Miles pushed his body toward the frozen Ada.

  Pulling both of his hands back out, he lunged to the right before thrusting his right fist. The blue spiked shield heading straight toward her cheek, she jumped back, the edges of the shield scraping the tip of her nose.

  Noticing another throw from his left fist, she swiftly grabbed hold of his hand, clutching it with her frail yet sharp fingers—

  She colpsed on one knee.

  Gncing down for one second, she saw Miles’s right foot jab itself straight to her kneecap, sending her to kneel on that same knee. Clenching the back ends of her teeth, she arched her head back, with the other blue shield millimeters from hitting her gsses.

  Pulling back, Ada began lunging whenever Miles wasn’t, but he kept up with her pace.

  (Agent Ada’s thoughts) What the hell!? Why is he keeping up with me!? Is he driven by pure rage?!

  Barely dodging every punch and spiked shield thrown at her, her face felt the air convulsed and hurt. As if Miles was abusing the physics and properties of air, all of her back mors began to chip off from just her stress alone.

  Being on the defensive, it only crimsoned her cheeks.

  As Miles threw another punch, plowing the air as it grazed the top of her wounded ear, Ada lowered her body to the ground. Her butt hovering over the floor, she swipe-step Miles, causing him to falter and crumble to the floor below.

  (Agent Ada’s thoughts) Then that will work for me!

  Halfway through his fall to the ground, she thrusted her right fist toward the same area she inflicted earlier. The jagged spikes were on the verge of making contact, millimeters away from hitting as…

  It went through.

  The same as before, the knuckle duster nded a perfect blow to Miles’s wound, a wound 90% healed from Hope. A gushing river of blood flowed from his chin, it ran down his throat and into his shirt and jacket, creating another hole that crackled his jaw.

  But unlike the same before, Miles gripped Ada’s wrist, his fingers, and even the edge of the shield trying to pave the way to her skin.

  (Miles) Take another shot.

  His mosses voice boomed against her eardrums, her skull reverberated against her brain.

  Trying to pull back her right hand, her shoulder creaked and crackled, her joints on the verge of dislocating. His fingers crushing her frail and small bones, her breath froze in her throat.

  Hissing out a steam of air, she thrusted her other hand, the knuckle duster making its way toward Miles’s right cheek.

  His head turned the other way, and her spiked knuckles formed holes along his face, flowing out kes of blood down to his clothes. Keeping her weapon lodged inside his cheek, she pulled it out for more blood to trench the metallic floor.

  (Agent Ada’s thoughts) What…?

  He didn’t flinch.

  Standing, letting his blood sweep down to the ends of his clothes, he kept his death-gring eyes on Ada. Thrusting again—

  Her head arched upward, her chin snapping in half at the blow.

  Being flown halfway across the train cart, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, her chin being split in half with blood flowing out onto the floor. Her mouth gawking open, she id her right cheek on the ground, its coldness shivering the entirety of her upper body and face.

  Every nerve swelling and burning from her chin up to her brain, she felt her skull shrink, the bone cmping onto the upper yer of her brain.

  (Agent Ada’s thoughts) It hurts…

  Digging her fingernails into the floor, some of them snapped off like toothpicks. Unleashing her nails off, they sprang in all directions, trickling and running from her fingers. Bringing her cheek up from the ground, her eyes finally rolled to their original state, her vision going blurry as she saw a ball of blue light coming toward her.

  Unable to stand up, she let the man grip the top of her hair.

  Bringing her head right at the same height level as his, both of his wrists continued to glow its blue light. Miles, who used his right hand and fingers to grip her hair, pulled back his left hand.

  Like turning off a switch, his spiked blue shield ceased its glow. His knuckles on the border snapping in half, he made sure her eyes stared into his, making her have no choice but to look at him.

  (Miles) It’s over.

  Just as he threw his left fist to her stomach—

  A pair of spiked knuckles flew themselves to his stomach.

  His fist hovering over the part of the stomach where she stored her liver, his knuckles were centimeters away from striking. Ceasing, his entire body frozen, making him gnce down at the two spiked fists digging deep into his stomach.

  Already, blood escaped from the newly formed holes.

  Vomiting out blood, the warm sticky liquid scorched his parched throat and mouth, spewing it onto Ada’s chest and tuxedo suit. Lowering his fist, he kept it still onto his thigh, fttening out his knuckles and fingers straight.

  (Miles) gasps…

  His knees buckled, and the soles of his feet let his body loose, making him sm his shins on the floor. Letting go of Ada’s head, she took two steps back, while having both her hands over her wounded areas.

  Every piece of clothing on his chest was drenched in a sea of blood, another vomit of blood projected itself onto the floor. Continuing to gasp, his windpipe and throat were scorched, more scorched than he ever felt in his life.

  His body trembling, shaking, convulsing while his eyes remained glued to the floor, Ada tilted her head back.

  (Agent Ada’s thoughts) Yeah … father would be most certainly proud.

  A gunshot blurred.

  Unable to turn around, Ada’s body froze from the pierced air crackling from the hot metal. Taste, touch, smell, and vision; all ceased to fade away from her injured body.

  Swaying her body forward and back, her heels and tips of her toes controlled the flow of her moving body. It stopped, once her toes couldn’t bulge the strength to keep her swaying.

  Slowly, she fell face-first onto the floor.

  And in back of her, the smoke of a barrel reached the top of the metallic ceiling, the insides of it scalding hot. A woman, with blue eyes and blonde hair, had already pushed the trigger, her breath hard and fastened the longer she stared at the female agent.

  (Hope) Oh my…

  Holstering her gun to the side of her hip, she limped her exhausted body toward Miles. Seeing he held his body up with just his shins, his nails lingered on the floor, his breath growing slower evermore.

  Taking note of the fallen agent, she reached toward the barely awake Miles, whose face began to turn pale from the ck of blood flow.

  Wobbling her way down, she managed to kneel, while sticking out her palms to his blood-stained shirt underneath his leather jacket. Her hands squished from the sticky substance, and a soft glow of her yellow light spread throughout his body.

  (Miles) ah…

  Closing his eyes, he let his back hit the floor, creating a loud thump that startled Hope. Making her kneel more, she continued to have her palms pced firm onto his chest, the yellow light still glowing strong.

  Slightly opening his mouth, his breath reeked with iron and metal, as small streaks of blood flowed from the corners of his lips. As if he was underneath five yers of big bed bnkets on a freezing night, his body shook once.

  Her eyes flickered to stay open, her glowing light was halfway done.

  Her feet numb, and she felt her thighs wobble and tremble the more she healed his wounds. Noticing not a trace of blood escaping his body, all of his wounds regenerated the lost skin cells and blood cells that he lost during the fight.

  (Hope’s thoughts) Almost there…

  Growing pale, sweat coating every ounce of skin on her body, she felt like her whole body might explode. Seeing that 90% of his wounds were healed, the yellow light halted its flow, followed by her hands pulling out from his chest.

  Pressing her right foot, her right calf and thigh bulged and sored by the weight of her frail body. And by pressing her left foot along the metal, she took a step back, her back hunched with both of her boots nestled on the ground.

  Turning her attention to the fallen agent, she began walking toward her too.

  ______________________________________________________________________________

  He opened a door.

  All the walls trailed a never-ending sight of metal lockers, all of them coated in blue paint. With combination lockers guarding the metal boxes, the man looked around the room more, seeing many benches carrying towels and bottles of water on the edges.

  And unnoticeable to him, many of the lockers had a name engraved within them.

  Moving forward, he walked toward a locker that didn’t wield a combination lock, nor did an engraved name. No name, no locker, what did it mean?

  (???) The afterlife has trillions of bridges.

  He turned to an old man wearing a wintry jacket.

  Wearing a trucker hat, bck boots, and having a brown clipboard in his left hand, he also had his other hand opening up the locker. Spinning and spinning, one-click cleaved his ears, as he began to spin the other way.

  (Miles) Coach…

  (Coach) But they all lead to the same three gates.

  Hearing another click, the coach began to spin the lock another way for the st time, his eyes pinned to the spinning metal. Rapidly looking around the gym room he was all too familiar with, he noticed a glowing light flowing in from the other side.

  The other side…

  Taking a step back, his ears perked up at the final click of the coach’s locker, leading the coach to open the metal box. Curious, Miles slowly walked right up the coach’s shoulder, his eyes moving toward the inside of—

  A locker filled with photographs.

  (Miles) So many pictures…

  (Coach) Not pictures son, try to look more in.

  Squinting his eyes, Miles analyzed every frame of the photographs littered in the metal box. As if the pictures appeared to be moving, every picture was like a show or movie-going along with time.

  To finish the puzzle, Miles squinted at a moving picture on the right side of the locker.

  And upon seeing the picture, it was nothing more than a dark-complected teenager signing up to be on the team. A teenager who grew up to be a star athlete.

  (Miles) These are memories.

  (Coach) Memories of what exactly?

  (Miles) Memories from your life?

  (Coach) And what about these other lockers?

  Miles scanned the other lockers, analyzing the engravings of names along the center of the boxes.

  Going through the others, Miles turned to the yellow light just on the other side, seeing the rest of the neverending lockers across the infinite gym room. His breath stuck in his throat, Miles tapped his thigh with his fingers repeatedly.

  While staring bnkly at the light.

  (Miles) These are the other pyers, during the night when Ticia was attacked. But … we’re a Kepputhan town…

  (Coach) Interesting huh? How a small town in Kepputha just suddenly ceased to exist.

  He pced his bottom on the blue bench, the hard rubber making his butt feel sore. Yet even so, he ignored it, as he let his eyes stare at the rubber floor mat.

  Closing the locker in front of him, the coach pced the locker and spun the metal to keep it chained. His body facing the bnkly staring Miles, the coach took off his trucker hat, his fingers holding the tip of it while firming his eyes on him.

  (Coach) Don’t feel guilty for leaving me behind. You did what anyone would have done, I even told you to run.

  (Miles) But the others?

  (Coach) They weren’t lucky.

  The coach pced his hand on Miles’s shoulder, his fingers curling deep into his colrbone. With the tips of his sausage fingers trying to plunge into his skin, it couldn’t, since Miles grew rger and sturdier in the past six years he trained under The Dark Angels.

  Tilting his head up, his lips were closed and his ears perked up, along with his cheeks pushing into his lower eyelids.

  (Coach) Remember what I told you yeah? Being the best man you could be?

  (Miles) But I’m not a good man.

  (Coach) Yet you never killed anyone out of malicious intent. You only ever killed out of self-defense, and even then …

  Like a dream, the locker room began to fade.

  Every locker of every name began to dispy a collection of happy memories as if someone edited the best parts of every pyer’s life.

  A pyer’s first touchdown. A pyer’s first kiss. A pyer’s first time catching a ball.

  The first time they walked, the first time they babbled; the first time they saw the roots of their bor doing the same.

  (Coach) You could’ve killed that woman with your shield, but you resorted to your fist.

  In Miles’s eyes though, he only saw the collection of memories in his coach’s locker.

  His first steps, his first time throwing a ball, his first time scoring a touchdown. Every friend he hugged, every score he pyed, every yard he ran; but one girl that melted his heart.

  Raising a boy, settling down, deciding to be a coach, what more can he get in life?

  None, because that was all he wanted; a simple life.

  Coaching, loving his wife, teaching his son, repeating the same cycle. And in return, he received memories to be proud of when going through that gate.

  (Coach) Do not mistake your mercy as weakness, but…

  In a bnk white space, it looked as if both Miles and the coach were distancing each other as if an unknown entity was prying them apart. Extending out his hand, Miles couldn’t formute a breath or a voice from his throat…

  (Coach) With your strength, help others who have none.

  His vision turned bck, and his hearing echoed, before being pulled from the bridge leading to—

  ______________________________________________________________________________

  (Miles) Coach!

  His voice finally uttered his name.

  Instead of the locker room he was in, he found himself in the same train compartment.

  Looking around, he noticed Hope sleeping on the floor, her right palm on Ada’s back. Noticing the pool of blood ceasing to grow from Ada’s stomach and chin, he also saw another wound right above the other.

  (Miles’s thoughts) She shot her again? I’m surprised.

  Letting his eyes trail off the half-treated wounds from the female agent, a huff of air pushed from his nostrils. Blowing onto his upper lip, Miles tapped his foot repeatedly on the floor, while looking at both women who slept loudly on the floor.

  Instead of picking up Hope first, he decided to pick up Ada instead.

  Wrapping his arms under her waist and legs, he settled her onto his right shoulder, her stomach pushing deep into his shoulder bde. With her body dangling onto his burly body, he then knelt slowly toward the sleeping Hope, using just his left hand to pick her up.

  Pcing her onto his left shoulder, his left shoulder was much more smooth and less bony, compared to his right.

  (Miles’s thoughts) Preventing anyone from using the emergency brakes is our top priority, so…

  Looking around the train compartment, he noticed a small box pced on the side of the wall. Walking with two women on his shoulders, he opened the box slowly so both women didn't slide off.

  (Miles’s thoughts) I’ll make sure no one uses them, not even a spy.

  Finding the rge switch for the brakes, the handle was pointed up. Pulling out his sawed-off shotgun, he did it slowly, so both women couldn’t slip or lean off. Aiming the double barrels straight to the metal box, he pushed the st of his air from his lungs, before pulling the trigger.

  The metal cpping amongst the train air, the two shells of hot lead trenched into the circuit wires and chrome.

  Sparks stinging out from the box, it still pointed up, and the train continued to crash its wheels with the tracks. Two of the barrels puffed out smoke, and the tips of them scorched the inside of the metal, leading Miles to wait for the gun to cool.

  (Miles’s thoughts) Alright, now I just got to check up on those two jokers from the second train cart.

  Walking toward the door that led to the next train cart, Miles pced his hand firmly on the handle, feeling the golden cold metal shivering his palm. Turning the handle down, he opened the door, swaying it open as he walked through the gap which howled the beginning night wind.

  Opening the other door, he entered the second train cart.