Beginnings – Part Three
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Problem was, I had no idea where the clergy was. Whitechapel itself was already big enough and I didn't know it well enough to fiend it on my own easily. Maybe I should have asked that old man where it was? Sadly, I had already been walking for nearly an hour. If I went back now he might not even be there. I had no other choice than to keep looking.

After a good while, I finally found the Clergy. It was dark and the watch I had read was 10:23. The chapel, originally what I assumed to be a grey-ish white colour, was turned darker by the lack of light. Despite this, it seemed like a beacon of hope in the otherwise awful-looking district. Its pyramid-like roof sitting atop the rectangular building with a bell tower in the front sat among all the other buildings with great contrast. 

All around me were beggars who were attempting to stay somewhat warm with whatever they could find. Prostitutes also hung around the street attempting to seduce any drunk that passed them by. The Clergy seemed so much nicer since no one dared to do anything on their front stoop. It was hard to tell if it was a respect thing or a fear thing.

Since I had come this far I walked up the stairs leading to the big wooden doors and knocked upon them as hard as I could. After a few moments of me standing in front of the doors, they opened just slightly. A man who was so old he didn’t look like he should be alive anymore let alone moving around peeked his head out of the crack between the doors.

“It’s bloody ten, what do you want?” He asked me harshly.

“Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour but I could use a place to stay the night and I was told You could house me. It just doesn’t feel safe out here at night.” I said. He eyed me up and down with a judgemental glare.

“You’re right about it not being safe but that isn’t my problem. Have you paid the tithe?” he said as if looking down on me. This money-grubbing geezer just wanted to extort me.

“No I haven’t and I do not yet have the means to do so, someone has stolen my wallet and I am new to London.” I lied as I knew he probably wouldn’t believe that I was from the future. Though most of it was the truth.

“Well, then we have no rooms for you. Begone with ye.” he said slamming the door in my face.

“Well, that’s not very Christ-like!” I yelled from the other side of the door.

I was ignored, so without anything better to do, I set off to find a bridge or alleyway that might serve as a temporary shelter. My luck that I thought was getting better ended up not being good at all. I had no home, no job, no friends, the list could go on and on. I was starting to feel rather depressed about all this. Nothing was coming as easily as I thought it would but you live with what you got. Now that I think about it, am I even alive? Could this be hell? I couldn’t think of an answer so I tried not to think about it as the more I thought about it the bigger of a headache it gave me.

With nothing else to do I just kept wandering for what seemed like hours but my watch, the only thing I have from the 21st century, read 11:07 PM. I decided I shouldn’t wander any longer so I found a random alley and laid down on a stack of old newspapers underneath a tarp-style roof that hung from the top of the alley. It was starting to get damp from the natural fog that was starting to come in and neither the papers nor the tarp did anything to prevent it. This left me cold.

Right when I finally found a comfortable position to sleep I heard the yelling of a young woman followed by her screams. I got up and began running towards the screaming. Once I arrived at the place in which the screaming came from, an alleyway that was slightly bigger than the one I had chosen to rest in. There was a woman laying on the cold, wet ground in a pool of blood. She was still breathing and had lost consciousness but what really caught my eye was the three men standing above her.

 One held a blunt bat-like object covered in blood and each was quite muscular. They could do far worse than the boar-like men that pummeled me earlier. Each of them was dressed in worker's clothes with thick coats over top of them and two of them were wearing newsboy caps. The two older ones had dense bushy beards but one was bald and the other had short oily hair. While the youngest of the three looked like he was in his teens with a soot-covered hairless face and short blonde hair. The one that looked like he was in his teens turned and saw me staring right at them. He clicked his tongue and as if on cue the other two turned and they all started running towards me. 

I ran as fast as I could but I wasn’t someone who ever did cardio by choice so they began gaining on me quickly due to my lack of exercise. I began wanting to buy them off with the little money I had so I reached into the stolen wallet and began throwing coins at them. Although the money didn’t exactly have the effect I wanted, it did something upon hitting their skin, some of the coins burned them causing them to slow down as they winced in pain. What exactly was in these coins? 

Seeing that, I grabbed some coins and started stuffing them between my fingers so that they were sticking out just a little. I didn’t know why they burned them but I didn’t care. It was the only thing I could think of. As the youngest of the men was closing on me I wrapped my arm around a lamppost, spun around, and struck him right in the jaw. To my surprise rather than knocking him out, it knocked him back and there were burn marks across his face from where I hit him. The other two watched eagerly as we fought. They obviously thought I was going to lose.

He lunged at me again, dodging to the left, and with a right uppercut struck him in the chin from below. He held his mouth and cried out as burn marks had formed on his chin. His mouth started dripping blood as he opened up his mouth and yelled out before I struck him in the mouth. When I did one of the coins in my fingers upon making contact with his mouth slipped from my grasp and into his throat. He cried out in pain as he choked on and then swallowed the coin. Clutching his chest, he began to vomit before falling to the ground. The other two stared in horror and surprise as his body turned into dust, as did I.

This was definitely hell. The others were no longer surprised as they were both now rushing at me with pure rage. With both of them coming at me I couldn’t block or dodge them. I was as good as dead but before I could accept my fate a new player entered the ring by kicking them both as he fell from the top of a nearby building. Upon landing he stood with an aura that made you want to back off due to his mere presence, or at least he did until he pulled out a flask and took a huge swig. 

Now he didn’t seem any different from any other drunks that walked the street other than that he was clean-shaven. His body was rather toned from what I could see and he wore similar clothes to what I was wearing except his coat was brown which clashed with his black leather gloves. Strangely, his gloves seemed to reflect glints of moonlight every so often. The strange man had short golden hair except for in the back where he had a long ponytail that stretched down most of his back and was tied with string every twenty or so centimeters. 

He put away the flask and raised his hands in a classic martial arts position right as both men got back to their feet. Both of them rushed at him and threw their heavy fists toward the man’s face but before the attackers could touch him in one fluid motion the man moved out of the way and launched one of his opponents into the air with a simple punch to the chest. 

 landing on his back with a loud thud he couldn’t comprehend what had just happened to him before he received a swift punch to the throat. Now most of the time this would knock someone out cold or crush their windpipe but his strike beheaded him and he turned to dust as the other did. The last one left alive saw this and ran. Causing the ponytail man to give chase. 

“Wait” I called out but he didn’t listen. I was alone once again. Remembering the woman who they attacked I ran back to her. She was still there, unconscious. I began to see if I could wake her only to be called out from behind, by the police.

“Come out of there kid!” one of the officers said.

“It wasn’t me I swear. I heard a scream so I came to check it out and she was like this.” I replied as I came out of the alleyway.

“A likely story.” he said, cuffing me as his partner ran up to the girl.

“She’s still alive.” he said reluctantly.

“Get her to a doctor. I’ll take this one in for questioning.” the officer replied as he led me away.   

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