1: Prolog

The smell was a surprise. Immediate and unrelenting, it hit at the first cut, and intensified as he went. Blood was part of it, but also piss and shit, fear and sweat, all smashed together in the wounded air. Now, with the final twitches and gasps beginning to ebb away to stillness, the stink had flooded the room like the cold sea in a sunken ship. It laid siege to his senses, invading and infesting his entire being like maggots squirming in a shred of road kill. Time was short. Escaping the scene, and getting shut of the terrible fucking smell now his only concern.

"Still..."

He said it out loud.

"Plan your work and work your plan..."

He chuckled a weird chuckle, thought past the smell, and did just that.

The first few minutes were ugly. He hadn't noticed the red blips there spattered across the screen. He'd clicked around a bit, and when the blue-screen login came up there they were, partially obscuring the cheery white letters FA and BO. It took him three precious minutes scrubbing it off. Luckily, the message itself came much easier than he'd expected, so canceling out the extra clean up. When he was done he read through the post a few times, hit "send", and walked alone into the indifferent October night.