MLP: What is Sanity?
Prologue: My Pitiful Exit
I have to question what brought me to where I am every so often. The answer I have found is simple circumstance. I wasn’t anything special in the life I used to live. I was a simple 18 year old kid with an interest in law and a craving for adventure. I had no talents that would have ever made me believe that I was the target of a millennia old god to be used as a pawn in his grand master plan to destroy his enemies.
Regardless, I’m getting ahead of myself. My name is Alec Graves. I was a college student in a small city, where my biggest concern was not procrastinating and failing my next assignment. That all changed when I decided to play the hero.
It was a late night and I had just decided to make a quick run to a convenience store down the road from my dorm to grab some milk for the next day. That in itself wasn’t strange. I often suffered from bouts of insomnia and dealt with it by going out and doing something. However, I picked the worst night to come to this particular convenience store.
It was quiet when I first entered, the only other person there being the clerk behind the register. Said clerk looked up as he heard me approach, a look of bored indifference on his face. Ignoring him, I went about my business, quickly gathering the milk and other snacks I wanted.
I soon finished and started to make my way towards the cash register. It was then that I heard the automatic door at the front of the store slide open. I looked towards the sound and observed a tall individual wearing a brown hoodie enter. I thought nothing of it.
I gave the clerk my groceries and waited quietly as he rung them up. Out of the corner my eye, I noticed our hooded friend pacing slowly a few feet away. That was when I first started to feel something wasn’t quite right. The clerk finished ringing up the groceries, which I paid for. As I made my exit, I slowed down and lingered near the entrance. That was my first mistake.
The hooded figure quickly moved to the register and said in a gruff voice “Hand over the money and no one gets hurt!” The clerk, who until that point had maintained his air of indifference, started slightly and stared dumbly at the soon-to-be robber. Getting impatient, the robber pulled a handgun from his hoodie. Pointing it at the clerk he shouted “I said, hand over the fucking money!”
I had watched the scene unfolding before me and felt a trill of terror run through me. The first and most rationale thought that entered my mind was that I should simply turn around and forget I’d ever seen this. The second and far more reckless thought, was that I should try and subdue the robber. I didn’t listen to my more rationale mind. I dropped my groceries and moved towards the robber quickly. That was my second mistake.
As I neared the robber, I knew my best chance was to get his gun away from him as quickly as I could. With that in mind, I grabbed the base of the gun and pulled with all my strength. That was my third and final mistake.
What I didn’t account for, was unlike me, the robber had actual training in martial arts. I had stood no chance. Though I had surprised him, the robber reacted instantly. Pulling me towards him, he knocked me off balance and delivered a quick shove that pushed me away and broke my hold on the gun. He followed up with a swift kick to my stomach, which knocked the air out of me instantly. As I recovered, the robber leveled his gun on my chest. He didn’t hesitate.
I heard, rather than felt the gunshots. They were loud sounds that filled my mind as I felt searing pain streak across my body. The world blurred as I collapsed backwards. The robber said something in the following silence, but I was too focused on how hard it was to breathe to care. Things grew fuzzy after that, but I was able to distinguish that the robber made a quick getaway after taking everything in the cash register. After that, I saw what I assumed was the clerk make his way over to my side, talking franticly into a cell phone.
The world soon faded to darkness. I was dead. Fortunately or unfortunately, that wasn’t quite the end for me.