Prologue

" 'Cause I don't wanna lose you now…The vacancy that sat in my heart is a space that now you hold…”He coughs blood “Show me how to fight for… and I'll tell you, baby, it was easy..."

The lyrics were supposed to be smooth, but they came out as a wet, gasping rasp. Show me how to fight? Irony was a harsh mistress.

His hand wasn't just cut; it has turned to a ruined prop, hanging like a rotten sausage linked only by two pale tendons and some wet strings of flesh. He stared at the glistening white color slick with blood of his own bone. This, for the record, was going to need more than a butterfly bandage.

He was lying next to the quiet body, the grief he felt brought a sharper stab than the nerve pain. He screamed, not from his hot burning aching body, but from the realization. "Damn it! I couldn't even save me properly, and I was supposed to be your damn hero?"

He tried to laugh maniacally, but it devolved into a cough that tasted like rusty metal. "You saved my butt how many times? Three? Four?… I got one shot, one glorious shot at returning the favor, and I left you here on a floor that's ‘bouta turn into a human slip-n-slide."

A wave of dizzying pain hit, making him convulse. "Aw! Shit! I despise myself!" he spat, slamming his head back against the concrete. "Just end it all! Kill me, you bastard! At least give me the cheaper version of death! Do it, do it right now!" he said furiously in an enraged tone.

He choked, the cough erupting not with air, but with a mouthful of hot, thick blood. His vision blurred, and it all began to fade into dark. The pain was still there but the volume of it was dropping fast as he finally succumbed to death.

[Well, congratulations, you made it to the credits. If you're wondering how a guy who just bought this delish monaka who’s standing at Fushimi Inari is still talking to you, that's fair. To answer that question—and show you how I got this deluxe membership to the Bone-Exposure Club—let me take you just a teeny tiny way back.]