Jack stepped up off the street. His white, 'drug-baron' shoes rapped quietly against the concrete. The mottled black-and-grey skinny jeans he wore protected him from the wind, while his upper body seemed bare to it. He wore a simple, long-sleeved cotton shirt, a light bluish colour. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, despite the cold. It was just the way he liked it. To others, it seemed he was insane, given his lack of warm clothing, especially in the cold of the rural Australian winter. At six degrees Celsius, the day was by no means warm. However, the athletic, surfy-looking Jack's choice of clothing resonated from the simple reason that he didn't feel the cold as badly as others. It was just something he'd been blessed with. Looking cautiously about him, and into the trees surrounding the area, Jack began to step faster. Despite his insensitivity to cold, he had a rather low pain threshold. Maybe they went hand in hand? He didn't know, but he'd always speculated. Stepping of a low road island; a thin road division, used to separate lanes, he quickened his pace, and almost leapt the last two steps to the kerb.

Jack continued walking, not losing a second, as he began to travel along a lengthy driveway. The driveway, and accompanying house, belonged to an old 'acquaintance.' Jack shook his head. It'd been far too long since he'd even seen the person he was now trying to visit, let alone talk to them. They say that age messes with people. The man he was now planning on visiting was the embodiment of this term. Head down in the wind, so as to maximise his walking speed, Jack continued. His pace gradually become faster and faster, until he was at a near jog. His ears pricked, and he started jogging. A faint rumbling wafted in through the trees surrounding the driveway. Jack began to run. His heart rate started surging. Sweat immediately broke out on his forehead; something that was generally seen as a deformation, but it was just the way he was.

The rumbling loudened. It swiftly turned into a dull roar, as a Jeep rocketed out of the woods, barely missing Jack; he rolled to the side, as he felt the breeze from the huge vehicle that had passed him by bare centimetres. He felt the roaring heat of the overworked engine as it passed. The huge, khaki vehicle slammed into the ground, bouncing around on old, crappy suspension. Kicking up a huge dust storm, it pulled a U-ey; a full u-turn. As the dust settled, it became a bizarre, almost Western, stand-off. The Jeep's wheels spun to life, kicking up dust and small stones, the driver slammed his foot on the accelerator. The behemoth vehicle rushed at Jack. Leaving it to the last second, Jack pulled a combat knife from a small, concealed pocket on the inside of the skinnies he wore. Diving to the side, as the Jeep again narrowly missed him, he began sawing at his jeans. Long jeans were shocking for manoeuvrability and agility. What he really needed were short pants. So he was going to make them. Careful not to slice into his leg, Jack cut his jeans just above the knee, so as to allow the greatest movement. With his heart racing as fast as it was, and the adrenaline kicking in, he didn't need warmth. One of the pant legs was severed, now. Tearing it free, Jack threw the fabric aside. One leg to go. The Jeep had turned again, facing Jack. Standing, looking slightly awkward with one long pant leg and another short, but too focused on the Jeep to care, he held the knife low, at his side. Again accelerating, the Jeep driver had other plans of action for this pass. Just as Jack was about leap, he gave up on the idea, and the driver swerved in the direction Jack's leap was to be. The Jeep slammed into a rut on the side of the driveway. Still turning to the left, the huge vehicle was overcome by gravity. The behemoth came crashing down, still sliding several metres, before coming to a grinding halt. Unaware of the ruts previously, Jack looked to both sides of the driveway. Sure enough, both sides bore a rut, looking more like a trench than a small, lengthy ditch.

The Jeep's right door, at a forty-five degree angle to the ground, came flying open. A black-clad assassin stepped into the doorway, hunched over, standing on the edge of the door. Pulling a small Glock pistol from the dashboard of the Jeep, the assassin fired several shots at Jack. The booming sound of the bullets racing at immense speed caught Jack by surprise. Stunned for a second, before two bullets sped past his chest, one burning into his shirt, leaving a thin, charred trail, Jack dived to the ground. An army roll to the side of the road, and he was on his feet. Running blindly toward the forest, he forgot about the rut. Misjudging his stepping distance, Jack rolled his ankle as he fell awkwardly into the ditch. As he screamed out in pain, the assassin stepped out of the Jeep. Raising the Glock again, the black-clad mystery attacked fired off several rounds around Jack, to frighten him. Death by gun wasn't nearly enough fun for the assassin. The only way he would be satisfied was if he killed the poor sod with his bare hands. Approaching the ditch, it was deep enough to completely hide a person from view, until about two metres away. The closer the assassin got, the wider the smile became. Stopping momentarily, the assassin pulled two gold knuckle-dusters from his pocket. The grin covered the man's hidden face. As he stepped closer to the ditch, he blinked, slowly, wanting to take in the view of.... Nothing. Jack had gone. The assassin swore, loudly.

Seeming to materialise out of nowhere, Jack's fist slammed hard into his assailant's knee. Groaning, the black-clad man fell to the ground. Ripping the knife out of his pocket, Jack stabbed it into the man's back. Trickles of blood emerged from the wound, and the liquid seemed to explode out of the assassin's back, as Jack ripped the knife out. Not quite content, he slashed side of the man's neck. Blood trickled out, seeming to catch itself in the folds of the assassin's clothes. Despite the two massive injuries, the man stepped back up, as Jack backed off. "Doubt it." Stepping deftly forward, Jack swiped the gun from the assassin's back pocket. Quickly throwing the gun up, he pulled the trigger, once, twice.

The assassin's body fell to the ground with an unceremonious thump. Dark red blood splattered onto the ground. The blood was pooling around the body. Jack stood over the body, and raised the gun one more time. This time, the bullet was going straight into the heart. Jack pulled the trigger for a second time, and the 9mm burst to life. It tore straight through the skin, burning it's way through the assassin's body, and buried itself in the dirt. Just to make sure, Jack checked the pulse, kneeling as he did so. His finger lingered on the neck of the corpse, for one, two seconds. There was no pulse. He was well and truly dead. Dropping the gun, Jack stood, turned around and walked back to the house.

He hadn't noticed it before, but the closer he got to the house, the more Jack realised his head was throbbing. Clutching his head with one hand, he squeezed really hard. The throbbing subsided quickly. Shaking the pain out, Jack kept walking. His feet lightly crunching the dirt beneath his feet, he stepped onto the wooden porch at the front of the completely wooden house. Cautiously, Jack crept over to the window. There were curtained by flimsy pieces of cloth, but managed to allow some light to filter in, creating blurry shadows. Aside from a strange, circular shadow in the rough centre of the image, it was basic living room furniture. Satisfied with this basic surveillance, Jack approached the door and lightly rapped his fingers against it. There was no response, even after several seconds. He again knocked, this time slamming his knuckles into the door. The door, completely loose, fell away. As it did, a machine gun was kicked to life. A steady stream of bullets poured out of the barrel of the aging weapon, slamming into and splintering the door as it fell. Jack quickly spun to the left, out of the doorway, and out of the gun's sights. Bullets sped off into the woods, at blistering speeds of 710 metres a second. Trying not to get shot again, he checked the window again. The circular shadow he had seen previously had seemed to retract, and shrink. Odd, he thought. Through the door, a faint click sound emerged. "The hell?" Jack asked himself a rhetorical question, as he usually did. As soon as he finished the question, a huge boom rocked the entire house. Jack dropped to the ground, as a massive log came bursting through the woodwork of the house. The two-metre wide piece of wood tore out a huge chunk of the house's front. On it's way out, it collected one of the porch's beams, tearing it completely free. Jack rolled to the side, as the rest of the four-metre long log cleared the house. The wooden missile fell to the ground just past the porch. The entire window to Jack's left had been torn out, as had much of the surrounding panelling. His ears were almost burning. The ringing in them was absolutely intense. Cringing, Jack laid his head on the porch, shutting his eyes, hard. He groaned, wincing as the ringing began to die out. As it did, he failed to hear the second click. Only the ungodly boom. Another log, slightly smaller than the first came crashing through, barely above Jack. It had been fired from a different position than the first. It too tore down a large piece of the house's woodwork. Splinters, dust and chunks of debris rained down. The log slammed into Jack's side, throwing him forward, off the porch, and onto the hard ground. He felt a rib instantly break, and several others cracked. The air was forcibly ejected from his stomach, as he was driven at speed into the rocky driveway. Stones dug into his back, and a huge log was pressing into his side. The log had lost all its energy when it had hit Jack, and as such was only carried forward by immense momentum. Jack struggled to inhale, and coughed every time he exhaled. He spat blood twice, the red liquid landing on the dusty road. His raspy breathing was almost painful to listen to. Rolling onto his stomach, Jack desperately tried to crawl. His energy drained, all he could do was collapse every time he tried. His entire body was burning with pain. He couldn't move. Only lie, and wait. He rolled onto his side, and then onto his back again. Desperately weak, he flopped his arms out at his sides, at right angles. From above, he look as through he was being crucified on the ground. Eyes bloodshot and red, Jack closed them, and welcomed the silent, black embrace.

His eyes raced open. Sunlight burned into his retinas. Jack groaned, covering his eyes with his arm, blinking sorely. Nothing had changed since he'd fallen into his coma. Well, he wasn't sure whether it was a coma, or unconsciousness, or if he'd just fallen asleep. It didn't matter. He was here for a reason. Dusting himself off, Jack realised how much pain he had been in, before he'd fallen into whatever submissive state into which he'd fallen. Looking up, he saw the two gaping holes in the side of the house. Pieces of wood hung limply from the house. Two massive steel columns, the cannons that fired the logs, were hanging perpendicular to the floor. "How in God's name did they manage to get that working?" Again, a rhetorical question directed at himself. For a third time, Jack began walking towards the crippled building. Stepping onto the porch, again, he checked for traps. "Wouldn't put it past him." Talking to himself was one of Jack's favourite pastimes, though he wouldn't admit it. Click. "Shi-" Jack didn't finish the sentence before a third and final log came spiralling out of the house, this time on the right side of the door, not the left. It too destroyed one of the porch's support beams, and the roof above Jack couldn't deal with such little support. With an almighty creak, the overlooking room came crashing down. Still bearing damaged ribs, Jack leapt off the porch, as the room collapsed into the, also wooden, porch. The sound of wood tearing and scraping against itself was a hellish noise. As the entirety of the room fell, it seemed to explode outward, with a speedy Jack trying to outrun the devastation. Wood, like water, spilled onto the driveway, with large chunks of debris rolling along the ground awkwardly. It was the second time he'd been forced to evacuate the house, due to the seemingly random, albeit, decisively planned destruction. Ever since Jack had stepped into the vicinity of the house, destruction and death had been the object of his life. An omen, perhaps? Nothing, it seemed, could stay intact with Jack around. He looked back at the still smoldering Jeep. Including people's lives. Seeing the broken, bent and damaged vehicle still smoldering left Jack wondering how long he'd really been out. A few minutes? Hours? Maybe a day, tops. But, he thought, that meant that the log firing had been triggered by someone inside the house. Or perhaps it had been his activity outside, on the porch. Or even timed, perfectly? Timing it, however, would imply that the person responsible had an impeccable ability to see into the future, with split-second timing. Highly unlikely.

For the fourth, and 'what bloody well better be the last', time, Jack approached the house again. The collapsed room was now strewn all over the ground. Huge pieces of splintered and broken wood poked out from the wreckage like spears. It looked like a grisly, unnatural formation, resembling that of the Greek phalanx. A breeze blew in. the most disturbing thing about it, was that Jack couldn't feel the temperature of it. He felt the breeze, but no heat or cool; nothing that is generally associated with a breeze. Rubbing his tired eyes, and shaking out his tired legs, he stepped toward the house. Amazingly, the room had not collapsed over the doorway, at all. For the 10 or so centimetres either side of the doorway, there was no evidence of any destruction at all. However, the door lying at an awkward angle on the floor spoke otherwise. It was covered in bullet holes. Beyond it, was a mounted AK-47; the gun that had fired when the door had fallen. Now that he could see inside the house, Jack realised it was all a big set-up. An engineering marvel, to be honest. Wires and electrical connections had rigged all the traps to be set off. The gun was rigged to a small pressure pad on the floor, and the door now lay on top of it. The first log had been set off by a motion sensor on the right side of the window, which Jack had looked in prior to the door knocking. It was timed, too. The second log was timed to go off exactly 12 seconds after the first log was fired. It was absolutely ingenious. But that still didn't answer Jack's question of how in the hell it was all arranged. It was a wooden house. How where these traps connected to power outlets? There were none in the room. Jack kept looking around the room. Something on the other side of the room struck him as odd. It was stone-walled fireplace. In a wooden home. Seemed like an odd decision, but whoever lived here obviously enjoyed it, as they had left several bottles of wine and other alcohols in bottles underneath a nearby table.

Just before turning away from the fireplace, Jack was struck by a thought. "Fireplace. Wood home. Extremely flammable substances." He paused. "Another trap." Shaking his head, Jack ran to the other side of the room, as quick as he could. But the fire was quicker. The fireplace fired a small block of grease at the table in the middle of the room. It knocked over a glass of whisky, and the liquid spilled out. It caught fire. What Jack couldn't see was that a small hole had been drilled in both the table and a bottle of wine. The trickle of whisky, aflame, reached the bottle. Instantly, the bottle exploded, as did the other bottles of fairly expensive wine. Molten glass fragments were flung across the room, in every direction. One struck Jack in the back of the left thigh, and he fell to the ground. Reacting quickly, he managed to almost leap forward to the other side of the room, and throw himself against the wall as the entire other side of the room exploded in a spectacular alcohol-fuelled reaction. Bricks, mortar, wood and glass were flung at incredible speeds around the room, and out into the open air. The roof had caught fire, and Jack could barely walk, let alone escape. Cinder burning all around him, and the smoke filling the already thick air, Jack shut his eyes and began feeling the way around with his hands. The seemingly endless wall gave way, suddenly, to a thin doorframe. Clutching the right side of the frame, Jack jumped to the side, landing on one foot, and swung himself, backwards, into the room. A huge explosion of glass and flame tore out the rest of the overhanging roof. The wood was thrust up and out, clattering to the ground, still smoldering, several seconds later. Ripping his eyes open, Jack dived to the black and white checkerboard tiled floor. The room was tiny, and filled with appliances. It was the kitchen of the wooden house, and it was the only thing not comprised entirely of wood. In fact, there was no wood in here at all. It was all metal. Which, theoretically, meant it could stop the flames and the ensuing explosions. Looking around, Jack desperately sought an escape. There was a large windows at one end of the kitchen. It sat a metre off the ground, and a metre from the roof. Two metres in length, it was perfect for Jasan to jump through. He stepped quickly over to it, and pushed against it. A massive fireball tore through the door frame to the kitchen. Instantly, the wooden frame caught fire, and the metal around it turned yellow, almost pulsating with heat. The tiles were charred beyond recognition. It was all a big, black mess. The heat was becoming unbearable. The air around him was getting distorted, as it did in immense heat. His arm hairs stood on their ends, erected by the heat. Stepping backwards, Jack ran up to the window.

With a quick, almost insufficient run-up, Jack leapt onto a nearby stool, and jumped off, curling into a little ball. Arms covering his face, he slammed into the window. The glass pane shattered under his weight, and tiny transparent splinters dug into his arms. Glass clattered onto the driveway, which was covered in pieces of debris and smoldering wood. Uncurling from the ball, Jack landed on his good leg, and tried to bounce, before he fell, rolling a metre or two. Clumsily getting to his feet, Jack began to limp hurriedly away as the remnants of the house exploded in a gargantuan fireball. Huge pieces of flaming, burning wood rained down around Jack's ears. Covered in dust, debris and a little bit of blood, Jack was a complete mess. But he wasn't down and out, yet. Stepping slowly away, a piece of wood that had sailed tremendously high came crashing down on his back. Too weak to resist, he collapsed instantly. The wood charred his shirt, and singed his skin, but he didn't notice. He'd slipped into unconsciousness the moment he hit the ground.