Dark World
Deep in the dark void that is the bustling city, Jake awakens from his slumber of tequila and rum-soaked evenings. He stumbles out of his chair when he finally realizes the constant beating of someone at his door, seeming to want in and want in NOW!
For some reason Jake knew that the banging on his door meant certain danger and made his way out of the dark, dimly lit apartment through the broken latch on his window and began creeping down towards the bustling city.
Just as Jake was about to jump off the little bit of the fire escape onto the top of the dumpster, Jake somehow managed to get his leg trapped on the ladder at the last second, which caused him to slam into said ladder.
Making matters even worse for Jake had to be that today just so happened to be one of the rare occasions that the lid of the dumpster was freaking open, meaning not only did Jake get a clumsy bump to the head, but he was also forced to take a dumpster bath.
Jake: "Just great. (Struggles to get out of the dumpster) My only clothes smell like trash, and the splitting headache I got seemz to be getting worse."
Flopping onto the alleyway floor, Jake gets up and digs around the trash can for the little fedora with a hole that he found, and after dusting it off along with using a nearby fire hydrant to clean up any sludge left on it and his own body, he makes his way towards the nearby diner.
Jake: "(Waves at the cook and server as he enters) Sup, Phil? Sup, Marty?"
The cooks and server just spoke in some foreign language along with showing some sort of hand sign that Jake couldn't really see all that well but thought it seemed pleasant enough considering it looked sort of like a hand wave as he saw the middle finger and thumb.
Walking by all the booths, Jake can see that everyone seems to hold him with disdain, but Jake honestly doesn't really care what everyone else thinks since he had someone that needed him, Mr. Joey, the man who looked like a beast of a man but had the soul of a nerd.
Sitting down at the table, Jake grabs a plate of toast and black coffee that Mr. Joey had ordered for him since it was the cheapest thing on the menu, and while they were more than client and boss, they were still less than friends... probably because Jake rarely had any cash on hand and Joey was always there to help out.
The current task at hand for Jake is that Mr. Joey seems to be having trouble collecting from certain people under his employment who didn't pay him what they owed recently, and he was apparently worried they may try to skip town.
Mr. Joey: "(Sounds like Joey from Friends.) I don't wanna worry bout it, but it neverz hurtz to get someonez likez yourselvez to look and make sure I get what Iz owed."
Jake is trying his best to decipher what the heck his boss just said, and once he realizes what he was asking for, Jake soon leaves the diner after chugging down his coffee and quickly finishing a piece of toast and grabs the other for the road.
Walking outside the diner, Jake gives a nearby homeless man whatever toast he had left along with some coins in his pocket, which turned out to be 28 cents. But just as he was about to back away, the blond homeless man suddenly grabbed Jake's hand.
Blond homeless man: "Remember! Not all as see fit!"
After saying that, Jake feels a sudden and intense pain in his wrist that seemingly causes his veins to start bulging out, along with him feeling like something was crawling through his arm, trying to get out, and it didn't seem to care about how painful it might be to Jake.
When the pain seems to finally die down, Jake looks up from his water-filled fedora and sees that no one was there, and I do mean no one. Not a single soul or being was inside the formerly bustling city.
As Jake slowly gets up, he begins walking over with a limp towards the city street where the first area of his investigation was to be held, and once he passes the bridge, he gets a sudden headache as everyone just appears around him once more.
Jake: "(Pops his fedora and smiles like a demon) Well... this seems interesting. TAXI!!!"
Getting into the local cab Jake gives the cabbie a list of areas he needed to go and look at with no way or really any desire of ever paying his fare, which the driver seemed fully aware of, as he just kicked the man to the curb and gave him a note that listed how much he owed and that until he paid a tenth of it, he'd be blacklisted by every cabbie in the city.
Jake: "(Dusts off his fedora) Well, so much for Jews and Blacks being a happy bunch."
Grabbing the paper saying he was banned from all forms of transport, Jake made his way through the streets as he went towards a nearby bus stop in order to find the nearest way to get to where he needed to go.
However, thanks to the local paper that was right next to him, Jake found that for some reason damn near every direction to get to the warehouse in the pier was blocked, destroyed, or in some way or another unable for him to use.
Jake: "I swear it's like the world is just out to get me today."
Stranger 1: "(Grabs the newspaper violently from Jake's hands) Maybe it's because you take things without asking!"
Jake: "(Watches the stranger storm off) Well, that was rude. I mean, sure, I took his newspaper, but it was just standing there... in his hands like an idiot. It's not my fault that it was so easy to grab without him noticing."
Brushing off his hat one more time, as for some reason it seemed to constantly get some black goo on it whenever he wasn't looking. Jake then made his way towards the nearby crime alley if you will as he comes across Penny Parker the poor server at a local diner.
Thug 1: "(Stares at Jake) What do you want, tough guy!"
Jake: "*Shrugs* Nothing. I was just passing by. I need to get something for Mr. Joey, so if you want to keep me from helping the boss, then by all means, keep pointing that damn knife at me."
Walking past the thugs, Jake looks at the poor girl and sees the pure horror and fear that came from her eyes, and without knowing why, he grabbed his fedora from his head and lowered it a bit over his eyes as he kept walking away.
Thug 2: "Ha! That's right, no one's here to save you now, you whor-"
Before the thug even knew what hit him or the other thug who watched as a fedora was quickly approaching his face, and just as he took a hat/fist punch to the face, Jake quickly grabbed the thug's blade and quickly threw it at the other's knee as he uppercutted and knee-kicked both thugs in the face.
Jake: "(Groans in pain) Ah! God! Why does it always hurt as much as it does when hitting someone in the face? I mean, I've done it enough times you'd think I'd be fine with it by now."
Penny: "(Quietly)....Not... supposed.... to happen...."
Jake: "What?"
Penny: "This is not the way it's supposed to happen!"
Jake: "(Chuckles nervously) What... what do you mean?"
Jake then reaches over and tries to help Penny up only for the entire world to see it lose its damn mind as the hand he held to Penny with began to burn like an inferno while at the same time feeling like something was trying to burst out of his veins.
As Jake howls in pain and kneels down from the pain, he tries his best to look up at Penny, who seems to be floating above the plane of nothingness that is now the world around them, as she and the world seem to be losing their minds.
From Penny's face changing between multiple different women that he seemed to know even though he had never met them a day in his life before as the lights around them flickered like strobe lights for a forced epilepsy machine.
Along with that came the rain pouring down heavy and in reverse as the buildings, streets, and people seem to be melting all around them as Penny slowly becomes some woman he's never seen before... wait... wasn't she in the news?
As Benny thought that something was off, he woke up in his mother's basement, or rather, his stepmother's basement, as he stumbled off his sofa as his favorite old-timey noir movie played as he read some very graphic comic books that were basically nothing more than grotesque ways of killing or torturing people.
Looking in his cracked handy mirror that he swiped from a nearby dumpster... this his mother threw away.
Benny: "Heh, snoking!"
He tried to say like the mask only to fail as his manly mother began calling for him even louder than before. Before leaving his little lair of despair, Benny made sure to turn off the T.V. and wear some decent clothes.
Walking out the door, Benny sees his mother smoking her usual giant pack of cigarettes she placed in a funnel so she could smoke them all at once.
Mother: "(Sounds like a man) Aw, my little weakling of a stupid spoiled brat no feel good getting dressed for his mommy (bats her eyelashes as hard as she could)."
???: "(Sounding like a pissed-off ghost) SHUT UP, YOU'RE FAR FROM A MOTHER, YOU COW!"
Benny: "Sorry, Mother, I thought I got dressed but must have imagined it."
Mother: "(Just stares at Benny as even the smoke from her cigarettes seems to stop flowing before eventually continuing.) Yea, sure. Now be a good boy for once in your miserable life and hand these papers out to the rest of the building so I can keep supporting your pathetic life."
Not wanting to listen to what the weird voice has to say, Benny gets the papers and walks through the door and is met with the warehouse Mr. Joey had wanted Jackie Boy to find and get everything there on papers so he could find those that tried to walk away from him.
The thugs begin beating some poor lady with blond hair and not wanting to let things get any worse. Jake grabbed a nearby gun and started shooting at the lights while at the same time grabbing a nearby bottle, which he used to bash a thug's face while grabbing his own gun and shooting everyone in the legs.
With the flickers of the light Benny looks and sees that he was holding a broken bottle and knife as he stood before his dead mother.
???: "(Like an angry Spector) I'm free! Finally! No more having to listen to her demands, and I can live life as I finally please!"
Benny: "Why? Why did I do this!? She's the only one that seemed to show me any—"
Crazed Thug: "SO YOUZ THINK THIS IS OVER, JOHNNY ESTACADA! You can't be any more wrong, as our boss will always get the last laugh!"
The crazed thug pressed a switch as multiple explosions started going off all over the place, with Johnny grabbing the thug along with the passed-out woman and jumping through the glass door straight over the hotel's giant pool.
Johnny: "Everyone has a chance to change, and you—"
Everything Johnny/Jackie/Benny/Jake sees very quickly seems to rip into one giant room with them all walking the same distance as some women and one man try to say something as the men in control just shake their heads and try to walk away from it all.
???: "ENOUGH! YOU KNOW NOTHING! HOW DARE YOU TRY TO LECTURE ME WHEN YOU'RE NOTHING MORE THAN MY FOOD!"
A giant being of pure darkness appears from the voids and grabs all the people who soon glitch into the appearance of Benny's Mother, best friend, drug dealer, and his very own brother... all of whom he doomed to die.
Jake: "(Stands up in front of the beast with zero fear) I'm not judging you for anything; I just know the way I'd do things and would never dare to try and run away from my actions. (Case in point, his darkest hour of killing the group of homeless people appears.) From my darkest hour, I've decided to live with all the guilt I make in life and never try to regret it because I accept taking their lives if it means saving my sister."
Benny: "ENOUGH! JUST DIE AND BECOME ONE WITH ME LIKE ALL THE OTHERS ALREADY!!!"
The giant black beast swoops down with its claw-like demon hands and causes whatever Jake was standing on to rumble.
Jake: "No. I have people waiting for me, and I would hate to let them down!"
Jake begins spinning around like a Spinjitzu master as he soon blasts some tentacles at the beast as Ekaj comes from the wound that Jake was feeling all this time and runs across the tentacles with a sword in hand.
Ekaj: "I, however, don't care about that as much as getting rid of SCUM LIKE YOU!"
Benny: "NO! PLEASE! I HAVE SO MANY THINGS I'VE YET TO DO! I'VE NEVER EVEN BEEN WITH A WOMAN BEFORE!"
Ekaj and Jake: "Not our fault!"
Ekaj: "(Stabs the creature straight in the middle of its chest) Maybe next time you'll actually try and care for others instead of only yourself!"
Benny: "NOOOOOO! MY PARADISE! MY UTOPIA! MY HOME OF BLISSSSSSsssss."
The light in the beast's eyes soon goes dark as the creature swallows up everything around them, and Jake enters the real Benny, the one that he probably didn't even know existed, as it stands with police lights flashing all around them as the scene of what just happened plays in black and white over the T.V.
Light Benny: "I just wanted to be free. Was that all too much to ask?"
Jake: "Yes. (Stabs Benny through the chest) You've taken that from others and yourself, so you only have yourself to blame."
The Light Benny soon becomes his dead mother as other bodies begin popping up as the T.V. starts enveloping the rest of the room until there is nothing but pure light as Jake opens his eyes in the body of Mr. Joey holding Spider-Woman by the neck.
Mr. Joey: "(Slowly shrinks and morphs) What—"
Jake: "(Appears as the darkness melts around him with Spider-Woman becoming free) What the heck just happened?"
Meanwhile, everyone around them begins to cheer as Flash and Eddie look like they're in pure bliss as they keep chanting "The voices, the voices" over and over along with something about silence being bliss.
That is all for now hope you all enjoyed and until next time stay safe and peace!