A Sip of Infinity

Revenge of the Fallen

My head thumped atrociously as my eyelids popped open painfully, providing me with a blurred image of the hospital wing in school. Plaster had been placed on my knee which also ached horribly, I couldn’t really figure out which pain was more excruciating. The matron walked in holding a bottle of medicine, she poured some of it in a spoon and fed it to me, it tasted disgusting as I nearly gagged on it and attempted to get up but she restrained me.

“Easy there boy,” she commanded, mechanically placing her palm on my chest to prevent me from sitting up. “You should take some more time before getting onto your feet,” she suggested coldly. “How long have I been here?” I asked softly, sounding nearly feverish, bearing my heavy head. “Nearly twelve hours, your friends carried you here after you lost your senses on the field as they informed me,” she said curtly and walked out of the room.

I couldn’t really recall that particular moment when my mind became unstable which led to this fiasco. I made a deliberate effort to stand up, and sneaking out of school I took a cab home, missing school the following day.

My mind felt pretty ordinary the next day, even trying to add two digits caused a migraine, just then I realized that it had been forty-eight hours and the marvelous effects of hemlock had drained out completely. Immediately, I rushed towards the wardrobe to get my hands on the bottle of elixir and was about to gulp down a shot, when an old photograph of mom fell off the drawer. It was a photo taken during her late twenties I assumed, as she looked extremely bubbly and adorably cute. I couldn’t help but cry a river as my heart blasted with emotions and my mind poured down memories. In the exultation of acquiring this elixir that transformed me, I had totally forgotten about mom at which I lamented, banging my fists against the wall. Perhaps this was a wake-up call from the lord, conveying to me that the time had arrived to avenge her death and bring her soul to rest peacefully.

I had absolutely no idea in which hole could that arse Ben Joe would be hiding. I visited his restaurant but apparently, it had been shut down for a month. I approached bars and every other place in Deira and Bur Dubai wherever I knew he had connections, but in vain, as I found no trace of him or any of his thugs. I took the metro at downtown one Friday afternoon during my search of him, I was totally desperate by this time as it had almost been a week. I stared outside through the crystal clear windows of the train tinted from the outside. The glamorous scenario of downtown cooled my eyes along with the breathtaking sunset, which beautified the horizon with the towering BurjKhalifa looking down at the dwarf skyscrapers. 

My mind had suddenly been distracted from the thought of that rascal and reached a state of trance. But that trance didn’t last long, as my eyes fled below through the glass and zoomed at a man getting out of a Land Cruiser SUV near the entrance of Dubai Mall, his thick mustache and golden watch raising the blood to my head. With a swish, I pushed through the enraged crowd which began grumbling, but there was no stopping me as I reached the exit doors in the front compartment which were tight shut. As the train was computerized, there was no way to bring it to a halt….for someone not in possession of hemlock.

I reduced my pace and walked up to the lone security guy in the front compartment and asked him a random question and before he could reply, I nicked the walkie-talkie from his pocket swiftly and called the person who controlled the train, replicating his voice, asking them to stop the train due to a fire emergency. The train halted instantaneously at my call and the doors opened automatically, giving me the signal, and I jumped out without contemplation. The wind blew strongly outside, chilling my spine despite the thick jacket that I wore. I removed the jacket, and held both its sleeves high with my hands in the air, thus reducing the speed of my fall to an extent as the wind carried me towards a stationary garbage truck on the highway side, and dropped me hard in the trash.

Smelling horribly of banana peels and other rubbish, I jumped off the truck and streaked across the busy highway, dodging the various vehicles which sped towards me. BurjKhalifa stood quite a few miles away, however, I couldn’t run at a crazily inhumane speed and still manage to confront that rascal at the entrance. At that instant, my zooming eye fled towards an accelerating Bugatti Chiron just about to overtake me. Within a fraction of a second, escalated by an insanely thunderous adrenaline rush that transmitted electric sparks across my nerves, I sprung over the car top and it took me towards my destination at lightning speed, with the fierce wind smacking my body atrociously.

I sprung off the car’s roof at an intersection on the highway and sped towards the entrance of the towering skyscraper. My eyes scanned the place like a laser beam CCTV camera for every sign of Ben Joe. The ground floor was a humongous hallway shaped like a fidget spinner, with three different massive hallways leading to unknown areas and in the middle stood a pair of escalators. As confusion began to form my mind, I saw the despicably loathed face of Joe, who apparently was being led upwards by his guards in a gigantic glass elevator located at the right side of the hall. With a surge of adrenaline, I ascended the escalator and ran forwards, my zooming eyes following his movements.

The incredibly high-speed elevator didn’t halt for another hundred and thirty floors, and I had to sprint across the escalators (would have been utterly impossible without my elixir). My eyes didn’t leave him for a second, as he finally got out on the hundred and forty-eighth floor. This was a dead-end and I had to hop in an elevator. The speedy glass elevator flew up to the floor in a matter of seconds. As the doors slid, a luxuriously spacious vacant area came into view; the observation deck was massive, with large crystal clear windows, providing a glimpse of the breathtaking view of Downtown, and the sunset illuminated the deck brilliantly. At the end of the massive deck stood Ben Joe with his guards, who apparently were clutching a terrified middle-aged man who seemed to have been mercilessly thrashed by them. Moreover, there was another group of men whose boss was a man wearing an expensive jet black suit and wearing a hat.

“Please forgive me, sir, I have a wife and two young daughters, have mercy on me,” the man sobbed bitterly.

“Well, well, well, Patterson, you should’ve thought about them before betraying me and tipping off the Deira Police about my d**g smuggling campaign,” said Joe, chuckling insanely in his usual vicious manner. “You have been a very loyal and diligent employee Patterson, and I regret this decision of mine, however, you should consider yourself a very lucky man, as you will witness one final deal,” that he approached the man in the suit and handed him a briefcase and received one in return. Both the men opened the briefcases simultaneously, and Joe’s briefcase contained at least a hundred packets of cocaine, while the other guy received about a million dirhams in return.

“As always, a pleasure doing business with you Joe,” claimed the man, in a rough Mexican accent, whom I assumed to be a cartel king. Joe showed the briefcase to the man named Patterson and gave an evil smirk. Joe then took out a pistol from his pocket and aimed at Patterson.

“Good-bye old friend, hope you have a smooth ride to heaven,”

“You too Joe!” I shouted, as I barged into the scene and ran towards the g**g. They all pulled out their guns and there was a swarm of bullets flying towards me. My mind spun peculiarly and my pupils dilated, allowing me to closely view each bullet fired at me as the entire scene turned into a slow-motion movie. Thus, I was able to dodge every bullet skilfully and jumped over the mob of goons, causing them to tumble down. It was one against nine, they attempted to thrash me but my brain was equipped with all the combat moves to ensure my victory.

 I caught a goon’s hand and elbowed another on his face, he fell with a gut-wrenching pang on the ground. Then with extreme force swung the guy, whose hand I caught, onto the ground, and stamped his chest, leading to his death. Amidst this ruckus, Ben Joe tried to escape however, I fetched a knife lying on the ground and flung it at his leg as he collapsed onto the ground, screeching with pain. The other thugs attacked me and pinned me on the ground, their grip was so tight that escape seemed nearly impossible, but at this point an image flickered in my mind of a man in a movie I had watched ages ago, bringing down a group of men who had piled on him by smacking his head against the man nearest to him. In an instant, I replicated that move and smashed my head against the guy nearest to me and the group broke up. Lying on the ground I placed my legs onto the chests of two of the men and gagged them to death.

Suddenly, the remaining thugs smacked me hard on the head from behind causing me to let out a roar of pain and anguish, I grabbed both their necks and hammered them against each other leading to their instant death. My head began whirling, and weirdly conspicuous sounds began playing in my mind like a badly tuned radio. Excruciating pain ran across my head, passing an electric current that channeled through my veins towards my mind, as though tiny insects were crushing my brain. My vision became hallucinated; my surroundings appeared magnified and spinning slowly. I rubbed my eyes and attempted to control my balance. At that moment, I saw Ben Joe limping towards the elevator, the knife still shoved in his lower leg. My mind regained its sanity as I looked at his face, a face that brought back memories of that dreadful day when he had killed my mother.

With a whoop of inexorable fury, I barged towards him and with a tight grasp at his collar, I threw him over my head and in the center of the deck. He struggled to get up but stumbled backward, terror striking his face in the form of ghostly paleness.

Amidst that paleness, most shockingly a smile spread across his wretched face, as he feebly managed to get onto his feet, facing me.

“Still the same eh, little Baney,” he mocked chuckling weakly, barely able to remain standing. “Want revenge eh? Go ahead and take it. Though revenge on me is not gonna change you, neither is it gonna bring back your sweet mother. Oh, I shouldn’t have killed her, the pretty thing she was. Well, unfortunately for you young boy…that tonic of yours isn’t magical enough to bring her back,”

At that moment my fury broke out, with a tiger’s growl I pounced over him, and with that mighty force, we collided against the nearly unbreakable window of the deck, and as the glass shattered ominously, we were sent flying down the humongous skyscraper into the sky. The outside pressure hit me with substantial force as we were falling from about seven hundred meters from the ground. Intense fog spread across my eyes, blurring my vision. This was it….the end had arrived….my life’s journey was being halted here…. but it didn’t come off as depressing at all as I was finally going to mother, I thought, struggling for a smile during that deadly flight. Moreover, I was taking Joe with me, wouldn’t have been a better way to perish, would it? As the view became clearer, I noticed Joe falling miles below somewhere, meeting his doom and my eyes closed….for a final time.