Down and Out [Version 1]

Chance.

It is not something one likes to bring to mind. The Everyman would deign to believe it is not he who will be the one in a million on whose number the roulette wheel settles, but someone must fill the position. That fateful evening, it was I.

I still remember the garish neon lights adorning the buildings casting long shadows as I walked down the thoroughfare, mulling over the latest project I had received at MegaCorp. A group of inebriated persons laughed boisterously under the marquee of an oxygen bar; a few isolated wanderers roamed the worn concrete sidewalks.

I have never quite eliminated my tendency to concentrate too much of my faculties on some thought process, try though I might. Agents of the company approached me from behind, my senses dulled as my mind focused its energies on dissecting the minutiae of my latest assignment. Had the shadows pointed elsewhere I might have noticed, but they did not favor me. The ambush was successful.

My consciousness faded, drowned out in a noxious miasma.