My name is Hank.

I don’t remember how I reached this place.

All I remember is that there is a person I need to kill. Someone specific.

As I walked through this bloody hallway filled with the corpses of my enemies, I felt a shiver running up my spine. A shiver of excitement, at that. I always enjoyed killing my opponents, especially the ones who put up a good fight instead of dying immediately. 

It’s a feeling that has been engraved into the deepest depths of my soul, a feeling I consider to be a blessing, rather than a curse.

As I bathed in this joy and excitement, I saw a door. This brown door, which I knew led to an office, only piqued my elation even more. I knew the person I was looking for was behind that door. 

I know he’s waiting for me.

I immediately ready my gun and blade as I take a deep breath, preparing myself for what’s to come.

As if in a rush, I sprinted toward the door, my entire body itching more and more for bloodshed. I’ve waited for this moment for so long now, and now it’s right in front of me. I was so excited, that as I kicked the door wide open, the hinges broke and sent it flying. “Oops,” I thought to myself, hoping that the door I kicked hadn’t killed anyone yet.

After all, the fun part’s just about to start.

I step inside the room, taking a deep breath, looking at everything it has to offer.

It’s a rather spacious but dimly lit room, only having two small fluorescent lights weakly illuminating the room from the sides. To my right, there was a bookshelf that had a few dusty books, and on my left was an old glass window.

In front of me, was the prey I’ve looked forward to hunting the most today. A man named “The Sheriff.”

Wearing a dirty brown leather coat, leather boots worn out from the weather, marksman gloves, and a Western hat decorated with a small golden star on the front. His tired face, worn out from dealing with life makes me almost want to spare him.

Unfortunately for him, those two revolvers on his hips tells me otherwise.

Another thing that caught my eye is the strange device he’s holding. He seems to be very reliant on that thing, since he’s clutching onto it like his life depends on it. 

There’s also another threat in the room. A henchman with a halo floating above his head is standing next to him. He looks like his bodyguard.

A fun target for me.

After that, what felt like minutes of silence was finally broken by the henchman’s voice.

“Do you need me to take care of this, Sheriff?” The henchman said in a low, rugged voice.

“This man killed my men, I’ll do it myself since all of these guys are so incompetent.” the Sheriff replied.

It looks like he finally grew a pair of balls. Looks like this fight is about to be even more enjoyable than I expected.

All of a sudden, in the distance outside of the window to my left, I heard gunshots and saw the bright flashes of a gun’s muzzle.

Looks like we’re not the only ones enjoying today’s fight.

My focus returns to the Sheriff and his henchman, who are now talking about whatever it is they’re scheming.

“You go and take care of that little skirmish outside, I’ll take care of this rat.” The Sheriff said in a commanding voice.

“Alright, I’m going.” Says the henchman.

Like a ghost, he fades into the dark corners of the dimly lit room. I couldn’t sense a single trace of him, as if he was never here in the first place.

Now I really want to kill that guy.

And now, there’s only two of us here.

As the henchman left the room, the Sheriff pressed a button on his device and started rambling again.

“You did a good job taking my men’s lives like that. I don’t know who sent you to kill me, but I’m not going down as easily as the ones you just killed.” He said, as he looked at me with those cold, lifeless eyes.

“How about we start killing each other instead of chatting?” I said, readying my gun for the fight.

“Good idea.”

I felt a shiver run up my spine again.

This time, it was the bad kind of shiver.

It felt like second nature to me as I swiftly tilted my head to the side after seeing the quick flash of light. I was so caught off-guard by my sudden dodge that I only realized that my head was grazed by a bullet as I tumbled across the floor to dodge a second time.

That Sheriff managed to draw one of his revolvers at an inhuman speed and shot at my head, all in a fraction of a second. That’s what made me flinch and dodge.

This sudden realization made me way more excited.

I felt like a wolf hunting down it’s prey, drooling more and more as the prey fights back.

I continued dodging his shots with inhuman reflexes, and finally closed the distance between us.

I prepared to go for a point-blank shot to the head to finish the fight in an instant.

“I knew you’d go for that.” The Sheriff said in a cocky tone, as he strikes my arm upward the moment I pulled the trigger.

My shot missed and hit the ceiling.

Out of excitement, a wide grin spreads across my face as I headbutt him, causing him to be dazed for a second.

Preparing for the final killshot, I then point my gun at the helpless, dazed man.

That’s when another disturbance happened again.

A minor earthquake that shook the ground made me lose my aim and miss my shot at the Sheriff again as he recovers. The Sheriff took advantage of this and ran away from me with the device, slipping past me into the hallway filled with corpses.

That’s what I love about hunting him, he always acts like prey whenever he’s pushed against a wall no matter how brave he makes himself look.

Switching from my gun to my sword, I start running after him like a madman, swinging my sword at the corpses as I pass them by.

As we ran through the entire building, I eventually started catching up to him. When he noticed this, he fired a barrage of bullets at me and immediately hid behind a wall as I took cover myself.

He called for three henchmen to hold me off, and in an instant, three henchmen barged through the door at the end of the room to help.

Immediately, he starts running through the door they opened, and now the distance between us is getting bigger again.

I don’t mind making the hunt longer at all. This  only made me more starved for blood after all.

The first henchman decided it would be a great idea to throw himself at me with a baseball bat. As he swung his bat, I dodged to the side and shot his head twice for good measure.

The second henchman threw another small device at my feet. By the time I noticed it was a flashbang, I was blinded by the lite and stunned by the deafening noise.

The second henchman took this chance to stab me in the shoulder with a knife as the third henchman shot my leg. 

Without hesitation, I pulled out the small knife  and stabbed the second henchman’s cranium, instantly killing him. I quickly drew my gun and disposed of the third henchman with another shot to the head.

My shoulder is bleeding, and one of my legs are messed up because of the gunshot.

This won’t stop me from hunting him down, though.

Ignoring the pain in my leg, I started sprinting towards the Sheriff’s location again, constantly following and catching up to him again.

When I did catch up to him, we made it to the lobby at the entrance of the building. He turned around and faced me with a look of desperation on his face while holding the strange device.

“In a few minutes, this place will be destroyed, killing both of us.”

Outside the building I see the sky beginning to  turn red, with lightning and thunder crashing down in the distance. 

It looks like that device cause all this, and it all started when he pressed the button earlier.

“How about we go out like men and kill each other before dying to the calamity?” He said as he whipped out both of his revolvers and began barraging me with gunshots.

I was forced to take cover behind a nearby table, waiting for him to run out of ammo.

The moment he ran out of ammo, I started firing back, unaware of how much ammo I consumed in the process.

All of a sudden my gun stops shooting. It’s out of ammo.

Noticing this, the Sheriff immediately rushed towards me, kicking away the table covering me.

Seeing his advantage, the Sheriff drew one of the revolvers he just finished reloading and tried to go for another point-blank shot just like I did earlier.

Out of reflex, I kicked him across the room as he missed the headshot he was aiming for.

Without hesitating, I dash towards him, knife on one hand, gun with no ammo, and blade aimed toward his neck on my other hand.

This is it. The moment I've been waiting for.

As I rushed to cut him down, as if possessed, he recovered and whipped out his revolver at lightning speed and shot me once. On the chest.

It didn’t hurt, but I was a bit dazed after that shot, I was staggered and got stunned for a second.

I got desperate and took the bloody knife I had earlier, and stabbed him in the neck twice, and on the chest three times before I lost focus.

Then, like a miracle, or maybe through some sort of divine intervention, he miraculously survives all that…

…and puts a bullet in my head before slumping forward and taking his last breath.

“Well played.” I said.

“At least I finished the hunt,” I thought to myself as I fell.

And then I lost consciousness.

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Word Count: 1,738

Prompt: Showdown