Chapter Four: A Deck Of Cards and a Bloody Pincushion

Awakening from a cosmic dream is always stressful. I am falling through buildings upon buildings made of asphalt and neon lights. Noodle bars, upside down verandas, tattoo parlors floating in mid-air, and a rainbow of explosive colors rush past me like a tripped out street made of strobe lights. Traffic. This is the Midnight District. Home of every piece-of-crap gangster, drug lord, and slave master on this moon. Also, it’s the home of this Augustus Bingen Von whatever who just sent me into a coma. Best day ever. Seriously, no – this is the most fun I’ve had in two months. I get a creepy premonition from my therapist, I get a new boss who seems to have some balls, and I finally get to field test my custom blasters. Sweet! My goals for this month have been totally met! I wonder, Will I wake up in a cozy bed or some creepy doctor’s operating table? Oh the excitement is just killin’ me!

Suddenly I’m spiraling into a cathedral made of liquidmetal, and my spirit breaks into my body at the speed of a two-headed uranian pilot’s barrel roll. I’m back baby!