A coldblooded story - Preface

Everybody has to die, sooner or later, in peace or in pain. Many, too many have no choice but to accept their fate.

It takes a special kind of personality to be able to what I used to do, a personality lacking of one of the most important pieces in humankind's skills: empathy. That personality is forged just like many others were forged, over time, with the blows of life strengthening the weak spots folding several times the layers of an impenetrable armor, an armor that allows that personality see someone suffer and not care. One simply, does not care about anything but oneself. After all, one is the reason many people mourn, it does not matter if it is for good or bad reasons; after all, one should never care.

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This "adventure" of my life started after I left the Navy at my 3rd world country. The economic situation of the whole nation was so tough, that even the Military had to cut expenses. Anyone willing to retire for the sake of the nation would get a "Honorific Retirement" (yet, remained at a reserve list).

Bored, as I always was. I had left the house for a while after a long nap, to stride the beach; pass some time in peace, alone with my thoughts. This walk always took me a couple of hours, which eventually led me into a zone that wasn't urbanized. Total peace. Yes, there was the eventual plastic bag dancing in the wind, some cigarette butts, trash... But no people, I always hated people.
So I thought...
It was pretty dark already, I don't know the time it was since I had no watch with me, or phone; I did not expect to be contacted by anyone or had an appointment anywhere. Bored.
Around 300 yards ahead, I could see something moving pretty aggressively under the moonlight. My trained instinct kicked in... I started getting closer, wanted to check it out, so I started moving in a tangent direction, to avoid being seen.

Four people, 3 beating the shit out of a 4th one. They were toying with him, taking turns to deliver a series of blows and giving him a little rest in between "rounds", yet never allowing a full recovery.
In situations like this there's a thumb rule that allows people to live longer: "Do not get involved, move along". Shit, that folk was getting quite a beating, and was doing great, but the outcome was pretty obvious.

They didn't look armed, the numeric superiority made that unnecessary (and it would save them to pay a bribe in the case of a random police check... Yes, nasty times, very close to a coup d'etat or military regime). If there was a gun among them, it was only one; something totally useless in melee range (3 yards).
It was at the open beach, the moonlight did not help at all to keep my subtlety at an optimal level. Yet, I took my chance hoping that they were too entertained and confident of the solitude of the beach to actually check if anyone was getting close.
I was right.

There's few guidelines to follow when facing multiple opponents the priority ones are: Do not turn your back on any of them, don't let yourself be surrounded, exploit any advantage to your favor; and the most important one, strike hard, hard enough to "close" the gap of numeric superiority as soon as possible (One does not want to end up like that 4th guy after all).
So I did.
I aimed for the biggest, bulkiest guy first. Grabbed his hair, pulled it back and struck with full force right into his throat... That is a TKO, and a potential death by asphyxiation. 3 vs 2.
I was right, no weapons unsheathed, they were unarmed; lucky me. Then I knew I had the upper hand.
My temporary partner stood up, and I could hear something that resembled a snicker.
Going for the second TKO.
In the dark, the human eye is not very skilled at seeing individual objects, what the brain does is infer them by detecting the movement visible in the light patterns (this is the reason why people is paralyzed when a blinking flashlight is aimed to their eyes), there's a nice way to exploit this mental flaw: Show your palm.
By showing the white palm in contrast to the dark background, the eyes focus in this clearly visible spot, one can mislead movements with such thing. Wave to one side, hit with the other hand... Feel the bones crack, broken nose... TKO. 2 vs 2... Why didn't the others jump in? Who cares?!

Those damn rules, I should've followed them. I feel a huge pain in my right kidney. The kind of pain that makes you stop and think: "What the fuck is going on?". My temporary partner, took his chance and cheap shot me.
A few seconds later, I get a kick to the jaw that I thought broke it, my head is bagged with a shirt, and I'm dragged handcuffed partially unconscious, until they load me into a minivan.

Not a word came out of my captors...

(to be continued...)