"Oh, god, they're everywhere!"
David Masterson was a very powerful man. As one of New York's premiere stockholders, owning a large percentage of Manhattan's Big Apple Bank and all of it's accompanied properties, he had held the very rare position of beating a nationwide economical crisis on the amount of authority that his position had bought alone. For fifteen years, he had consecutively ran as chairman of the board of directors of a small subsidiary company, gaining substantial profit throughout the decade and a half that he had spent turning it from a third-rate small business to a chain of speciality shops around Brooklyn. To say that Masterson was financially well-off would be an insult to those who considered him a peer, watching as he rose among the ranks to become one of the richest men in the state, only following the likes Tony Stark and Wilson Fisk, among others.
But over the past few months, something in his life had changed. No longer was Masterson seeing the same share of the profits that he was used to. At first he thought of it as nothing, but as the rate of a clear depletion only increased, he grew more suspicious and had decided to investigate. His findings led him to discover that every cut of his percentage of the gross was addressed to his wife, and after doing some further digging into her accounts, he had slowly began to discover that the money was all there, accounted for and split up over a series of months.
There was only one real problem with that discovery. His wife had been dead for three years. A tragic car accident while she had been vacationing in Brazil. And even though he loved her dearly and mourned the loss with a heavy bout of drinking, Masterson had never been given reason to suspect foul play in the accident. Until he found those accounts. Soon after, he had recieved threatening emails. Dozens and dozens of messages promising death and humiliation were sent his way, and even a few choice details of a potential scandal that no one was supposed to know about - the fact that he had briefly had an affair with an employee's wife, never brought to light in the midst of everything. The theft of the money was simply part of much larger blackmail.
Whenever Masterson had finally asked his aggressors what they wanted in exchange of the evidence, offering ludicrous amounts of money in order to keep things private, the private party had only requested one thing - his soul. Of course, he had naturally thought they were joking, and made that much very clear. But that was until he had witnessed half of his staff slaughtered infront of him by forces unseen, sneaking into the building in the midst of a sudden blackout. Following this, he did the only logical thing he could think to do and quickly barricaded himself within his top-floor office.
Whoever was after him, they were here to collect.
"Please! Stay back, I... I don't have whatever you're looking for! I'm telling you the truth!"
What responded to his pleas was a series of loud, obscenely powerful strikes against the locked twin doors that seperated him between an almost certain life or death. Even though the doors were reinforced with solid steel as an anti-theft measure, Masterson went wide-eyed and stepped back as the door began to outwardly cave. After a few animalistic snarls, the door was shattered with a final strike, brought down to reveal the prescence just beyond the hall.
Standing at nearly seven-feet tall was a large and muscular man that stood on hooves for feet, covered in dark brown fur and brandishing a large nose piercing with thick, blood red eyes. But what was most noticeable about the monstrosity were the large, sharp black horns that protuded from both sides of his head.
Masterson nearly tumbled over his desk, in complete shock and horror of the beast that was slowly moving towards him, growling as he advanced even closer.
"Oh lord... Oh, lord, please... Don't..."
The beast man grabbed his desk as he tumbled away, overturning it with great strength. He turned to face the cowering Masterson, but by the time he could think to move, his handler stood ready on the other side of the door, waving a finger at him.
"That'll be quite enough, Bull."
'Bull' looked over to the slender figure in the darkness, dressed in a dark trenchcoat and fedora, hiding his features. The beast seemed to oblige immediately, giving a small bow as he treaded over like a wounded puppy. Masterson could only look with surprise, still clinging to himself while huddled in the corner of the room. The slender figure stepped in, walking with a cane.
"After all, we don't want to spook our new friend into a heart attack, do we?"
What followed the slender man was a series of other creatures, similar to one another and absolutely terrifying in their physical makeup, brandishing large claws, partially deformed skin, and rows of teeth. Masterson stood up and pressed himself against the wall, only growing more concerned as the slender man glanced towards him and smiled. Not in a friendly way, but in a way that conveyed menace.
"Why don't we make up for that rude intrusion by showing you a good time, David. It is David, isn't it?"
Indicating the others, he motioned them ahead.
"Grab him."
What followed were the screams of David Masterson, followed by silence.
By the time the police would make it to the scene, they would find traces of nothing.
"Hey, buddy. Got a light?"
I always hated the sound of a subway car.
It isn't the loud, ear-splitting screech that the brakes make as the car reaches it's next stop, or the noise that the passengers make while getting on, departing, or talking amongst themselves. No, what many would be surprised to learn is that it's actually the continuous hum of the electrical circuitry that runs beneath the car. That's because to anyone else, it's insignificant. The traditional human ear can't hear a sound with such a low frequency as that, and even if they could, the ambience of the tunnels and the often-crowded nature of the cars makes it virtually impossible.
But to a guy with an inner-radar and an amplified sense of hearing? Like nails on a chalkboard.
So it's any wonder that the man standing beside me as I sit on the edge of a vacant seat gets my attention at all by the time that he raises his voice to repeat himself. He was nervous at first, probably anxious about his lack of nicotene. That's not so much a guess as a generous assumption. I can taste it in the air. He was also talking to his wife or girlfriend before he approached me, unsure of whether or not he wanted to trouble the lowly blind man for a lighter. For that amount of consideration, I suppose I should be grateful.
"Sorry, but I don't smoke.", I explain.
"Bad on the senses."
"Ah. Damn. Well, sorry to disturb ya."
As he turns to walk away, I feel him already preparing to pause. And I try to hide the fact that I roll my eyes as he does. When I thought to myself that I should be grateful, what I left out was the fact that he didn't just ask his companion about whether or not he should ask me for a lighter. That was only the "in" that he needed to ask me the real question. Because out of about a population of eight million people, I get stuck on the subway with the guy that immediately recognizes me. Not as Matt Murdock, the crusading defense attorney of former Nelson & Murock that made the headlines with his numerous clients and high-publicity cases.
But as the other guy. The one that I was outed by the tabloids to being a few short years ago.
"Say, I was wonderin'. You remind me of somebody."
Smiling, to hide my disdain for the question, I clutch at my cane.
"Yeah, I'll bet. I get that alot."
For a moment, he doesn't say anything.
"Wait. You mean you're not..."
"Wish I was."
Instead of simply apologizing for the disturbance or explaining to me who he thought I was, he quietly just walks back to his spouse, clearly embarassed, especially once she laughs after he tells her what happened. A few minutes later and the car has made it to my stop, to which he stays behind. I feel relieved, politely getting up and tapping at the ground with my cane, readjusting my bags of clothes and other belongings around my chest before advancing through the crowd.
For the first time in a year, I feel the bottom of my shoe step onto the pavement of Hell's Kitchen.
It's been too long. And it's been a hell of a journey getting here. But I've made it.
I'm finally home.
