Run rabbit. Run!

It was the end of July, the 31st day and Daniel was quite happy about it. Tomorrow he was starting a new job after being unemployed for almost a year. He had even picked out what he was going to wear to work on his first day, as he believed that appearances mattered, so he wanted to look every much the part for his new role as a night club manager.

"What could possibly go wrong?" He thought to himself, then glanced at his wrist watch to check what time it was. He noted that the time was 9:38pm.

The television in his one bedroom apartment was showing a comedy series which he wasn't really watching, but he kept it on because it filled the room with the laughter from the audience, which mirrored his own feelings of hope and excitement, sometimes he joined in the laughter whenever he caught some hilarious pun made by the comedians.

Looking around his room, he noted the furnishings and personal effects he possessed. The television hung on the wall and was connected to a sound system that took it's place on the floor just underneath the TV.

He had a mini fridge at one end of the same wall while his wardrobe was positioned at the opposite end. His bed filled up the most part of the room leaving very little room to manuever around. A door on the opposite wall led into the bathroom while the kitchen door was adjacent to it.

Sitting on his bed dressed only in a boxer shorts because his air conditioning had stopped working, he sipped on a bottle of beer while idly listening to the comic drone of the television. "He'd fix the place up once he got his first paycheck." He thought to himself. Maybe he'd even get a bigger place he mused, and move out of this old dump.

He was 45 years old and had long given up on socializing so he spent most nights indoors drinking beer, and watching television. He didn't have a girlfriend, neither did he have friends. He kept a low profile, mostly because he lived in a ghetto filled with pimps, hookers, junkies and drug dealers and the conventional locals knew that to mind your business was the easiest way to stay out of trouble.

"You can't be minding your business if you have friends. Someone's bound to be a gossip and before you know it you're hearing all sorts of things about things and people you'll probably later wish you had never knew." He continued with his musing.

He knew the streets and most of the thugs and pimps living within. He also understood the language of the ghetto, so landing the new job was a game changer for him. He was a thug through and through and had it all planned up. How he was going to make some deals with the pimps to hook up girls for his VIP clients. The drug dealers he would contact to supply the high rollers and big spenders who wanted a little more fun. He'd always thought that people were more fun and interesting when high on drugs although he only smoked some occasional weed and cigarettes. Of course he had to make some connections with the police to ensure that they paid less attention than normal to whatever other kinds of business he planned to do in the night club. He needed to get a crew together for his protection, he'd even bought a gun the week before. In case he had to use one he'd rather he owned it.

While he mused, he felt the trance like sensation that alerted him that he had fallen in to the clutches of sleep. As he felt his consciousness slowly slipping until he was lost in the darkness that came next.

It was 9:00am when he woke up the next day. He got out of bed, showered then got dressed in a track suit and put on his sneakers, ready to face the new day. He'd get coffee at the cafe down the block and maybe a croissant for his breakfast. He was thinking about how to spend the day until he had to be at work by 5:00pm as he picked up his phone from where it lay on the bed. He checked the notifications even though he wasn't expecting to see any, then ducked the phone into his trousers pocket as he headed for the front door, but just as he was about to open the door, it was kicked in, hitting him square on in the face, making him lose his balance and fall down. Holding his head in his hands, stunned by the force of the collision with the door, Daniel sat on the floor and managed to prop his back again a wall and saw the silhouette of three men as they walked into the room. All of them dressed in black and armed with pistols.

"Hello rabbit." He heard one of them say. "You didn't really think that I won't find you. Did you?" The voice continued.

It had been a long time since anyone called him by his gang alias, and he was quite certain that he knew who the voice belonged to. Though the blinding headaches he had instantly developed coupled with the ringing in his ears hindered his efforts to attach a face from his memories to the voice taunting him.

"What do you want?" Daniel managed through gritted teeth.

" I want you to run." Came back the reply from the voice. "Run rabbit. Run."

There was no mistaking the voice after he heard those words. His memories flooded his aching head with images of a time some months ago, when he had ran amongst a gang of illegal street racers who specialized in grand theft auto and high speed street racing. The voice belonged to none other than Cosmos. His reason for fleeing the gang and why he had relocated to the dump where he currently lived.

Cosmos enjoyed violence and was reckless about leaving casualties and the job Daniel had done while partnered with him had left a long string of victims. Daniel had never particularly enjoyed violence and only exercised it on occasions where it was of utmost importance so as not to be seen as weak. On the last job he had done with Cosmos, a lot of things had gone wrong and Cosmos ended up killing the couple whose car they had tried to steal.

After they had escaped to their hideout, Daniel had waited until Cosmos had slept off, then he took what he could and had left quietly in the night.

"You stole from me, so the way I see it you have two options." Cosmos spoke shaking him off from his walk down memory lane.

" I'll let you come back with me and work out a plan for you to repay me what you owe me. The second option is that I put a bullet in your thick skull. Right here, right now." Cosmos said.

Daniel managed to raise his head up and for the first time took a good look at the three men standing in his room. Cosmos was grinning like a kid who had won the high score at an arcade. While the other two men kept a straight face and just looked back at him. Cosmos was a paranoid freak who always thought that he was being targeted so Daniel imagined that they must be his bodyguards because he didn't recognize any of them.

Daniel thought briefly about his gun which was underneath the bed not far from where he was sitting on the floor but the odds of him getting to it in time and pulling out three shots without being shot himself was very slim. So instead he asked. "Where are we going to?"

"You'll find out in time." Cosmos replied " Get him up and escort him to the car." He commanded the bodyguards, who quickly rushed to help Daniel to his feet.

Daniel looked around his room. He knew it was the last time that he'd be seeing it. His mind drifted to the job which he was supposed to resume later in the day. Funny how he thought he'd fix up the room once he'd gotten his first paycheck, as that was totally out of the question now.

As he was escorted from his one room apartment outside to the black SUV parked in front of it, Daniel wondered what he would do.

His thoughts kept echoing Cosmo's own words.

"Run rabbit. Run!"