September 25. Raccoon City. 10:00 p.m.
The silence of the night in Raccoon City was an illusion. John Wick knew it. It was a cloak that hid the whisper of the wind, the rustling of trash in the street, and the unspeakable stench of something decomposing in the darkness. John walked with the lightness of a ghost, his black suit a veil that made him disappear into the shadows. He approached his target: the Umbrella pharmacy on the east side of town.
John, his pulse unchanging, observed the pharmacy. At first glance, it was a normal place. The lights were shining inside, and the "Open 24 Hours" sign was flashing. Behind the thick glass of the security window, a young man in a white uniform was looking at his phone, the light from the screen illuminating his bored face.
John approached the window, his face twisted into a slight grimace of discomfort. "Excuse me," he said in a hoarse voice. "I need something for a severe stomach ache. Do you have anything for that?"
The clerk looked up from his phone, his bored expression unchanged. "Yes, sir. Are you looking for omeprazole, perhaps? It's the most common."
"Yes, that's it," John replied in a voice of feigned resignation. "That would be fine."
The young man ascended and walked down an aisle, disappearing behind one of the tall shelves. This was the moment. With the window empty, John cautiously leaned forward and pressed his face against the glass. The pharmacy's interior was bathed in fluorescent light that revealed every corner, providing little opportunity for stealthy infiltration.
The glowing lights revealed tall shelves stacked with medicines and pharmaceuticals. But John's attention was drawn to something else: the men. He saw two guards, dressed in gray uniforms and bulletproof vests. They were bored, almost drowsy; one of them was yawning as he leaned against a wall. Their presence there confirmed his suspicions were correct: the pharmacy was an Umbrella front.
The clerk returned to the window, a bottle of omeprazole in his hand. When he saw John, he stopped, surprised by his pose. John was no longer simply standing. He was on his knees, his body hunched over, his hands clenched over his abdomen, his face twisted in a mask of unbearable pain.
"Sir! Are you okay?" the clerk shouted, his voice echoing in the silence of the pharmacy.
John leaned closer, a moan escaping his lips. "No... I can't get up. Please help..."
Alarmed by the sudden change in the situation, the young man rushed out of the pharmacy, leaving the door half open. He hurried toward John, intending to help him. He saw John get up, his hand no longer on his stomach, sliding under his jacket.
The employee opened his mouth to scream, but there was no time. His mind barely had time to register the cold reality before John stood up in one fluid motion and struck him on the temple with the butt of his P30L pistol with silencer. The young man collapsed to the floor, knocked out, without making a sound.
John bent down and, with precise, methodical movements, unscrewed the silencer from the muzzle of his pistol. The small object, which had previously been an advantage, would now be a hindrance in close combat. A silencer, no matter how compact, could interfere with the grip or get in the way in a close-range confrontation. He tucked it into a hidden pocket in his jacket. He stood up, his gaze icy.
The hunt had begun, and John, pistol in hand, moved with the fluidity of a predator. He slipped quickly through the half-open door. The air inside, colder and sterile, contrasted with the stench of the street.
He crouched down quickly and slid behind a nearby shelf, covering himself with a wall of pill bottles and beauty products. He knew that his figure, although camouflaged in the darkness, would be revealed with a little attention. It was temporary cover.
From his position, he scanned the pharmacy. The two guards were still at their posts, bored and lethargic. John watched their movements, their patterns. One leaned against the wall next to a cooler, the other yawned as he checked his communicator. They weren't veterans, they were pawns.
A shot, even without a silencer, could be an unnecessary risk. If anyone else was nearby, if there was a noise monitoring system, the trail of destruction would begin too soon. A knife would be quieter and more precise. A shot to the neck or head would be a silent, clean kill. And the other one... How would he stun him? A blow to the head, precise and quick, but with enough force to knock him out without killing him. The first guard was the key to a stealthy elimination.
The hunt had begun, and John knew that this time there would be no witnesses. He glided like a shadow, his free hand already in his jacket pocket, pulling out one of the knives. With his gaze fixed on the first guard, who was distracted, he prepared for a deadly throw.
Upstairs, in a windowless room filled with flickering monitors, an overweight young man wearing a baseball cap, who had been munching on a bag of chips, jumped in surprise. He let out a squeal that caught the attention of his colleague, a burly man with a mustache.
"What's wrong, idiot?" asked the man with the mustache.
"An intruder," whispered the young man, his eyes wide. "They just showed it on the pharmacy camera. It's unbelievable!"
(A small, almost invisible security camera, hidden between two shelves, recorded John Wick's every move. A live recording of an infiltration that was no longer silent).
The man with the mustache approached the monitor, and what he saw made him drop the communicator from his hand. The image was clear: the guard next to the cooler lay motionless, a knife stuck in his neck, and the other guard was on the floor, unconscious. And there, in the center of the screen, was a man in a black suit, kneeling over the knocked-out guard.
"Impossible! How the hell did he get in? The guards are down!" The man with the mustache grabbed his communicator. "Alert! Intruder in the pharmacy, ground floor. Code Red. Repeat, Code Red. All personnel on the upper floor, deploy now. Activate the containment protocol!"
The sound of heavy boots echoed on the ceiling. John Wick, kneeling over the knocked-out guard and about to tie him up, heard the thunder of footsteps descending the stairs. It wasn't just one pair of boots. It wasn't two. It was many. Too many for a simple robbery. Just then, the dead guard's communicator fell into his ears, a deep voice, almost a whisper.
"All personnel on the upper floor, deploy now..."
John's gaze hardened. He stood up, scanned the room, and saw a group of shadows approaching the hallway. He wondered how they had discovered him. The speed with which they had detected him, the speed of their reaction, and the number of guards approaching all set his mind racing. These weren't bored pawns; they were the elite.
The air filled with palpable tension, and the footsteps grew closer. John braced himself for the fight. There was no escape; this time, the hunter had become the prey.
John moved. There was no time to hesitate. An inch of distraction was an inch of death. He slid, his body becoming a shadow, as he slipped between two of the tallest shelves. The space was narrow, almost claustrophobic, but it provided perfect cover. From his position, the entrance hallway was a long, narrow canyon. The sound of boots grew louder, the echo of footsteps on the concrete floor growing. They were close.
"Damn it! Where are the others?" said a deep voice.
"I don't know, but look at this," replied another voice.
John heard a pause, the silence broken only by the guards' heavy breathing. "Holy mother! He's got a knife to his throat! Who the hell is this guy?"
"And the other one is knocked out, but alive... And why is the communicator open?"
A chill ran down John's spine. They had discovered the communicator. If they were a professional team, they would have already tracked him down. Time was running out.
"Never mind! Listen. Follow containment protocol. You and I this way," said the deep voice. "The others, down the hallway on the right."
The group of four guards split up. John watched as two of them moved to the right, while the other two stayed behind to inspect the guard's body. The group of two, unbeknownst to them, was moving directly toward John's location. John remained still, his breathing slow and controlled. He waited, one hand on the P30L, the other on the knife.
"Damn it! It's pitch black in here," muttered one of the guards from the group heading toward him.
"Shut up and search," his partner replied. "We don't know what kind of lunatic we're dealing with."
The first guard rounded the corner of the shelf, his weapon raised, his gaze scanning the narrow corridor. He saw a shadow.
And that was it. In a split second, John burst out of his hiding place, a blur of movement. The knife, which had been in his hand, flew in a deadly arc and plunged with a sickening sound into the guard's throat.
The second guard, who was right behind him, screamed, his face a mask of horror. "NO!"
But his scream was drowned out by the echo of the gunshot. John's P30L fired with a dull thud, the bullet piercing the air and lodging itself directly in the guard's head. The man collapsed to the floor.
The other guard, who had been alerted by the sound, turned, his face pale. He saw John with his friend's body, the knife sticking out of his throat, using it as a shield. Blood gushed out, splattering John's uniform and the guard's face.
"SON OF A BITCH!" the guard shouted, firing without thinking. The bullets hit his friend's lifeless body, ricocheting off the bulletproof vest or burrowing into his flesh. It was useless.
John disposed of the body, pushing it to the ground. His gaze was cold, calculating. The guard was in shock, his eyes wide as he stared at the killer and the blood.
Without hesitation, John fired a shot directly at the guard's head, silencing him forever.
The echo of the shots reverberated through the pharmacy, a symphony of death that alerted everyone. The other guards, who were inspecting the area of the first attack, stopped dead in their tracks. Their communicators crackled, their weapons raised. The sound came from the hallway on the right, from where they had split up.
John, his gaze fixed on them, saw their eyes widen in a moment of horror and surprise. They were about 15 meters away, running toward him, weapons ready to fire. But John didn't wait for them to arrive.
With a quick, powerful shove, he knocked over the shelf next to him. It was a tall, heavy metal shelf, but with John's strength and precision, it toppled over. Bottles of pills, boxes of medicine, and all kinds of products spilled out in a cascade of glass and plastic.
The shelf crashed down, hitting the next shelf and triggering a domino effect that spread down the aisle. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Shelf after shelf, each one collapsed, dragging the others down with them. The pharmacy was reduced to chaos, with twisted metal, broken glass, and pill dust everywhere.
Several of the guards stopped, their eyes wide with surprise. One of them, the one in the lead, tried to dodge the shelf coming down on him, but he was too slow. The heavy shelf hit him, knocking him to the ground. His legs were trapped under the shelf, his arms clutching his weapon, his face contorted into a mask of pain.
The other guards, distracted by the chaos, were forced to stop. Their attention focused on their injured comrade, their eyes wide with a mixture of horror and surprise. "My God! He's trapped!" one shouted.
"Never mind! The intruder is around here!" said another, but it was too late. The distraction gave John a precious moment, a moment he did not hesitate to take advantage of.
The first guard, the one who had shouted, raised his weapon, his mouth open in mid-sentence. "Damn it, the guy is a...!" His voice cut off abruptly. A sharp, surgically precise shot hit him in the head, and his body collapsed to the ground like a rag doll. His weapon fell with a metallic clang.
The other two guards, who were only a few feet away, went on alert. "Fire! Covering fire!" shouted one.
They started shooting, bullets from their pistols piercing the air. John, with his catlike agility, ducked and slid behind the debris of the fallen shelves. He took cover behind a wall of twisted metal and cardboard boxes.
The bullets hit the metal, ricocheting or piercing the boxes. John, meanwhile, moved like a snake, his free hand ready to attack, his P30L ready to fire.
Through a small gap between the fallen shelves, John saw the silhouettes of the guards. They were professionals, not fools. One of them, a man with a scar on his face, moved, trying to flank John. He slid down the left aisle, hoping to surprise him. John, who had keen hearing, heard the crunch of his boot on the broken glass. He knew he was flanking him.
The guard peered around the other side of the shelves, his gun pointed. "I've got you, you bastard!" he shouted.
But his victory was short-lived. John spun around with a speed that defied physics, his body a blur of movement. The guard fired, but John, with a flick of his arm, used the fabric of his suit as a shield, creating a brief visual distraction.
The bullet struck his arm and ricocheted into the air, but it didn't hurt him. There was no time for pain. John's P30L fired, two quick, accurate shots that hit the guard's legs. The man screamed, his knee exploding in a sea of pain, and he fell to the ground, kneeling.
"ARGH! MY LEGS!" he screamed. "How... how did you...!"
The guard, unable to comprehend John's speed and accuracy, was stunned. His gaze was lost in confusion. John's P30L rose, and a third and final shot hit him in the head, silencing him forever.
The other two remaining guards, the ones near the hallway on the right, stopped dead in their tracks. The sound of the gunshots, the cry of the wounded man, everything echoed through the pharmacy. They were out of ammunition. "Damn it! I need to reload!" exclaimed one, and quickly pulled out another magazine.
John didn't give them time to do so. He approached them, his black figure a shadow amid the chaos. The guard, who was about to finish reloading, looked up and saw John approaching. His face was a mask of pure terror. "NO!" he screamed, but it was too late.
A shot to the chest, and the guard fell to the ground, his weapon dropping beside him.
The last guard, who was about to insert a magazine, saw John approaching and, with his trembling hand, did so as quickly as possible. Just as he finished, he felt something hit him in the stomach.
The force of the blow sent him flying, his weapon falling from his hand, and his body crashing into a wall. John's kick was brutally effective. The guard, dazed and breathless, remained on the floor, his weapon out of reach. John approached him, his face cold, his gaze a silent warning.
The guard, who was on the floor, couldn't move. His eyes were wide open, his mouth opening and closing, but no words came out.
John bent down and pointed the P30L at his head. "You shouldn't have come here," he said, and without hesitation, he pulled the trigger.
Silence fell over the pharmacy like a heavy blanket. The chaos of fallen shelves, the smell of blood and medicine, and the lifeless bodies lying on the floor. John walked slowly, his step steady and unhurried, as if the massacre he had just committed was nothing more than routine. He stopped in front of the last guard, the one who had been trapped under the shelf. The man groaned, his face contorted with pain and fear.
"Please... please, no..." murmured the guard, his voice a whisper muffled by the metal.
John did not respond. His face was a mask of stone, his eyes wells of icy calm. The man, desperate, tried to free himself, but the heavy, sturdy shelf would not budge. His face, bathed in sweat and tears, looked up at John.
"I have... I have children! My wife is waiting for me!" he cried, his voice a pathetic plea that echoed in the silence. "Please, don't do this!"
John looked at him, his gaze impenetrable. There was no compassion, no mercy, not even a hint of curiosity in his eyes. The man's words, his promises, his children, were nothing but noise. At that moment, to John, the man was not a person; he was just an obstacle, the last one in his way.
Without saying a word, John raised his P30L. The barrel of the gun, cold and dark, was aimed directly at the guard's head. The man's eyes filled with absolute terror as he saw his inevitable end. He closed his eyes tightly, waiting for the blow.
The shot echoed through the pharmacy.
The guard's body shook. Then it lay still, his head tilted, pain and fear replaced by eternal peace. John did not lower his gun, did not move. He stood there, watching the body, as if contemplating the end of a chapter.
And with the last shot, the pharmacy fell into total silence, broken only by the dripping of blood. John Wick turned around and headed toward his target.
Upstairs, the young man in the baseball cap, his bag of chips forgotten, stared at the main screen. His face was pale. His eyes were wide, filled with utter shock.
The monitor, which had captured every second of the massacre, now showed a man in a suit splattered with blood. The black suit, once immaculate, was now stained with the red of his victims. Blood dripped from his hands, splattering onto the cement floor with a wet sound.
"No... it can't be," he murmured, his voice trembling. He covered his mouth with his hand, his eyes fixed on the screen. "He's... a demon."
The other man, the one with the mustache, stood beside him, his eyes wide with silent horror. They watched as the figure of John Wick moved with cold, unyielding purpose. The man in black approached the first guard, the one he had knocked out. With frightening speed, John pulled a pair of zip ties from his pocket and used them to bind the man's hands and feet, tightening them securely to ensure he couldn't move.
"He's not going to kill him... is he?" whispered the man with the mustache, his voice a mixture of terror and awe.
The figure on the screen finished securing the man. Then he turned to the bodies of the other guards he had killed. The young man in the baseball cap watched in horror as John knelt beside the body of the guard he had killed with the knife.
With a quick, precise movement, he pulled out the knife. The metal, shiny and gleaming, came out of the throat with a disgusting sound. John wiped the blade with the dead man's clothes, then put the knife in his pocket.
"He just... he just killed six of our men," said the young man, his voice full of disbelief. "One... two... three... the ones in the hallway... five! And the one in the hallway... five! And the one on... on the shelf... six. Six! And he did it in less than a minute!"
"No... no, he didn't," said the man with the mustache, his eyes fixed on the screen. "Look at the blood. He didn't kill the last one. He's going to interrogate him. Or... or something worse."
Both watched, breathless, as John, his face smeared with blood and his suit torn, moved through the pharmacy, a ghost of death. He was looking for something. They didn't know what it was, but they knew one thing: the man on the screen was a hunter. And they were his prey.
John headed for the stairs leading to the second floor, his footsteps silent and deadly. His mind was already calculating his next move. He had taken care of everyone on the first floor, but he knew there were more. His intuition, second nature after years of training, screamed that the real target was upstairs.
That's when his gaze shifted. In the corner of the ceiling, almost invisible in the dim light, a small security camera was blinking. Its red lens, as small as a pinhead, was watching him.
A silent growl escaped his lips, understanding flashing in his eyes. So that's how they found me so quickly. It wasn't a mistake. It was a trap.
The realization was like a switch, igniting a cold, brutal rage inside him. He stopped dead in his tracks, raised the P30L with deadly fluidity, and stared directly into the lens. His gaze was like two daggers of ice. The barrel of the gun, pointing directly at the camera, was a black dot in the center of his field of vision.
In the monitoring room, the young man in the baseball cap and the man with the mustache froze. On the screen, John's figure stood still, his gaze fixed on the camera. They could feel the cold intensity of that gaze, even through the grainy video.
"He's looking at me," whispered the young man, his eyes wide. "He knows we're here!"
The man with the mustache, his face pale and his hands shaking, couldn't look away. "No... it's not possible. How... how can he see us?"
But before he could finish his sentence, there was a flash. The sound of a gunshot came through the speakers, followed by a crackle of static. The main monitor, the one showing John Wick, went blank. The young man in the baseball cap slumped in his chair, his hands shaking, his eyes fixed on the black screen.
"Damn it! Close the door! Right now!" shouted the man with the mustache. "Close it and lock it! For God's sake, he's coming for us!"
Both men stood up, their movements frantic, as the silence on the black screen grew heavier, more oppressive. John Wick, the ghost who had come back to life, was already coming for them. And this time, there was nowhere to hide.
Author's note: As always, I am grateful for your support. Please continue to support with power stones, and I thank AheTher_PredaTor3 for being the biggest donor. Thank you very much, and please continue to donate so that the story can reach more people.