I was raised in a small conglomerate of a city along the west coast. The population was small enough to consider it as a town, but the crime rates were high enough to describe a large city. I remember how the streets were lined with low risers. Dozens upon dozens of monolithic super stores in the center, but on the edges… Littered with small businesses, liquor stores, gun franchises, gas stations, and a labyrinth of ally ways that, unless invited, you were not allowed to enter on pain of death. Mostly though I remember how the hairs on the back of my neck used to stand up, my muscles stiffen, and my eyes focus forward when I passed the entrance to the allies. Used to… Upon reflection, perhaps they were signs foreshadowing my future in the maze, how eventually I would dwell there, and later on, nearly lose my life.

 I guess it all started when I was eight years old, when the sun still held the power to warm my flesh, and the sound of footsteps didn’t put me on edge. A spring storm was letting out its wet fury on the world. My mother was working the graveyard shift as usual, leaving me a long in the house. I was in bed, attempting to mimic the wind that I heard outside screaming through the trees. I had never been very good at whistling. A resounding and panicked knock echoed from the front door, and with a start, I rose out of bed suspiciously. As the pounding grew more frantic and more desperate, I threw caution to the wind and went to inspect. Upon opening the door, I found Zack, my best friend, lying on my doorstep with his hands covered in blood and a gash over his left eye. Stuttering in shock I ushered him in.

 “Zack! My God, what happened to you?” I asked while turning to get a wet washcloth. Feeling his cold, clammy, bloodstained hand grasp my arm, I gasped and turned.

 “There’s… no time for that… We need your help… Big street fight… outside of house… Cisneros… and his boys…” He struggled through the pain to speak to me. I scrutinized him, wondering just what it was he was asking of me. His dirty blonde hair was plastered to his forehead with the blood and rainwater. While he looked ragged, exhausted… his crystalline blue eyes burned with such a fierce fire, as I’d never seen before. I nodded in ascent, and spoke the words that would forever change my life.

 “What would you have me do.” He smiled lopsidedly, a swollen cheek making it crooked. He handed me a butterfly knife, and motioned for me to change my clothes. Doing as he ordered, I returned in dirt-covered jeans, my favorite muscle shirt, and my trademark bandana. He signed for me to kneel next to him and help him to his feet. I did so willingly, slipping the knife in my pocket, along with all doubt that I might have felt.

 Opening the door, I was thrown into a world of confusion that had never before existed in my mind. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a keen wind screamed in the air. Lightning danced across the sky, lighting temporally what was otherwise impossible to see. However, had it been left at my discretion, I would have wiped out the moon, the stars, the lightning, and wiped the scene away that is now forever seared into the fissures of my mind. Zack reached into my pocket and withdrew the butterfly knife and put in into the damp palm of my hand. Instinctively, I flicked the deadly blade open, and gently placed my childhood friend on the cement steps. Knowing full well that once I entered the street, my past, my happiness, would forever be gone, I hesitantly stepped off the stoop. The next bolt of lightning told me all I needed to know.

 Dozens of people, men and boys alike, half of whom were Hispanic, were trying to shed each other’s blood. I saw some lying wounded on the ground, others using small pocket knives and mothers best carving knives on each other. I jumped on the first Hispanic I saw. Rearing back with blade in hand, I slashed his face forcefully. The blade raked a scar from his hairline to his jawbone. I felt his warm blood seep onto my hand, and triumphantly I let him drop. The battle ceased, and it seemed as though even the storm was awed by my daring. Like a demon, he writhed up from the ground, his left eye useless and bleeding, his right eye glaring with fire. He slashed my cheek, turned, and walked away. The other Hispanics followed, and had I known Spanish at the time, my mother would have been deeply offended.

 I stood there dumbfounded, until a roar of approval shook the skies and I was smothered in arms and compliments. At the time, I was clueless. I had no idea what had just happened, what’s worse, no idea about what was going to happen. For days none of us spoke of it, until suddenly, I received a mysterious phone call beckoning me into the allies. I reached lovingly for the butterfly knife, and to the allies I went. As I approached the entrance, the walls were lined with males of all ages, even a few females. They stood respectfully at attention. In confusion, I hesitated. Until Zack stepped forward.

 “Gabrielle Angelinius, you will never know what you have done for us in getting Cisneros to retreat. You are the first and the only person to have ever left such a mark on him.” I thought of his ghastly purplish face surrounding the wound on his filthy flesh. “We ask of you one more great favor.” He fell to one knee and bowed his head respectively. I looked past him in amazement and fear only to find all the others bowing their heads also. Zack raised hi dirt-covered face to look p at me in admiration. “Lead us?”

 From that day forward, I learned what being a leader meant. It took me months to get situated, and even longer to become accustomed to answering as “M’lord” or “Lord of the Night.” As the years passed, I learned much about how to run the DA, aka Dreamer’s Anonymous as I so creatively called it, but it was not nearly as intimidating as the looming initials. Eventually we became a thriving economy all our own. I was taking sword fighting lessons from Brant, my mentor, while learning school fundamentals from Sam, both of whom were much older than I. Eventually I set up the Gray Market, a place where not so illegal things were sold. Fights continued break out, and with much skill, we wiped the floor with whomsoever opposed us. However, Cisneros was nowhere to be found. Weeks turned into months, months into years, until soon I was 16 and nearly a grown man. Tall, muscular; women wanted me and men wanted to be me. But I had eyes for no one but her…

 Mercedes. Ah, what joy it was to just whisper her name into the stars. With fiery red hair to match her temper, she was elegant, graceful, and the best part was… she was totally ignorant to what I worked as. I had been courting her for quite some time, but I’m sure she was suspicious. My mother worked in fast food, what kind of a job could I have had that paid for a brand new Mustang and an onyx ring for her birthday in the same paycheck? Finally I realized I could delay it no longer, I had to tell her. If she shunned me for such a profession, then I would quit, for the sweet love of her. While I was on my way to her house, I received a phone call.

 A sinister, accented voice informed me that he had the woman I loved, and that until I arrived, she would slowly be losing pieces of herself. I swore violently and turned the car around. I was to go alone, he reminded me. I threw the phone out of the car and clenched the hilt of my sword dangerously. Swerving in front of the entrance to the allies, I jumped out of my car and followed his instructions until I found the dead end he had described. I unsheathed my sword and pounced through one of the grime-covered windows, showering myself in glass shards. My chest heaved as my eyes rolled wildly in my head, searching manically for her Irish green eyes. I froze as my violet eyes fell upon her beautiful flaming hair matted with blood covering the place where her right ear was supposed to be. My eyes filled with hot tears as I bellowed forcefully, “Let her be! She has nothing to do with this!”

 Cisneros stepped out from the shadows. “I’ve waited a long time for this…” He backhanded me but I stood my ground. Leaning down, he brought his face so close to mine I could see his baked bean teeth and smell his rancid breath. Roaring like a wounded lion, I ran to Mercedes. The two men guarding her went go draw their rifles, but one lost his hand, the other… his whole arm. Bringing my heart’s desire to her feet, I dropped my sword and kissed her tear-covered cheek tenderly, as I head a gun cock behind us. Hesitantly, not daring to breathe, I turned to find Cisneros grinning madly from over a Browning .75. As if time itself was frozen, I pushed my body in front of Mercedes’ quivering one with such a solemn, sorrowful air that I think God himself nearly bowed his head in respect. Mercedes’ beautiful eyes widened as she looked up as my wide body blocking her, and her scream of defiance touched me deeply because it told me that she cared. I felt the red-hot searing pain tearing through my flesh, and clenched my teeth against letting her hear me in agony. Six shots, six bullets, one second.

 The Hispanic laughed insanely in the background, and I smiled weakly down at the love of my life, knowing that I was going to die in the next moment. With blood-flecked lips, I could do nothing but gurgle weakly. “I… love… you…” Sinking to the ground, I saw through red-rimmed eyes from an ethereal plane Mercedes pick up my fallen sword and run it through Cisneros’ gut. I remember naught but her kneeling next to me with tears in her eyes and sirens in the background. “It’s going to be all right, ok Gabe? Just hang in…” her voice faded and all was darkness.

 I woke up three months later in a hospital bed with a very exhausted, lightly snoring Mercedes slumped across my chest. I reached down, and smiling tenderly, I stroked her hair. She slowly work up and looked at me in a stupor. With a cry of joy she fully work up and wrapped her arms around me. 10 years later, the DA has been disbanded, Mercedes and I are happily married, and I work for a successful computer software company. Every once in a while, I still pass the ally entrance, and if I stand there, and listen hard enough, I swear I can hear the muffled sound of swords clashing…