Sorry for the lack of updates and short chapters. I'm pretty busy at the moment. This chapter shifts from first to third person mid chapter. Just a warning. This chapter didn't come close to the way I wanted it. I wanted to have Joel scar the kids and then piss off Spyro and Cynder. Or at least disrespect them. But then I listened to Cold by FFDP. And this was born. The next chapter will be more comical.

You ever get that weird taste in yer mouth when you're about to pump some fucker full of lead? Something that tastes like dirt, gunpowder and adrenalin? Anybody? No? Fuck. Well, that was the taste I was getting right now. I guess it was because I had that bloody tampon of an iguana by the ballsack. You should have seen his fuckin' face! Jesus H. Christ his face was the funniest fuckin' thing I saw since I came to this shitty world. The only thing that could make me laugh any fuckin' harder was if his skull was bashed into his brains.

"Mr. Helix?...Mr. Helix?"

"Pssst! Jocy!"

"What?!" I snapped upon feeling Lucien nudge me, the room falling silent as all eyes fell upon me. I had to bite my tongue so hard it bled to keep me from telling them all to fuck off. I really, really wished I had my AR 15 at this point. I really, really wished I did. Put a fuckin' hole in each of their brain cases and watch the bone shards and pulp spray out the other side. Paint the fuckin' walls red, I say! Like a woman gushing out Niagara Falls when she's on her menstrual cycle. Hmmmm...I wonder if a woman can shove a gattling gun in her vagina? That shoots out high pressured blood and blasts a hole through whatever sorry fuck hoped to get lucky with her.

'Oh, no, Mr. Fuck-Sargent, I don't have my period. I swear.' Bamb. Dead.

...I need mental help.

But I digress. Now where the fuck was I? Oh, yeah-

"...Mr. Helix. If you would be so kind, would you care to present yourself in front of the class?" Miss. Honey spoke, her doe eyes lookin' at me. I wanted to say something and decline, but I felt a fuckin' tumor grow in my throat and I couldn't speak. God, I fuckin' hated kids. 'Course, that automatically meant I hated my own. Which I did, and didn't. I hated them because they came from me, and because of me, they killed my fuckin' Alura. They were already murderers jus' like their dear ol' dad. But not. I never watched that damned tape. I didn't want to see more of me than I had to. Part of me hated them because they were me. The other part couldn't hate them because they were all I had left of Alura. Not that it fuckin' mattered anyway. I was stuck in a fuckin' world with pansy assed lizards and oompa loompas.

I stood up, walking towards the front of the tiny class and just...stared. I looked at all the kids, young, about the ages of mine, if I were to guess. I tried to talk, but just couldn't. I felt my chest clench and throat swell, unable to breath and room spinning. I was hearing voices. Voices in my head and voices on the outside. Then I saw the flashes.

One bullet.

Two bullets.

Three bullets.

Four.

Bang.

Dead.

He knew he would only need one. One bullet was more than enough. And with a .44 magnum, that was sure to get the job done.

His fingers shook with a lit cigarette, a mustache of sweat just under his nostrils, breath thick with smoke and beer. His eyes were rimmed red and shadowed, jaw clenching and teeth grinding on the tobacco butt. He looked at the man within the mirror, dress shirt creased in numerous wrinkles, sleeves curled up and tie undone, draped lazily around his neck. Sweat had stained the white button shirt around his armpits and back. His black pants were covered in flecks of dirt, shoes that he had only ever worn twice scuffed and dirty.

Joel looked at the man in the mirror, face gaunt and shadowed, stubble ready to grow into a full beard, eyes weary and worn with a lit cigarette between his lips, a .44 magnum in one hand and a picture of her in the other.

Her funeral was today. And he was not allowed into the viewing. Her parents would not allow it. But they allowed her-their children entry. Allowed them to see the corpse of a mother they would never remember. The mother they killed. The woman he killed.

He never got to see her. Never got to see her hand, now stiff and dead, interlacing with his. He never got to say goodbye. nor tell her how he felt. Not that speaking with a corpse would help much. She was not there, in that casket, in that body. She was no where. Dead and gone. That body was not Alura. That was not her. That was just a body.

Her parents were issuing a court order against him for custody of the infants. Not that he planned on fighting them. But he would lose the case, and have to pay child support.

Joel loved fighting. But the man he saw in the mirror did not want to fight. He wanted to run, to hide, to scream, to cry. The man in the mirror was not him. The man was a stranger. A stranger with a gun hanging loosely in his grip, barrel pressing against his leg. A stranger with a lit cigarette within his mouth, breaths pumping out a white haze. A stranger with a picture of a woman he did not know-nor deserve.

Looking in the mirror, Joel saw the man for who he truly was. He saw his father. A broken man, a ruined man. A man whose breath was stained with smoke and beer, eyes bloodshot and face unshaven.

Now he understood. Joel always thought it was his father that was broken. But it wasn't his father that was broken, nor Alura that had a broken heart, nor Joel himself that had a broken mind. The world was broken. And the more you try and fix it, make it straight, the more you get broken. In trying to live a normal life, he destroyed everything he ever tried to build for himself.

Joel wondered if this was what his father felt like for years during his youth as he put the barrel of the gun into his mouth. The cigarette had dropped to the ground, ash smoldering as his teeth clenched upon the cold steel, the taste of metal and gunpowder on his tongue. He wondered what kind of man he was if he couldn't even handle the death of a woman. He wondered what she felt during her last moments. He hoped nothing too painful, nothing too disturbing. He wondered what she thought during her last moments. Giddy, gleeful, ecstatic over the birth of her-their children? Excited to be a mother, to care for and hold and love as she had often exclaimed? Where they on him? Did she want him to be there? Could he had helped? Could she had lived had he been there? Would she still be alive if she never met him? Would she be happier then? He knew he wouldn't. But his happiness didn't matter compared to hers. And now she was dead. All because they met.

Joel felt his finger upon the trigger. His hand shook, breath sharp and crisp. His storm eyes briefly looked upon the mirror, at the man he did not recognize yet recognized with a .44 magnum in his mouth. He wondered how slow time would seem to pass as the bullet blew a hole through his skull and his brains splattered the walls and bedding.

He looked at the man he did not know, they towards her picture, grip so shaky he had almost dropped her. He looked at her for the longest time, then towards the man, then towards her. His arm shook, body heaving before he ripped the barrel out of his mouth in a scream of rage. Joel stood, swift and urgent as he aimed the magnum towards the man he did not recognize, but did.

"I am not like you!" Joel roared, voice shrill and harsh before he pulled the trigger, the deafening ring going off as the glass shattered and sprayed in tiny shards, bullet tearing.

He breathed, breath swift and ragged in rage as he opened and chambers and knocked out the remaining bullets, slamming the weapon against the wall.

He was not like his father. This is not what Alura would want.

He was not entirely broken yet.

But I was. I was broken. And I was fuckin' crying. And I couldn't stop. I didn't care if people were looking at me like I was crazy. I was crying because I was just one giant fuck up.

I tried to do what I thought was best, what Alura would have wanted.

But I just became fragmented between worlds instead.

Whelp, that's the chapter. I will be updating Dragon Knight sometime soon, though I'm not sure when. The only thing I update now is Stories in the Ink. I could update the whole killer cabbage bullshit but...it's fucking cabbage. How interesting is that? I like writing about my guilty pleasure of Cole/Solona(OC). I have a random ass forum up. Not that anyone cares.

Thank you for readings and supporting/favoriting/following/reviewing/ect.