The fire ripped along the highway and the wreckage. The night sky was glowing from the flames that grew ever higher. Several car horns were still blaring. Parts of cars were popping or exploding from the heat. People were crying and screaming, directing help efforts or calling out in desperation for help. Hell. Or at least, it was a human equivalent at the moment. A tire on a nearby SUV exploded, causing shrieks from several women huddled closer to the wooded area off the highway. They began weeping harder than before. Sirens blared from oncoming fire and rescue efforts. Police on scene were finally doubling in number and rounding up everyone in involved to safety. Fire rescue began trying to spread water around the blaze to contain it, yet, there was fear to use too much - after all there was a tanker spilling gasoline everywhere. Several civilian vehicles and the traveling bus were being doused out, any remaining victims having been already removed. The night time was perfect for the lowest number of people possibly involved. Thankfully it was very few. There were only two fatalities in the wreck at the moment, with many serious injuries already being loaded into several ambulances and shipped away just as fast as they had arrived. The crackling of the burning wrecks was seemingly drowned out by the silence of the scene, which was slowly coming to a controlled catastrophe. Firemen watched the blaze spread slightly, running along the mixture of water and gasoline. Crews were spreading sand around the edges now, attempting to stop any further spreading. The wrecks themselves had all but burned to charred steel wrecks. Remaining uninjured witnesses were giving statements to police. Fire Chiefs were attempting to give the cause of the fire. Forensics were investigating what caused the incident in the first place while paramedics and other forensic crews closed in on the fatalities at the accident scene.
"I don't understand what the hell happened here. The witnesses say he was on the far side of the oncoming lanes. Four lanes across. So the trucker crossed four lanes, smashed the cement divider, then crossed an ADDITIONAL four lanes? The driver was conscious, correct?", questioned the newest member to the forensic team. His female counterpart scoffed, taking her ball cap off and brushing her hair back, putting her cap back on to keep her hair in place. She placed her hands on her hips and looked around. "The way I see it, a guy crosses eight lanes of traffic, kills two people, and walks away fine - he was asleep. Probably stayed awake way longer than his log books reflected. Passed out, twisted the wheel, end of story." She coldly turned away, closing her notebook and walking off. She casually instructed a pair of men nearby to measure and photograph the wild skid marks on the highway and the cement barricade wreckage. The newcomer shook his head and walked off. Meanwhile, two paramedics stood by, annoyed at the legth of time they were being held back for. The forensics team poured over the body lying on the center of the highway, broken, bent, soaked and charred...
"Poor guy. He never had a chance." Standing and shaking his head, the forensic investigator stood and photographed the body, lying in the mixture of blood, gas and water. Taking another shot, he lowered the camera and looked over to the paramedics. "Why are you still here, anyway?" "Dispatch says the coroners office is short handed, can't get out here for transport tonight. So we're stuck here to traffic the corpse while other people are dying." "So just take your time and as many keepsake photos as you need for your spank bank, freak." The forensic investigator stepped towards them, only to have the police chief step in, holding him off with one hand. He simply shook his head, and with that the investigation continued with the body. "The truck smashed head on into his motorcycle and ran straight over the body. The bike parts stuck in the grill of the truck and the blood smears pretty much tell the story. The gas and fire torched the body post-mortem. No way he lived through this." The second forensic investigator waved the paramedics over. They scooped the body into a black body bag and zipped it shut, carrying it off to the ambulance nearby. The doors slammed shut.
They opened again next at the city morgue. The body bag landed on a cold steel table, lights flooding down onto the black leather.
It was unzipped but left alone. After all, it was a dead body. Seemingly killed by accident.
It wasn't going anywhere.
Right?
Gojinn sat straight up from the body bag, agony the only sensation he could feel. Damaged to what should have been irreperable for a typical human and what would amount to several hours or days of healing for the typical creature, his body cracked and ashed and squirted blood in every area, but only for a few moments. He pulled his legs from the body bag and turned, throwing them over the edge of the steel table. His nose snapped back into position. Bones all over his body followed suit. The major fractures were healed in minutes. Still no coroner in sight, Gojinn sat still, trying his best to breathe as his ribs burst back outwards into position, the bones healing over as well. He could feel his lungs expand, his organs reshifting and sealing away. His skin healed over, the burns and tears, the bloody lacerations puncture wounds; they were all but gone now. He reached up and smirked as he ran his hand over his head, the hair growing in fast, out to the shaggy length he'd had it before. He stood from the table and sighed, opening his eyes, which slowly filtered to his usual icey blue.
He was back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened. The pain, replaced now by a numbed feeling. "Guess your theory was right, then?" Gojinn turned, disappointed to see his shadow trailing him yet again, a psychotic break he'd been having creating this duplicate version of himself in the room. He muttered to himself and started off towards the door, looking out for the incoming coroner. There was only one way out of here right now, without anyone really noticing. He reached over and pulled the fire alarm. "Ok, so you told them no, which was stupid, because... why again?" Gojinn grunted and waited a minute, looking through the glass window on the door until it was clear. Once he was certain the hall was open, he ran down it towards the locker rooms and dove through the door. Naked, he'd need at least a pair of scrubs or a lab coat at the very least to sneak out with. He would have to move fast though. "Are you forgetting about HER now?!"
"OF COURSE I DIDN'T FORGET HER!", Gojinn snapped back. The figure leaned in close, as Gojinn pulled a pair of jeans and a polo from one of the lockers. "Could have fooled me, because NOW - she's dead and it's on YOU." Gojinn knew it all along, but was refusing to acknowledge it just yet. He was already running for the door and out of the building, sweeping a baseball cap from atop another locker, to cover his face on his way out. Firemen were yelling and screaming as they came barreling through the door into the small lobby. Gojinn eased through them as they broke formation to slide through the other few staff members still filing out. He quickly made his way towards the parking garage across the street, using the cell phone he'd found in the jeans to pretend he had a phone call as his duplicate came sprinting up to him with a huge smile. "You really won't face this?" "They tried to kill me. She just ended up as collateral damage."
His duplicate stopped, jaw hanging. "You're gonna take the job, NOW?! NOW THAT SHE'S DEAD?!" Gojinn squeezed the phone tightly, almost to its breaking point as he reached the garage. He tried his best to calm himself and not scream. He needed to get free before he drew any attention. " ... They won't stop now. Only way out is through." The duplicate came out from behind a pillar ahead of him and stood in his path. "So before it was, 'He's an old friend - if he's alive, he deserves it.' - to 'Well, he's the reason my new love interest is dead so I HAVE to kill him to get this target off my ass'? You're weak."
Gojinn passed through him and onward through the garage, his head low. "I know." He continued around the next ramp and towards a late model Honda Accord. Stealing that would be less obvious than some Porsche like the old days. "I loved her, you know? We just met a month ago, but I loved her. She was... different. And this change... not needing blood - I was almost normal. Normal enough that we clicked. But that fucking phone call."
"This ISN'T a request anymore! Get. It. Done."
"I got arrogant. I thought I could just "handle it". But I couldn't. They waited. They came up with something else, because they thought they would have killed us both. These assholes, they don't know me, whoever they are. They just know OF me." "That would explain why hitting you with a tractor was their best idea." Gojinn sighed, fiddling with the wiring of the car now that he'd smashed the window and climbed in. "They meant for it to explode. They meant to try to kill me. If I hadn't changed..."
"You'd be a charred corpse with a caved in skull, exploded heart, broken spine, legs, back, and arm..."
Gojinn finally started the car and quickly cleaned the broken pieces of window from the door, rolling it down as well to hide any sign of him stealing it as he sped off into the night. For now, he simply backed up and then drove off to exit the garage. The duplicate sat in the back, feet propped up on the headrest of the passenger seat, lounging quite comfortably. "We were just gonna disappear together. Fade away. They killed her. I'm gonna kill him, FOR them, then get as far away as possible. People like that are just something I want no part of anymore." Pulling into traffic, Gojinn eased around a few turns and then hit the highway... driving off into the night.
