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Chapter Twenty-Three: The Intersection

As he neared the western portion of the building, Joji's nostrils stung with the ever intensifying smell of burned plastic. He squinted his eyes as he slowly made his way down the hall. The hallways became increasingly misty from the smoke left behind by bombs. The rows of lockers were lighted with trails of bullet holes. Some of the bullets hit the lights on the hall ceiling, causing sparks to flow down to the floor with a crackling sound; but eerily, it was otherwise quiet.

Joji pressed the butt of his black shotgun tightly against his shoulder, his head flush with the barrel and both eyes opened. The hallway before him seemed to stretch on forever, its end out of sight as it was obscured by the haze mist and the blurriness of Joji's dry eyes.

Another corner.

Joji's heart pounded harder, his knees wearier, as he approached an upcoming intersection. Nearing the corner, he pressed his body against the wall, as if to absorb himself into it. He bended his head as far as he could without losing balance toward the corner, trying to listen for the slightest of sound that would give away that presence of an assailant. There was silence (except for the distant crackling of the electrically current).

Joji rotated his body until his back was pressed against the wall, gripping his shotgun vertically parallel to his body. He raised his eyes to the white ceiling, his mouth trembling as he quietly counted

"One...Two..."

Then without a moment's hesitation, he sprung his body off the wall and threw himself toward the intersection, instantly pointing his gun right down the darkened enjoining hallway. There was nothing.

The hallway was dark as there did not appear to be operating lights running through it. There was, however, light coming from another hallway intersecting on the other end. Joji stepped backward, allowing his gun to lower a few inches. He turned his head to the right and then to the left, looking down and up the hallway he had been trailing. Then he looked back down the short, darkened hall and toward the illuminated intersection at the end.

Suddenly, the rapid firing of a repeater piercingly echoed down the halls. Joji shoved the butt of the gun against his shoulder and sprung to his left and right. The sound was coming from the other side of the dark hallway in front of him. Joji dashed into the hall, pressing himself against the right side wall, sliding against it as he slowly approached the other side. A sign in the corner of his eye caught attention. It was an arrow pointing down the hall with a caption: Gymnasium.

ALEX!

Joji leaped from the wall, his shotgun poised forward, and dashed toward the upcoming intersection on the other side.

He noticed a disturbance at the end of the hall. A hazy vibration companied by the screeching sound of bullets hitting metal. As he got closer, it became clear that at the end of the hall was a row of lockers that were shaking. And as he got even closer, he realized that the tremors were coming from a barrage of bullets striking the thin aluminum. Joji swiftly halted himself halfway down the hall as a shadowy figure stepped into intersection. It was that of a short, thin cat, holding a linier object horizontally across its body. As the light settled on the cat, Joji could see clearly from his side of the barrel that the cat was female, with pure white fur that was decked in a black trench coat. Her eyes glowed in the dark shadows from the hall cascading on her face. Seeing her muted all sound in Joji's ears; he could not tell if her volley had ended because all he had his eyes locked on was her face. Her mouth was moving; is she laughing or saying something? She was very young, very beautiful, and strangely very familiar.

The silence to Joji's ears was swiftly ended with the sound of another volley (or maybe the same volley) entering the hallways. Puffs of powder sprung from the left wall, coming in rapid repetition towards Joji. Almost by impulse, Joji fell to his knees, still marking the young female cat with the end of his barrel.

Joji trigged to squeeze, but his aim ceased with the feeling of sharp, excruciating pain shooting up his left arm. He fell backward, firing his gun up into the air, causing debris from the shingles on the ceiling to come tumbling down. His back struck the floor. Joji grasped his arm. Blood gushed onto his right hand. He had been hit. But the volley ended, and the only sound that echoed down the dark hall now was his wailing in pain. Joji slide his body across the floor, prompting his back against the right wall. He lifted his eyes to see the cat slowly moving toward him, the end barrel of her fully automatic settling on him. She began to hum aloud an eerily recognizable tune. It was the old nursery rhyme: Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

"FUCK YOU!" Joji screamed out, his eyes filling with tears. All he could do now was sit there, his blood painting his left arm and right hand, and wait to for the pain of a hundred rounds of lead to piece through his flesh and fill his body. But Joji refused to close his eyes, locking them with those of the young female killer that glowed with even more intensity as she moved further into the dark hallway. In them was no sense of soul, compassion, fear, or compromise: just joy...frightfully determined joy. Standing only a few feet from the downed Shepkita, but out of the zone of his reach, she abruptly stopped humming. The silence that followed was almost piercing as the two exchanged looked of domination and anticipation. Her insanely cold eyes rapidly flickered.

"HEY!" screamed the voice most distinct to Joji coming from the end of the hall.

NOOOOOOOOO!

A darkened image of Alex manifested in the glow of the intersection, a small revolver held up with his right hand with an untrained grip.

"ALEX! GET THE FUCK..."

But almost instantaneously from Alex's call, the female carelessly let her gun burst with fire, the bullets missing Joji's head by only a few inches above, as she swung her barrage around and toward the intersection. Joji should hear the faint sound of a few shots coming from the revolver before he saw Alex fall to the ground.

"ALEX!"

Joji fell forward, the end of his face smacking against the concrete floor as his eyes captivated the sight of the young Dalmatian lying motionlessly in the middle of the intersection. Now his eyes gushed more than his bleeding arm. His throat swollen to near strangulation.

The cat resumed her humming of the old nursery tune.

"FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! YOU FUCKING WHORE! YOU FUCKING CUNT! YOU FUCKING..."

Joji head jerked as he let out his litany of cursing and swearing but still keeping his eyes unconditionally fixed on the body of Alex until the cat's feet stepped in front of him. Joji looked up to the laughing cat, whose laugh went unheard in Joji's ears, notwithstanding that he was screaming every curse at her in louder intonation (though none of them satisfied him in offense or intensity). None fazed her as she lifted her barrel to his face, only inches away. Joji finally went quiet, and closed his eyes. He waited.

I'm going for you, Alex...

Suddenly, the sound of a burst of fire rang in Joji's ears as his body contracted, ready to absorb the blow.

But his body remained numb, except from the irritating ring in Joji's ear. Joji wondered, in his fetal position, if his death was instantaneous.

Suddenly, he heard the punt of something fall to the ground. He forced his eyes open, revealing the bright light from the end of the hall being half obstructed by the object lying in front of him. As his eyes adjusted, he made out the eyes of the cat, starting lifelessly at him.

Joji slowly picked himself up. When his eyes parted from those of the corpse of the cat, he noticed the darkened shape of a tall, young, grey wolf standing in front of him.

"Reis," muttered Joji, his throat still swelled. Reis did not look at Joji, or at the cat on the ground. He just stood there, as if frozen in place, his eyes fixed forward, as if grilling an invisible presence. His face was pale, his tranquil eyes glistened in the light, appearing like glass, but his body was not motionless as the shotgun in his hands trembled and his head quivered. The dark gray fur on his hands and face were covered in spots of blood, spewed onto him by the close range shot. His uniform was also stained by dark smudges.

Joji balanced himself on his feet as best he could; the smell of sulfur and blood made him woozy. With all the strength he head in his left arm, he gently lowered Reis's shotgun for him.

"Kid, calm down..."

Suddenly, the sound of an incoming transmission resonated through the hall, causing Joji to quickly duck his head down. Dragging against the floor must have turned up the volume on the radio to the maximum.

"Gunman in custody. Repeat. Gunman in custody."

Joji drew the microphone and shouted into it.

"GUNMAN DOWN! GUNMAN DOWN! WE GOT A KID HERE IN BAD CONDITION! HURRY!"