Chapter 4: Run, and Go

Leonardo screams, taken off guard at how his feet are no longer touching the ground. He goes over the large fence and braces himself for the impact.  He, unfortunately, lands on his wounded arm. The bullet prods itself further into him, so he rolls over to relieve the pressure on his bloody limb.

“Jesus Christ!” He exclaims, grimacing at his poor state. As he laid on the ground, he sees a flash of yellow.  It’s Goldie jumping over the wall, maintaining a bit more poise than what Leonardo had.

The older man notices him land on his feet. He starts to get up as well, holding his injured arm to avoid hurting it more from moving. Something explodes from behind the wall, making the ground shift a tad bit. Leonardo takes this as his cue to keep moving forward. He looks around to survey the watchtowers, and can already see people taking their positions with their snipers.

“Hey, you,” He says to Goldie, nudging him on the side and making him flinch, “You see those towers up there? People are going to shoot us. As in, ‘pew pew’.”

Leonardo lets go of his arm to nudge Goldie’s head to look at the watchtowers. In perfect timing, a bullet heads towards the space between his eyes, but it never reaches him. Leonardo nods at him and pats his back.

“We have to run, but you need to watch for bullets. Make sure that we don’t go ‘kch’,” He says, dragging his index finger across his neck to signify death. Despite the serious situation, he chuckles wryly at how he’s talking to this grown man beside him. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts and begins to run. He clutches his injured arm close to him, trying to prevent it from bleeding out onto the ground. Goldie follows behind him.

The sound of gunshots and yelling was starting to fade, but it doesn’t end there. A siren suddenly blares through both their ears. They look back and find around 5 police cars hot on their tails. Leonardo curses under his breath. His sweat starts to glaze his forehead. He begins to assess the situation, wondering if he could make it far without the blood loss fatiguing him.

Goldie grabs him by the waist and jumps to the air without any warning. They get to a height and distance that were impossible for any human.  Leonardo screams and holds on to Goldie for dear life, using his one good arm to hold on to his shoulders.  The older man looks down at the ground below them and sees the cars coming to an abrupt halt. The officers come out of their vehicles; Some were looking at them in shock, some were calling back-up, and some were preparing to shoot them down.

Although it seemed like it, they weren’t flying, but they were gliding through the air as if they were tourists parasailing through an island resort. Leonardo takes a look at Goldie’s face. His eyebrows were pulled down, and his gaze is focused on what’s below them. His hold on Leonardo was noticeably shaking, indicating that he was getting worn out, and who knows what will happen when he gets too tired. He notices that the police cars were still trying to chase them. They were considerably far.

“We should hide in the trees until everything calms down,” Leonardo says, using his injured arm to shakily point at a small group of trees below them.  The light emanating from Goldie suddenly fades out, and the two of them start to fall. With widened eyes, Leonardo holds back another scream. He looks at Goldie who seemed rather calm. They were heading towards a large tree with thick branches and a lush set of leaves. Getting closer, and closer, Leonardo braces himself for yet another horrid crash that could endanger his wounded arm.

To his luck, the light comes back on. They stop falling and start gently descending into the tree. Their feet land on one of the thicker branches. Goldie lets go of the man he was holding, who looked like he was about to pass out. Leonardo on the other hand, sways ever so slightly. His face is pale, his irises are shaking, and his lungs were in a dire need of oxygen. Realizing that he had been holding in his breath, he exhales loudly. He places a palm on his chest to make sure he isn’t having a heart attack. The urge to punch Goldie for scaring him begins to grow. If he weren’t incapacitated, he might have just thrown his hands at him.  Instead, he lets his legs buckle from underneath him, sitting down to compose himself. If he were to explode on him right now, his chances of a complete escape would decrease greatly.

Leaning down, Goldie gently holds up Leonardo’s injured arm. He inspects it for a moment, recalling the time when he used to have the same wound. His fingers move in front of the injury, the middle, index, and thumb all pointing towards it as if it were plucking something. Leonardo feels a twinge in his arm and realizes what the man beside him is about to do.

 “Wait, wait, wait, no—” Before he could finish his sentence, the bullet flies out of his arm. He groans and hisses as he clutches his upper limb.

“You dumbass!” Leonardo exclaims through gritted teeth, “You want me to die?!”

Goldie blinks at him in return, wondering why this cranky man seems so ungrateful. Six months ago, after getting shot in the arm and the leg by that cop, this is what people did to him to treat his wounds.

“You’re not supposed to pull it out!” Leonardo seethes, “Oh, God. I’m going to lose a lot of blood.”

Seeing how tightly Leonardo’s hand is gripping on his arm, and how there was more red liquid dripping from it, Goldie takes the hint.  He rips off the sleeve of his shirt and gets closer to the seething man. He shows him the ripped-off sleeve and eventually gets him to release his grip on his arm. This time, he carefully wraps the ripped piece of clothing and ties it tightly around the wound. After finishing, he just sits in front of him, not knowing what to do next. With an awkward smile, he lightly pats the dressed wound and hops over to another sturdy branch of the tree.

Leonardo squints at him before looking away. The risk of the wound getting infected worries him, but at least he isn’t going to bleed to death now. He has about two or three days left until bacteria festers in his arm. All he has to do is wait for the evening, and then he can find a way to get himself treated properly.

The two of them bask in the sound of distant police sirens and a helicopter. Leonardo keeps track of every sound he could hear, taking note of what sounds like human footsteps and what doesn’t. As everything slowly starts to quiet down, a thought intrudes the crime boss’ head.

He didn’t have time to think about this as they ran away from New Bilibid. All that occupied his mind was to leave alive. Now that they seemingly are now in the clear, his mind wanders back to moments earlier when he was still in one of the basements in the prison. Back to when the veins from Goldie’s neck bulged out from his skin as his shock collar electrocuted him. He recalls how he could see the yellow light from beneath his skin and muscles, revealing his veins, and even the cervical bone of his spine. He remembers the spray of bullets that weren’t able to reach him. He remembers the police car that flew from the ground and crashed. The older man couldn’t help but wonder how his escape was even physically possible. In his eyes, a random messed-up boy in a basement room has suddenly become a walking flashlight with the ability to send things flying through the air with just the flick of his wrist. Are there more people like him? Did they also get captured and forced to become executioners for convicts on a death sentence? How was Goldie created? And who even is Goldie?

“Hey,” A voice pulls him out of his thoughts. Leonardo looks at Goldie and realizes that he’s the one who suddenly spoke. Before he could ask about it, he realizes that everything has completely quieted down. He could even hear the sound of the crickets and the frogs.  To their luck, no one even came close to them. He ultimately decides to start questioning Goldie later, when they’re far away.

 Leonardo looks down at the ground and realizes that it’s too far for him to jump, and his arms are in no state to help him for climbing down. As he thinks of ways to get off the tree, his vision suddenly gets illuminated by a yellow glow. Gently, he gets lifted off the branch and gets set on the ground. Goldie follows afterward.

“Thanks,” Leonardo mutters, “ I have a place we can go to, by the way. Let’s head over there.”