fuck

 I finally see some bars, about fucking time, been trying to send out a post for weeks now.

Reason for posting on this shit website again is because I was asked to provide an update by Hannah (I'll get into that), also because I REALLY need a distraction from the current shit that we're in.

So yeah, Hannah, Ghost's roomie who constantly tried shoving her nose in my business, she was talking about me in her last post, I'm the so called "friend" who she has been conversing with over e-mails. I can barely call it conversing though, all those e-mails came down to were regular check ups on me, she'd regularly e-mail me, asking me how I was doing, I'd reply for her to fuck off and that's it. Sometimes she'd get a conversation out of me (Usually we'd talk about favorite bands and etc.), but that was pretty much it.

After the events of my last post I stopped replying to her, nothing especially against her, it's just that after that whole ordeal with Fell and Eko I didn't feel like doing anything really. It got bad, to the point where I stopped eating regularly cause it was just too much effort and I guess my prolonged silence worried her, so she decided to use Ghost's unknown means of transportation in order to visit me in person, how she found me and how she was able to travel to my place in such a short time is something she refuses to explain, most likely to protect Ghost more than anything. Apparently in doing so she was going against Ghost's rules of laying low because they were being hunted by some group, or whatever.

Our meeting started out with her knocking on my flat's door, I was in bed which is how I spent the majority of my days not even registering said knocking until my flatmate opened the door. After a few seconds my name was now being called for, which rarely happened considering I barely see my flatmate and when I do, our conversations never go past the initial greeting phase, so they tend to never bother me. Curiosity got the best of me and I willed my ass out of bed, opened the door of my room slightly and shouted down asking what the hell he was calling me for. He then told me that my friend Hannah was here to see me, annoyance and curiosity was now replaced with surprise as I quickly started getting dressed, the whole ordeal made me feel light-headed, like I said, at some point I stopped eating.

As I walked through our living room that separated the entrance from the two bedrooms I could see said flatmate chatting with Hannah, asking her if she wanted anything to drink. As soon as he heard me approach he said a quick 'hello' to me and promptly fucked off to his room. Hannah just stood there in her black, sleeveless vest that was worn over a light blue hoodie. I could see the annoying look in her green eyes, look of worry, granted I must have looked like shit what with the countless bags underneath my eyes, but it's not the worry itself that annoyed me, it's that it was unwarranted.

"You look like shit." She remarked with a snarky smile, as she took off her black beanie, adjusting her long red hair.

"What the fuck are you doing here!?" I angrily whispered so as to not alert my flatmate, the place had fairly thin walls.

"Checking in on your dumb ass." She crossed her arms as if she was stating something plainly obvious and not something utterly fucking stupid.

And that's pretty much how our exchange went, with a lot of snark, tried asking her how in the fuck she even found me, didn't explain shit, all she said was that it was a 'company secret'. She asked me where the fuck I disappeared to and I told her that I didn't disappear anywhere and was at home the entire time, obviously leaving out the whole 'barely leaving my bed' business, not that I needed to tell her, it was obvious that I was in a poor state just from a glance. I was about to start telling her to fuck off before she got herself in more shit, but she interrupted me saying that she was hungry and that we were going out for something to eat. Now usually I would protest and stay on topic of telling her to fuck off, but I was too tired to engage in a full blown argument, so I agreed to go eat with her in hopes that during the whole thing I'd convince her to fuck off.

The walk to the local McDonald's was a silent one, not sure why she didn't talk, I didn't bother saying anything cause I was just too damn exhausted. The silence was broken once we sat down and had our food, the conversation began to repeat itself. Same questions on my end and same nothing answers from her, it was getting irritating and now that I had food in me, I had the energy for a full blown argument as I could feel my annoyance and frustration with her smartass attitude begin to build up. That's why I took a pause, calmed down, my outburst would attract attention which is something I've been trying my hardest to avoid, then I changed the topic.

"I don't need you to worry about me, nor do I need your help." I looked directly at her, giving her as much of a serious look as I could muster.

She just continued to stuff her face with fries and seemingly ignoring my serious tone. "Sure you do! If it weren't for me-" I didn't have time for her bullshit.

I grabbed her by the hand and pulled her in closer, forcing her to drop her fries in the process. "Listen to me!" I uttered through clenched teeth. "Spare the fucking Mother Theresa shit and think for two seconds." I let go of her hand once I saw that she was finally listening. "Not only are you putting yourself in danger, you're also putting my flatmate in danger, you're putting the whole block in danger."

"And how exactly am I doing that?" She less enquired and more protested, which showed just how inexperienced in all this shit she actually was.

"By making me move around again." As soon as I said that, I looked around just to make sure that my own words didn't immediately bit me in the ass, just like it happened many times before. "I already have a good amount of freaks keeping an eye on me, they seem to leave me alone when I literally drop dead." I took a sip of my sprite to clear my dry throat. "Add to that the assholes that are apparently pursuing you and Ghost, and we have a shit-fest that is brewing and at some point will explode."

Nothing but silence in response, a look of clarity on her face, it looked like I got through to her and yet...

"So what, I'm just supposed to leave you for dead, that's it?" Her voice was shaken. "You think I'm stupid, that I didn't think of any of that?" She looked at me, giving me her own serious gaze. "Well I did."

I was about to ask her as to why the fuck she thought it was good idea to drop by then, but I was promptly interrupted.

"I'm tired Malik, every single day I spend inside G's hideout, I barely go out, barely talk to anybody, I don't remember anything from before G found me, to my knowledge I've never ran into the Tall Fucker." She began to clench her gloved hands into fists. "My only way of learning anything about this shit without getting myself in trouble is by reading as many blogs as I can find." Now she took a sip of her Fanta. "Do you have any idea how many death's I've read through? No matter what it all ends the same and I'm supposed to do what?" She was getting worked up and thus a bit louder. "Just sit on my ass and wait for my death!?"

Now I had a surprised look on my face, mainly I was surprised at the level of clarity she was displaying, before this I tended to just disregard her as an annoying brat who had no experience in the type of shit we're all stuck in and that may be true, but like she said, she wasn't stupid about it.

"Well I'm done with that shit, if there's a chance that I can help someone, then I will." She looked at me with a determined look, she wasn't going to fucking leave, at least not until she was satisfied with the knowledge that I was alright, which led me to saying probably the dumbest fucking sounding thing anyone could ever say with a massively annoyed sigh serving as a prefix.

"Fine, if I promise to try my best to survive, will you fuck off then?" Like I said, dumbest fucking thing ever.

A minute of silence as she was staring a hole through me, then she lifted her hand and rested her elbow on the table, her gloved hand now being in front of me. "Shake on it." Stupid cringe overdrive, but fuck it, if it meant she'd fuck off then why not, I shook her hand. She tightened her grip and looked me dead in the eyes, sounding as serious as she could. "I mean it Malik, I want you to live through this, don't lie to me."

Wished she hadn't said that, I don't know how but for a split second it felt as if I was talking to...

Never mind, just didn't want to feel guilty over what was going to be a broken promise, in the moment though I conceded and we carried on with our meals, the conversation shifting towards something more pleasant like: favorite bands, movies, that type of shit.

We actually ended up sitting in there for a bit longer, even after we finished our food, no matter how much I try, can't deny the fact that getting the chance to shoot the shit with someone about random stuff was enticing. Sat around nearly until closing time, but I cut the whole thing short figuring that it was time for us to say our farewells and fuck off from each other's shit, but there was a problem with that. Hannah neglected to say that she couldn't just 'go back' to wherever it is she came from, that there was a waiting period for that, basically that she needed a place to crash for the night.

Was I annoyed? Fuck yes. Did I kick her to the curb? Nope.

I should have though...

Anyway, she ended up sleeping on my room's floor, reason I didn't let her sleep in the living room is because, despite me knowing who she is and us somewhat getting along, I still didn't fully trust her, at the end of the day this was a stranger that not only managed to somehow find me, but also travel all the way to my place from fuck knows where, so I wanted to keep an eye on her. Funny thing about going to sleep whilst paranoid, the slightest sound is guaranteed to wake you up which is exactly what happened when I heard the sound of screeching tires outside at 3 fucking AM.

My first mistake was taking the time to get out of my bed as I heard the doors of a vehicle being slammed shut, second mistake was not waking Hannah up immediately, third mistake was looking out my window and not being immediately suspicious of a Van that I've never seen before that clearly just pulled up and wasn't properly parked like the rest of the cars, fourth mistake was to keep staring out the window at the Van and it's potential owner who was leaning on it and trying to come to a conclusion on whether all of this was suspicious or not.

Those four mistakes wasted enough of my time allowing the passengers of the Van who were already inside the building, make their way up to the fifth floor (Where my flat was) and start knocking on my door. Ashamed to admit it, the knocking was the thing that finally registered in my brain as something being off. I scrambled away from the window, kick Hannah up awake, she was fairly confused and disoriented so I laid down everything in front of her as quickly as I could whilst digging through my clothes drawer looking for my revolver, while I was frantically doing that I could hear the knocking on the door become more violent, so I instructed Hannah to lock up my room's door (It had one of those old, shitty chain locks).

Just as I found my revolver I heard the entrance door get smashed in, I immediately told Hannah to open the window and start climbing up the fire escape (You didn't think I'd move into a place with no fire escape, right?) which is exactly what she did, of course you can't exactly swiftly climb through a window that shit takes a few moments and that's something we were running out of. The door of my room was slammed into by several men on the other side, they tried their best to push it open but the chain was doing it's job for now, the issue was some guy slowly aiming his gun through the gap in the door right at Hannah. As luck (Or curse) would have it, my shitty sword was resting against the wall right by the door so I grabbed it and slashed at the fucker's fingers, he ended up shouting in pain and dropping his gun on the other side of the door, not sure how the fuck my flatmate was sleeping through all of that but as soon as the guy screamed in pain is when I heard my flatmate's voice on the other side of the door, clearly lost and confused. By this point Hannah was through and now it was my turn, with one invader probably occupied with the thoughts of him missing 2 or 3 fingers and the other ones being distracted by my flatmate, I had a fairly clear and safe way through the window.

Hannah started to run down the fire escape but I grabbed her by the arm and forced her to go up instead considering that the driver of the Van was still down there and as I peeked down, was now aiming his own gun at us. As we ran up the fire escape I could hear shots echoing through the neighborhood, bullets wheezing past and implanting themselves into the brick walls of the building and loudly ricocheting off the metal rails of the fire escape. Had to spook this fucker before he nailed either one of us, so I just started wildly shooting my revolver (Which was loud as fuck) down in the drivers general direction whilst continuing to run up towards the roof, the goal wasn't to hit him, it was to force him to scramble for cover.

Eventually we made it to the roof in hindsight, not sure why I thought it was a great idea to trap us up there, cause there was nowhere else we could go. Jumping onto the neighboring roof would be impossible on account of the fact that it was too far away, this was it, the last stand, my only concern was Hannah.

I turned to her and asked her if she was able to get the fuck out now? But she was non responsive, shock and adrenaline pumping through her body, staring off into the distance whilst shaking, yeah she wasn't going anywhere, so I reloaded my revolver, got in front of her and aimed at the fire escape as I heard the footsteps on the metal railings of said fire escape get louder and louder.

Many thoughts went through my head, optimistic ones, pessimistic ones, a few memories, you know the drill, last moment shit.

I was finally ready to die, my only regret being that Hannah was probably going to join me.

So what happens?

A white, skinny, covered in some kind of black sludge and extremely cold hand covered my mouth from behind and in the blink of an eye the cold air of the early morning was replaced with suffocating heat, my eyes were seeing spots and the blue tint of the early morning was now replaced with a purely black and white aesthetic. As soon as I saw that I was no longer standing on the asphalt of the roof and instead my feet were buried within black grass I realized, we were inside The Path of Black Leaves.

Yes we, Hannah was right there with me, handling the whole ordeal worse than me, not surprising considering she never visited The Path before.

Those cold hands, I'd recognize them anywhere, Franky was the one who transported us here, Hannah confirmed it to me since she was able to catch a glimpse of his blank mask. Luckily for her she didn't catch a glimpse of the Tall Fucker like I did, right before I found myself here, I remember seeing him, just standing on the opposite roof, fucker's regained interest, not good.

We've been stuck in The Path for a while now, no sign of Franky, or the Tall Fucker (Thank God for that), hence why no contact, like I said I just now managed to catch some bars. It's been fucking hell in here, I've been in here a few times but never for this long and if it's starting to fuck with me, I can't imagine the shit it's doing to Hannah.

We managed to find some shelter for the time being, our first chance to catch a breather in a while, let's hope it's not the last one.

Getting tired now. Hannah's sound asleep for the first time, good. She really wanted me to get a post out, just to let Ghost know that she's still alive.

Yeah, still...