"Give me all your fucking money!" 

Five minutes after pulling into the 8-11 with Felix, I got a gun to the back of my head and my face smashed into the side of a car, which was great for my steadily declining mental health. 

You know, when faced with situations like this, sometimes it just put in perspective how shitty the world really was, and how humanity would have probably been better off roasting to death the night before. 

"Just take it, man!" I scream back at the thug when he forces the gun harder into the back of my neck, sending painful spasms down my spine in the process. "I swear, that's all the money I have on me right now! I just got done stopping the apocalypse last night!"

The thug snatches the money out of my hand and then proceeds to rip my bag off the floor before taking a few steps back. The gun was still pointed directly at my face when I turned around slowly to get a good look at him. He was dressed in a black hoodie and baggy black pants and had a mask pulled up around his face, but he looked relatively young—even younger than me.

"Man, I feel so sorry for you right now," I tell him with a chuckle, and I hold up my hands slowly.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" The thug demands, his eyes scrunching up angrily, "You got a death wish or something, Pendejo? How about I put a bullet in your brain and really give you something to think about?"

"Nope, no death wish here," I reply, and then gesture behind him with a nod of my head, "but maybe you shouldn't have robbed the guy who gave a ride to the fucking Death Bringer, you absolutely pathetic little shit-gobbler."

The thug whirls around and comes face to face with Felix, who lifts one hand in a little wave, a pink heart-shaped lollipop stuck in his mouth before he pulls it out with a pop. "Oh my gosh," He says, pink eyelashes fluttering, "Hector! Are you being robbed by a real low-life? This is so cool!"

"Low-life?" The thug replies, sounding genuinely hurt, "That's kind of harsh, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry," Felix tells him quickly, "I didn't mean to insinuate that you were the scum of the earth. I'm sure you have tons of great qualities other than robbing and shooting people. Baking, maybe? Or doing crossword puzzles? Golly, I sure do like that tattoo on your forehead. Tu Madre? That's so sweet!"

"Dude," I hiss at Felix through my teeth, "I'm being robbed! Now's not the time to bring out your bleeding fucking heart!"

"Oh, right," The pink-clad nightmare replies, realization dawning on his face before he pops his lolli back into his mouth and raises a hand in the direction of the robber. 

I'm just going to say this. 

I didn't want anybody to die, I just wanted a little bit of revenge and to teach this guy a lesson. As someone who had grown up being the little guy, always getting picked on, just once I wanted to know what it felt like to have that kind of raw power at my disposal in the form of a Death Bringer. But then things turn sideways, and it's not at all what I'm expecting.

"Enough of this carnival bullshit--!" The thug starts to snarl and raises his gun at Felix before he fires several rounds of hot lead at him, the explosion of bullets causing the people around us to scream and dive back into their cars. 

"Felix!"

"Tik-tock, tick-tock," Felix closes his hand right before the bullets can reach him and they freeze in mid-air, then dissolve into black powder before crumpling right before our eyes. "It looks like your time's not up just yet, but I have a wonderful idea for us, and I hope you like it, too!"

"What the fuck?" The thug snarls and shakes his gun a little before trying to pull the trigger again. But as he does so, the skin on his fingers starts to dissolve, peeling back starting from the nails all the way downwards to reveal glaring white finger bones.

I slam back against the car when the thug starts to scream shrilly, and my eyes pop wide open.

 All at once, I'm subjected to absolute horror as Felix proceeds to peel a whole entire man right in front of me, the sound of his blood-curdling shrieks and wet sloping sounds filling the parking lot.

---

"I can't believe you skinned a guy alive in the middle of an 8-11 parking lot!" I snap at Felix as soon as we pile back into the car to head into New York for real this time. "Now what the hell are we supposed to do? They probably got us on camera and everything!"

"What?" Felix whines, "You told me to handle it, so I did!"

"I know what I said," I reply, my hands tightening on the steering wheel. "But why in the ever-loving fuck are we carrying around his skeleton in the back seat?"

"Hey, can one of you guys pass me a bag of peanut M&Ms?" The skeleton thug in the back seat asks us, his bony white jaw clacking up and down. "I really worked up an appetite back there."

"Not one word," I hiss at Felix when he smiles cheerfully at me. "Not one damn word, Felix."