woven into it forced him to stay awake.  There was a noise somewhere to his right, but he simply didn’t have the strength to look over.  A masculine voice cried out a muffled word, but Raymond was unable to discern it, and only continued to stare up into the sky.  
Suddenly, dully, he realized there was a slight discoloration to the yellow clouds, a faint flashing of red and blue.  He willed himself to turn to the end of the, but his body was too drained.  Even though he felt like crying out with rage and pain, he found he didn’t even have strength enough to do that either.  There was simply nothing left in him.  Tears were frozen to his face, tears he couldn’t feel, and with a startled moment, he realized he couldn’t feel at all. 
Out of the blurred darkness came voices.  When had there been darkness?  Wasn’t he staring into the sky still?  But then, what happened to the clouds?  Raymond peeled his eyes open, the one thing he still seemed to be able to bodily do other than breath, blessedly.  
As sight returned to him, he could faintly make out the image of a man in a black suit with something shiny on his chest.  Faintly, his mind recognized the image of the policeman’s badge, and suit he wore.  His mouth was moving, but Raymond could not hear, let alone understand what it was he was saying.  Concerning, to be sure, but slightly funny.  He’d been told he had perfect hearing by the school nurses.  Why didn’t he have it now then?  Liars.
Raymond smiled, and then passed out.