Doomed to Repeat It

Epilogue

SHANGHAI, CHINA – 2014

Mei Tseng sat at a table at an outdoor café. It was the first quiet moment she'd had to herself in what seemed like weeks.

A waitress brought out a cup of steaming tea and set it in front of her. Mei nodded her head and smiled. "Xièxiè." She picked up the hot beverage with a gloved hand and sipped it. Perhaps it was a bit early in the season to be sitting outside, but the tea warmed her inside. The sun also felt nice on her fair skin as she leaned back and closed her eyes.

She let the ambient sound of the street consume her: diesel powered busses, the mag-lev train overhead, squeaking bicycles. Hearing everyone else rushing to be somewhere made her appreciate her moment of relaxation that much more.

As she sat quietly letting the world pass her by, she heard one, fairly heavy set of footsteps approaching her. "Mei Tseng?"

Who could be bothering her? All she wanted was to have a half-hour alone to enjoy her tea. Without opening her eyes, she sighed and responded, "Shì ma?" Then, she heard a distinctive metallic double-clink.

When she opened her eyes, she was looking down the barrel of a large caliber handgun. Before she could react, a loud boom made her jump in her seat and let out a sharp scream. She'd never been shot before, but she knew that even if her body was in shock, she should still feel something.

Confusion set in when the man pointing a gun at her staggered back, like he'd been punched by some invisible force. Another boom rang out and she realized the sound was coming from behind her. She whipped her head around and saw a man in a trench coat holding a long gun at his hip. He fired three more times, then dropped his gun and took off in a full sprint toward the other man, who was now several feet back and struggling to regain his balance. Why wasn't he on the ground bleeding? Why was he threatening to shoot her? Why wasn't she running away?

She wanted to get up and run, but she couldn't look away as the second man slammed his body into the other, much larger man, and knocked him into the street right in front of a passing bus.

Mei anticipated a dull thud as the bus contacted the large man, but the impact had the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass as if the bus had hit another car.

Seeing the man pinned under the front tire and pushing with his arms to free himself finally knocked Mei out of her trance. How was he still moving at all? Whatever the explanation, she didn't want to stick around to find out. Her chair screeched along the concrete as she shoved it back and stood up to run.

In her haste, she caught her foot on the leg of the chair, and tripped. On her way to the ground, Mei's elbow contacted another chair, sending a sharp pain up her arm. She lay on her side clutching her elbow, and hissing through her teeth at the pain. She attempted to bottle up the pain and get back on her feet. She had to.

When she turned herself over to get up, the trench coat wearing man was standing above her. He extended a hand to her, and said between heavy breaths, "Rúguǒ nǐ gēn wǒ lái xiǎng zhù."

Author's Notes:

Well, it's finally done. I hope you enjoyed reading my story.

Hopefully I didn't butcher the Chinese language too much in this epilogue. If I did, blame Google translator, not me. :)

Big thanks to JMHthe3rd, my beta-reader, who has been a big help not only in keeping the story ironed out, but also in helping me improve my writing in general.

As always, I appreciate anyone who takes the time to write a review of what I've written. I'm no stranger to criticism, and considering how this story ended, I've got my flame-suit zipped up.