It Always Ends the Same

It Always Ends the Same

May 12, 2025

I heard the policeman order me to stop. Like I care.

The chase was the best part. This one was fit and could keep up. He kept his pistol holstered, preventing the wild accusations of me shooting random people.

I don’t have to carry a firearm. He will soon discover why.

I am limber and agile. He is smart and fast. A few tossed trash cans and eventually he will miss a step or two.

So many before have. This one, so far, hasn’t.

He calls again for me to halt. Technically, I have not broken a law. He knows this. All of his kind knows this. But, they think they are in control and when challenged, they will ignore the laws they are sworn to enforce. This makes them dangerous when encountered in groups.

So far, his backup has not arrived to help him violate me.

I turn down the alley to discover it is a dead end. I like that phrase, “dead end”. So permanent. So final. As his first shot catches me in the leg, it is apropos that the chase concludes here. I stumble from the bullet, but manage to arise before he makes his final offer.

“Get down on your face. Hands behind your back or I will shoot again.”

The fire from within burns with a ferocity I covet. I know what is coming. It always ends the same way. My eyes become aglow from the crimson that consumes me.

It only takes my stare for him to unload his magazine of ammunition in fear. He sees the inferno in real time. I see him in slow motion. I had respect for this one. He was patient. He was a thinker. But, in the end, he is as who came before him.

My hellfire grows exponentially, consuming him and all other flammables in the alley. The sudden rush of heat boils every drop of water in his body, expanding each 1000 fold its original volume. His meat within, for a mere microsecond, emits a tantalizing aroma that would attract beasts of gargantuan hunger, ready to consume the source. As it is, the microsecond passes quickly resulting in a malodorous expulsion sickening all who should encounter his former essence.

When the additional police do arrive, they discover a young man of business and education who witnessed the fireball. Two gruesome shadows of soot remain where once stood a rookie police officer and the young woman he chased.

Within the confines of the alley, where the officers take statements, the charred human remains putrefy under the fetid conditions.

I explained that I cannot believe I survived the explosion. The Sergeant chalked it up to me being across the street, outside of the blast radius. He has no more questions for me and I am off to my business I have never been to before, working on accounts I have never seen, ready to take on the world I am all too familiar with.

For I am a Phoenix and it always ends the same.

Just reborn with a new body. Just renewed with opportunities aplenty.