Valentine's Day

***Author's Note***

Welcome to Valentine's Day. This is a little self-insertion fiction i wrote whilst bored. Nothing smutty yet and suggestions / reviews very welcome. Not sure where I'm going with this yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something. ^_^ and now, on with the show



1.

It had started off as a bad day, grey and unwelcoming. The gods must have been testing me that day or at least attempting to amuse themselves. Back to the beginning, before this day full of blood and screams. Before I had to do something I am not proud of.


2.

To call my job glamorous would have been insulting to a beggar. As with most jobs that required little or no education, it was mind-numbing and boring. If you were lucky enough to register on the customer's senses as something with a pulse and perhaps a small spark intelligence.

Another day in the grinder, watching the clock and fake smile riveted in place. Over-worked, underpaid and definitely not appreciated for their efforts. Same story the world over, in what is delicately called the service sector. "Sales Assistant" the badge mocks, my name engraved above it. At least it's not a number, that would have been intolerable. It is made worse by the uniform we have to wear, though at least the colours aren't enough to make me sick. The idea is supposed to encourage team work and to allow the customer to identify staff with ease. To me it's just another example of an idea created by someone, somewhere within the company that doesn't live in the real world. Policy created by someone who would never be asked to implement it.

That has never stopped them asking the often-repeated question; do you work here? If I was a cruel man, and I am not, at least not often, I could have said no to that particular question. To see confusion on the face of another, even for a moment, would lighten my day up considerably.


3.

By now, you have me pictured. A bitter young man in an unforgiving job and feeling decidedly under-appreciated. It all went to hell that day.

My first indication should have been when the clouds in the heavens opened and spilled their contents. For hours it rained, as if trying to flood the world and wash away the sins of us all. A grey world that day, no false cheer from a bright sunshine.

The harsh light cast from so many car headlights as I drive to work was enough to make my eyes water. At least my job allows me to park my rust-bucket of a car near by. The rain falls off my trench coat as I hasten inside the building. I felt cold, chilled to my bones by the brief exposure to the biting wind. More than a few of my colleagues gave me an odd look at my choice of outerwear. Damn them then, if I looked like a jester at least I was a dry one.

Settling behind one of the tills at the checkout, I prepare for another long stint of having to deal with the general public. The one saving grace, lunchtime. I would be able to get away from this narrow view of the world and relax.

As with so much in life, that was the theory. Said theory quite often broke down entirely when one of my colleagues screwed up and couldn't get a handle on what to do about it. The aforementioned lack of education for the job frequently sprang to mind when this happened. That's not fair, they are intelligent, although they can get a bit flustered for want of a better term.

The phone rings on the desk next to me rings, my music interrupted. I glare at it. It still rings in defiance of my will bearing down on it. Eyes narrowing, I pick up. In a somewhat trembling voice, my colleague and friend calls me upstairs. The first indication that something was badly wrong should have been the fact it was her that called me and not someone else.


4.

Men wearing masks and carrying various weapons brought reality crashing down around me. This whole situation had a degree of the incredible to it. Surely in this day and age, armed robbers could not hope to get away with such a crime; the odds were stacked heavily against them.

"You!" The robbers had noticed my arrival and was gesturing unmistakably in a come hither fashion. Faded blue jeans, black sweater, gloves, boots and ski mask completed one robber's outfit. Dressed in an almost identical manner with the exception of black jeans and a navy sweater, his partner was threatening my colleagues behind the tills.

"What is it you want?" I ask the one nearest me. "Money! All of it! Now!" he snarls. How cliche. They actually think that your average sales assistant is going to have access to the safe or the cash room. "I refuse." my voice sounds more confident than I could have possibly felt. "WHAT!?!" not intelligent and apparently hard of hearing. It was going to be a very long day. "I believe you heard me the first time, I refuse." a little less cliche than 'you heard', but only marginally.

"Then you die" a rough voice registers in my ear before the crack of pistol echoes across the store. Looking down I touch a torn hole in my shirt, my fingers covered in blood. My blood.

Nikki, my manager, screams as I fall. Blood pouring out of the wound in my chest left by the passing of the bullet and pools around me. Tiles that make up the floor feel cold against my back, the ceiling seems so far away. The world grows dim as I hear laughter from the man standing over me. The pain fades and a blackness envelopes me like an old friend.


5.

I am dead, my heart had slowed before stopping. Slowly my hearing comes back to me, loud shouting waking me from my peaceful slumber. Sitting up, I take in the scene before me. The robbers are still there though, along with the crowd of customers and my colleagues, have yet to see me awaken.

This goes rapidly downhill when Sarah, screams and faints. Falling, she is caught by Nikki who has by now seen what made her faint. At this point the robbers have also realised something is happening behind them and turn to look.

Their faces couldn't have been more comical if they tried. Ordinarily a bullet to the heart kills any living creature. Looking down I finger the bullet hole in my shirt, directly over my heart. No trace of a wound was visible aside from the blood stains on the shirt itself.

I looked up and caught sight of my eyes in the mirrored surface behind till. My usual bright blue eyes were gone, a deep jet replacing them. Definitely not human any more. So much the better.

"You're supposed to be dead!" Now there's an intelligent observation. I smiled crookedly, perhaps he had been dropped on his head as a child. It would certainly have given him an excuse for what he tried to do next.

Sighting down the barrel of his gun he fired. The more educated of you would have probably noticed by now that one bullet had already killed me or at least changed me into something Other.

The wet impact of the bullet on flesh and burst of blood as it exited my torso was loud. Realisation dawns upon me; my senses are still working. I felt the pain as the second bullet passed through me. Knocked onto my back, I slowly got up again, somewhat to the robber's dismay. With a sigh I step towards him and hit him across the back of the neck, knocking him out.

A second realisation hits me. Dead bodies generally don't need to breathe. Years of self-preservation try to kick in when I stop breathing. There is no burning sensation, no feeling of suffocation. Everything is still and calm.

"Stay back!!" this would be from the slightly more intelligent of the robbers armed with a shotgun. I idly wonder how many braincells he has as he racks the slide and takes aim at Nikki. "Any closer and she dies!"

Whilst I could probably survive being hit with a shotgun blast, there was a serious doubt that Nikki would be so fortunate.

Turning slowly, my gaze fixes on him. In the blink of an eye I move across the room and grab the shotgun out of his hands. With a strength beyond comprehension the barrel was bent and thrust back at him.

Eyes wide as saucers look at me incredulously. Unarmed and more than a little terrified he falls to his knees.


6.

It is at this point, the police decide to make their presence known. The phrase better late than never couldn't have sounded more hollow. I was to, all intents and purposes, dead. Clinically dead. How being clinically dead and dead made any difference was completely lost to me. That and how my eyes had changed colour from something blue into the deepest of blacks.

That fact was also quickly discovered by a young police officer when she tried to take my pulse and found it lacking. Evidently not used to dealing with a dead body of any sort, let alone one with the apparent ability to function like a normal human being, she fainted. To her credit, she didn't scream; she just fell away from the world.

Displaying the same lightning speed I had shown earlier I caught her. Opening her eyes weakly, she screamed silently and fainted again. Rolling my eyes I place her in the arms of another officer and walked over to speak to my colleagues.

"You're dead! I saw you get shot and well ... die" Poor Sarah, always one to comment on the obvious. I decide that this is probably not the best time to try and explain what has happened, their sanity would most likely go absent without leave.

Walking away, a soft hand grabs my shoulder and turns me back. "You know what has happened to you, don't you?" To her credit, Nikki was much more intelligent than her appearance led you to believe. My black eyes look deeply into her blue ones, a reminder of what I used to be and could never be again. "I am no longer human, the eyes are something of a give away in case the lack of a pulse or breathing doesn't."

Turning my back, I grabbed my coat and walked out of the building.