The searing heat is unlike anything I've ever felt before. My hand presses firmly against my abdomen in a vain attempt to hold back the warm blood from spilling out of the gaping wound. My breath is labored and my vision is blurred, yet I press onward. I won't go back.

I can't go back.

Every step I take likely brings me closer to a burial plot my family can't afford, yet it takes me one step further from shackles and a life behind bars with disgusting food and frightening shower etiquette. A true catch-22. With bullet lodged in my gut I struggle forward, pressing towards the unknown but certain that what I run from is nothing I want apart.

"Ez! Stop!"

Ezra Jackson. That's what they called me back then, an identity that I feel no connection to any longer, yet I realize without him I wouldn't be the man I am today.

"I'm not going back!" I yelled in defiance as I made my way up the fire escape, leaving behind a trail of blood that would be all too easy for the police to track. My name carried weight in the streets, rivals could make a name for themselves by digging a knife into my throat. But out here they would never catch me. In there though? Their 'security' would turn a blind eye to anyone who could promise them a few hundred dollars, and what did they care? Bad guys killing bad guys, as far as they were concerned they were doing the world a favor. Was that what I was though? A bad guy? I did what I did to survive. I had a sickly mother, younger brothers... I knew that shit was a cancer to the community but it brought in the money for diapers, formula, food. They never explain that in the movies, us 'bad' guys selling on the corners look like we're out there to cop a Rolex or flex for our boys but...I was just trying to put food on my brothers' plates. My mom couldn't afford her medicine. I couldn't care less about gold, diamonds, or chains. I just wanted to get by.

"Ez! Quit running!"

But these fucking cops wouldn't let well enough alone. I ran into these same soggy fuckers week after week, and we had an understanding that if I didn't step on their toes, they didn't step on mine.Tonight was different, however. Whether he was a rookie, overzealous, or just wanting to watch a young black man draw his final few breaths, this beat cop decided he wanted to negotiate the hard way. He pushed, I pushed back--hardly a rare occurrence, but this one was different. He drew on me. I didn't carry a weapon, I had no need to. I was a firm believer that anything could be solved with fists, yet there he stood with pistol drawn and barrel pointed right at my gut. And he fired.


"Stop running!"

Their words fell on deaf ears. I may have had a stomach full of lead and was losing blood faster than Eli James would lose a copyright lawsuit, but I kept moving. Roof to roof, I frantically tried to escape the shackles that they wanted to place on me. It seemed with each leap, each bound, getting up became harder and harder. My vision became blurrier, I could taste the blood coming up from my throat. I knew I needed help, but if I stopped I may as well have died right then and there.

And then everything changed.

I stood, apprehensive and terrified, at the edge of the Mulder building. I surveyed my surroundings, wondering how I could shake them. And then I felt it, twice, that feeling of splitting flesh and ruptured organs as two more bullets tore through my torso. My hands instinctively reached for the fresh holes in my body, but I plunged off the edge of the roof before I could even make sense of what happened. I fell for what seemed an eternity, terrified yet strangely relieved. I was going to die when I hit the pavement, I accepted it, but at very least I was not going to be locked behind bars like an attraction at the zoo. I closed my eyes and readied myself for what would be the finals moments of my pointless existence. I remember the feeling of slamming against the concrete. The splintering and cracking of bones was deafening, I remember the cruelness of being alert and awake as my body buckled and broke against the concrete, wondering how long before my consciousness would simply cease to exist.


But my eyes opened once more.


They saved me.


What felt like moments was actually days. The elderly couple scraped my lifeless body from the pavement and nursed me back to health. I'll never forget the feeling of that rebirth. It took days to formulate the proper words to thank them for saving me. I may not have had any ill intent in my transgressions, but I was far from worthy of redemption. And yet there I lay, bandaged, bloodied and alive, searching for the reason why this elderly couple thought it best to bring me into their home to nurse me back to health. I asked, day-after-day, why they did it.


They never answered.

They went about caring for me, when I was belligerent, dejected, and downright hate-filled.

Until one day, I asked and the old woman simply replied, with a smile, that it was 'Aicha's will.' "Who the fuck is that?" I asked. The tongue of a blasphemer, had I been in their position I would have cut it out and forcefed it to me. But they were kind, they were patient. Little did I know, they were preparing me for a life much greater than I had lived thus far.

----------------------------------

"Noah Jackson.

I have watched countless members of the XWF roster flounder about, attempting to carve out some semblance of purpose. But you, you are the most offensive of all. You rely on repeated insults of childish origin, contributing nothing but smirk-worthy humor and pathetic attempts to embarrass the roster. The drivel that spews from your mouth is no less offensive from sewage seeping up from the sewers, and is no more clever than the incessant ranting that is vomited from the worthless mouths of the poor excuses of talent that the XWF has to offer. Beating you this Saturday at Savage is the end of my prologue, I will announce myself to the world at War Games. All of this thus far? This has been a teaser, just a glimpse into what I am capable of. After this Saturday, I welcome all to view exactly what I am capable of. Noah, you will have a front row seat."