“What the fuck I’m doing with my life?”

Enrique Malavida asked himself with half his face on a puddle of his own puke. His mind sailed through the sea of his memories, capturing images of his past. Enrique remembered that he never succeeded at anything at school, yet never failed so badly that it brought attention, not the brightest bulb on the chandelier, but neither the dumbest. It was like if life itself hated him, an irredeemable loser that could never improve, who only exceled at one thing: violence. New pictures formed showing the times he had ended up in a fight or other conflict, with the other side usually ending in a worse shape than himself. He had even tried to put his talent to good use by joining the army, but was expelled thanks to his lack of patience and confrontations with superiors. After that he picked up jobs across Madrid that relied on physical strength and spent the money he gained drinking.

And there, with his head hurting thanks to the hangover, he started to think how to get his life together, even knowing that, no matter what he could do, he would still be worthless. He used all of his remaining strength to stand up, with vomit still on his short black beard, and walked clumsily, with the need to hang on the walls of his small apartment to avoid falling and only his underwear on, to the closet where he had many of his old stuff without any order, like if an localized earthquake had appeared inside. He put his hands into the mess and threw away everything without caution until he found what he was searching for, an old red aluminium baseball bat with a gross chain and barbed wire attached to it. He didn’t buy the bat because he liked the sport, not that there’s much liking of it in Spain, but it was perfect to hit someone in the head, even more if you made some small adjustments.

- Hey there. It’s been some time.

It was time to get some things right and try again.

After some sleep and a couple aspirins to mitigate his painful headache, he headed towards the streets with the weapon on his hand, moving through empty alleys and streets. Because of the cold that had Madrid within its clutches, he dressed with a worn out black jacket, grey scarf, jeans and light brown ankle boots, alongside a pair of red gloves and a cigar on his mouth. He wasn’t just walking aimlessly searching for someone he could hit with a justification, not even he was that stupid, but was making his way to a nearby high school. He had heard rumours at a bar he frequented of someone dealing drugs to dumb kids, some of which already showed signs of addiction, in the best cases; much to the parents suffering. Of course, the dealer nor the clients would appear just when he had reached the place, so he had to wait. After boring hours accompanied by hot chocolate with churros bought at an establishment, he spotted a small group of students sneaking out of the building a few minutes after hearing a ring. He finished quickly what remained of the chocolate and the food, picked up his weapon and followed them. Not very far away, the kids spoke with a hooded man with old clothes with holes on them, and left not too late after that. Once the little brats disappeared behind a building, the man walked towards an alley and Enrique followed him. The place was disgusting, with different human fluids on the walls and faeces, accompanied by lots of different wastes, covered by two tall walls filled with bad graffiti to the last inch and some trash cans on the floor. Once he was sure there was no one watching, he hit one of the walls with the bat to catch the dealers attention. It took him a while to process the information his eyes got and that an armed man could only mean trouble, so when he turned to run, like if the devil himself had come for his soul, Enrique had already reached him and dealt a blow to his back that caused him to fall to the ground. The dealer tried to get up as fast as he could, but received another hit that stole all his strength. His body was turned face up by the aggressor, who afterwards moved his bat in front of his eyes and gave some slight taps with it.

- I’m not the best one to judge, but damn, what you do is really messed up.

- Look man, I don’t know what you want, but I’ll give you all I’ve got if you let me go!

- Can’t do, it would ruin the point of community service. Rethink your life when you wake up.

- What do you m…?

Enrique lifted the bat overhead and blasted the face without containing, creating a joke of a human face that had the nose broken, blood flowing through different places, lacked some teeth and showed bruises that even hide an eye.

- Sweet dreams, you piece of shit.

The assailant spitted at the unconscious dealer and left the alley before someone saw him, with the cold moving his short and curly black hair, thinking that he should use a backpack to hide his weapon and avoid looking as a madman. On the run he felt good for first time in a long while, maybe it was for the pain he had inflicted on someone he thought deserved it, or maybe it was the adrenaline flowing through his body. No, neither of those options were the reason, instead he had used his gift for violence to create a small fix in the world around him, and he liked it. It wasn’t the best way, but the only one he could use, so he was going to continue, even if he was always going to be the same at least he could bring small changes.