Fear is a funny thing. It'll lock you in place when you know you should move. It'll make you scream silent words to no one but yourself. Can you ever truly know what you would do in a life and death situation until you are in one? People will boast and always say fight, but flight is so tempting when death is right there with you. When your breath comes racing, your adrenaline spiking, and your eyes dilating into fine needle points. What would you truly choose when fear hangs over you like a shroud? For Jackson, walking back home alone in the dead of night through empty streets the answer was simple, run. When a 6 foot tall stranger shows up in front of you covered head to toe in a black shroud that flows around them as if it were mist and drinks up light like a black hole with a huge scythe as tall as they are in their hands. Jackson didn't stop to think, not after the day he had. After spending the day in a hospital sitting next to his comatose father, asking the doctors for anything, grasping at straws that aren't there. Not for a father who overworked his body to put food on the table and refused to go to the hospital. After all, the hospital costs time and money, and Jackson and his father had neither. Even more so after today, although that might not be a problem for Jackson much longer considering that even though he was running furiously down the barely lit streets, a proper mad dash if you would, he could feel the cold press of death looming behind him, gaining. Jackson was rather average in everything in life, average height, average looks, even an average intellect. The one thing he was leagues above most other peers of his was his ability to pivot, to know when to advance and when to retreat, and with retreat not working he made the decision to advance. But just because Jackson has average intelligence doesnt mean he's stupid. To fight a person with a huge weapon like that scythe he knew he needed a weapon as well, otherwise it might as well be suicide. However, as he looked around the dillipated streets in a frenzy for anything that he could use, hoping, praying even, to find anything to use as a weapon before the stranger caught up to him or his breath, or legs, gave out. Jackson quickly had that hope turn into despair however. The derelict streets were barely lit by the street lights affording nothing of use as a weapon in sight, unless you count random trash as a weapon. Outside the dim lights he couldn't even make out the shapes of the passing houses filled with people deep in the embrace of sleep. Just a yell a way he reminded himself but just as quickly he threw that notion out to fester with the rest of the trash on the passing pavement. It would take to long for them to help, and waste precious breath that he was running out of. Jackson was no athlete but the adrenaline coursing through his veins made him run faster then ever before, but Jackson was running out of time and he knew it. As despairs cold grip smothered the last flicker of his hope, it suddenly reignited for in the distance he saw a fallen stop sign jutting out of the darkness and into the street. Jackson ran even faster than before putting all his hope in the framework of a plan that burrowed itself into his mind. As the smacking of his feet hitting the pavement echoed around him, along with his laboured breath, he finally came to an abrupt stop next to the fallen metal sign. As Jackson reached down to pick it up he saw the stranger close the slight distance to him and raise the scythe high in the air, ready to kill. Unfortunately for them they weren't quick enough however as with a grunt of effort Jackson swung the stop sign, pole and all, into their side sending them sprawling onto the pavement. For a moment time didn't move for Jackson, still reeling in the moment of his continued survival until the sharp metallic clang of the scythe hitting the pavement echoed in his ears and he snapped back to reality. There, right at his feet was the scythe and as Jackson saw his attacker start to get up and move towards the scythe with surprising deftness he made his decision. Immediately he dropped the stop sign and reached for the scythe, as his hands closed around the cold metal he raised it to his side to swing it, blade first, at this random stranger, and swung with everything he had. The blade met no resistance when it hit the stranger. If Jackson wasn't in the throes of trying to survive he might have thought to himself how such a large weapon weighed so little in his hands. How its blade was so sharp it cut through them with no resistance. And how a bisected body sprayed no blood. Jackson had no time to think about such things however for the next moment his whole world changed to total darkness.
