Through a collection of terrible mistakes, the pavement had become his body's new home. Trying to stand up could be added to the list of mistakes made. "Did they really have to hit me with that bat?" groaning to himself and feeling the small protrusion on the back of his head, the Greek looked over at the dead body only inches away from him.

"Guess it could be worse." 

Now that his eyes were back in working order, he continued to survey the ground from where he laid. Noticing a lot of glass and quite a bit of a red gooey substance that he was guessing wasn't catsup, there was a sudden urge from his mind to stand up and escape from what was most likely an unsafe place to be.

"I just need to..." more attempts to move lead to more groaning, and when he looked down it was now clear as day why, when all he could see were dozens of tiny shiny edges of glass perforating nearly every inch of his fully visible legs, which lead him to a new question on where had his pants gone and why did his leg muscles look so sad right now; making a mental note to stop skipping leg day, he put his head back down for a moment only to jolt it back up when the pain shooting through his head reminded him of the large welt on it.

The street rats that did this to him would be dealt with once the Freak was back on his feet. For now, however, he had bigger problems to worry about, like how does one get back on their feet when they're covered in open wounds? Pulling out a few of the glass shards had proven to be another mistake to add to the list, as blood slowly trickled from the newly formed holes.

Right before giving up entirely on ever being able to walk away, something happened that completely turned around his problem to a complete one-hundred-and-eighty degree. In one of the pieces of glass, there was something beautiful that caused him to stop worrying about all of his problems for the moment- his very own face.

Smiling at the reflection that had been created by the broken-off piece of window, there wasn't a single worry in the world for the Greek right now, and he was sure that someone would find him soon enough given that he had a lot of men who would worry about him not showing up for a while. For now, there was only one thing to do. "Damn, I have a nice mug."

Catherine had watched it all happen, she was everywhere where things were happening, and if she wasn't she damn well pretended she was and wrote about it anyway. Suited her and her readers just fine. But for once in her esteemed career she actually had been where the news was. Although she wasn't about to step in and ruin a perfectly good story by helping or involving herself in anyway. That would make her reporting biased, and that lead to people whining and complaining and there were only so many, "Please shut up"s she had in her before she just started cursing at people and using rude hand gestures to get her point across to them. 

So yes, she was here where GreekFreak had been beaten up. It was actually alarming, and so once the group ran off laughing and waving his pants tied to the baseball bat like a flag of victory she approached, her notes in her hand. "Well, GreekFreak " she said as she approached, her heels crunching the glass on the pavement. When the man didn't move or say anything she cleared her throat, standing there. She was a very important person and rudeness was just, well, rude. Realizing what had his attention she started tapping the toe of her shoe and her pencil on her notepad, "Ahem!" she said rather loudly, wondering if perhaps that hit on the head had knocked any remaining common-sense out that he might have had. 

"That was quite the tumble, I would have helped of course," she said to him, assuming her last attempt to get his attention had worked, "but I don't want to be the news, I want to report the news." she glanced down at her notes, realizing the story was perfect as is, but still perhaps a statement from the victim before the cops arrived would make it better than good, but GREAT. "I was surprised that a group of eight year-olds were able to disarm you so completely," she said to him, gesturing to his legs. "But children do have a tendency to become a bit rabid during the summer holidays, unfortunately." 

Before stepping through the doorway he peeled the pants off the bat and threw them to Ronnie, the nearby beggar who always had a smile for him in the morning. "Here ya go Ronnie, this is an expensive pair just you make sure and take good care of them...heh heh" the guys behind him laughed and complimented Ronnie at the same time telling him they would look good on him before walking through the door...

"That will teach that good for nuffin... Did you hear what that wise ass said about the old gurl?" letting the squeeze go in his hand he released the bat and let it fall on the floor. "From now on gentlemen, we do not let these little things slip, we have to show our honour and our strength.  

Eggs looked at his watch for the fourth time in five minutes. It wasn't like GreekFreak to be late, in all the time he'd known him he'd never been late, not once.

Snatching up his pack of cigarettes he shook one out and started tapping it impatiently on the table.

Where the fuck was he? 

He stood and walked towards the door, taking his coat and hat from the stand on the way out. "Luigi, put that on my tab will ya, I gotta go...... thanks"

Eggs turned the key and the engine sprung to life. He held the steering wheel for a moment without moving. Something must be wrong. There had to be something wrong, why else wouldn't he have come? Maybe one of the other guys has seen him? I should drive over to Titan Tower, ask the guys. Yeah, I'll head over to the tower, someone will know where he is.

A slow drive from the restaurant, looking up alleyways, always looking. Reaching in to his pocket for his cigarettes Eggs realised he'd left them at the table, shit, not again. He liked that lighter.

A couple of blocks from the tower Eggs noticed something shimmering on the road ahead, getting closer he slowed even further when he realised it was glass, and what was that on the pavement? Eggs squinted to try to get a better look through the windscreen and made a mental note to get it cleaned in the morning. It looks like a body, what the fuck? No, two bodies and someone was stooped over one of them. Eggs stopped the car and looked around. No cops. OK, let's take a look.

As he got closer he realised one of the bodies was GreekFreak and his was the body the woman was next to. Eggs started walking quickly to the scene, looking around all the time for cops

"What happened? He still alive?" he said to the woman

He heard a groan from the body before she answered.

"Never mind, I'll take care of this, what about him?" Eggs nodded towards the other body as the woman shook her head.

Eggs bent down and hooked his hands under GreakFreak's arms, starting to pull him to the car. A trail of blood was being left behind and Eggs hoped he wasn't too late. It seemed the windscreen wasn't the only part of the car that would need cleaning in the morning. Opening the back door Eggs bundled GreakFreak in and tried to sit him up at least a little. He looked at his face, his eyes were closed.

*SLAP*

"Open your eyes Buddy, come on, wake up, WAKE THE FUCK UP!". The eyes flickered

"That's it, stay awake, you're bleeding, don't go to sleep, I'll get you to the doctor, he'll fix you up, no no, don't close your eyes" *SLAP" "Good, that's better.

Running to the driver's seat Eggs hit the gas, checking the mirrors he noticed blue lights reflecting from a building, hopefully far enough away that they weren't going to cause any complications, this would take some explaining. "Tell me sir, why do you have a half-dead man with no pants on bleeding in the back of your car". Eggs didn't want to know about the pants, he dropped a gear to overtake a delivery truck, that would hide him from the cops if they were behind. Hopefully they'd stopped at the other guy. He leaned back over the seat, "Don't worry Buddy, we'll be at the Doc's soon, just try to stay awake OK?"

What do we learn from our mistakes? Do we try and move on as best that we can without really delving into the why? Or do we embrace the fuck up and question ourselves how we can do better? While the Greek lay there in his hospital bed with bandages and gauze wrapped and stuck to most of his hands and legs, there was a lot of time to think about these questions. If only he hadn't moaned and groaned so much at the pain of the gl... heated sand formed into an amorphous substance; maybe he would be holding a golden trophy instead of this bronzed reminder of his ultimate shortcomings.

Some very wrong people were even attempting to spread the word that children had caused all of this. Those small brats with their matted hair and foaming mouths always chasing him in the middle of the night. His family told him that they were raccoons, but they didn't get a good look at them like he had- there were feral children out there, and... he was losing the plot again, being too odd and slick with his storytelling. In an attempt to get things back on track, the Greek tried to sit up straight in his bed so that he could get a better look at who was peeking at him through the hospital door.

Of course, it was no one. Just a figment of his imagination. Nobody would want to mingle with a man who could not finish top two in a story-based competition, and these shortfalls were always going to haunt him. How did he get here anyway? Was it Eggs? The one who was probably too busy shining his brand new fifty million dollar reward to stick around such a poor excuse for a Freak.

"Doctors, I'm done here." 

When his legs first hit the hospital floor, he could feel immediate regret. The searing pain scorched every last inch of his body all at once and culminated in the most pathetic squeak the man had ever let loose from his lips. When his body crumpled to the ground, there wasn't much more for him to do except lay there in defeat- this time seeing his face through the window of his hospital room.

Yeah, he was still handsome. His legs were super fucked, though.

"Also, just to be clear. Children definitely did NOT do this. Don't listen to everything that you hear. Come on. It was three huge guys, and they all had guns. I'm lucky to be alive, all right? There was also a flamethrower in play. Or I accidentally touched the grill again. Either way, it was burny."