Waking up...

And then it happened... I woke up, when I shouldn't have.

At first, the world was fuzzy. Maybe it was the morphine, or maybe my eyes hadn't figured out they weren't done just yet. As the world swam into focus, I saw a man in a long coat snap x-rays against a back-lit screen. And then I blacked out again.

Over the next few days, my memories are snapshots - a jigsaw puzzle of events. Jumbled, nonsensical, unreal.

Later, the doctor would tell me the shot passed through my shoulder. He thought I was a DOA, thought I'd already bled out. He told me I was lucky to be alive. He didn't have to tell me; I already knew - I *was* dead. I felt the bullets hit my chest, and the Doc was wrong on two accounts: number and placement. I got two in the chest, one was dead center. I was dead before my body hit the ground. One day, I'll figure out how I got this second chance on life. How the scar in my shoulder isn't the two it should be. But, I got priorities now... First, find Mason - then, kill him.