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    Chapter 24

    tab "Chad, before I go into my long and rather tedious explanation, I want you to not hate me. After all, it is your fault."
    tab "My fault? This is your fault! You were involved in criminal activity. You deserved to go to jail." John shook his head, as if he were actually dissapointed in my answer.
    tab "You should tell your fellow police friends that." I blinked.
    tab "What?"
    tab "You see, Chad, I'm not going make you the only one to go through this."
    tab "What are you going on about?"
    tab "Your 'friends' were murderers, like you call me. No, scratch. They were even worse than me. I remember that day. It was a little over fifteen years ago..."

    tab "A gang fight. A bad one. Our gangs had always rivaled, but today it seemed worse than ever. It was a war. Either we lived or died."
    tab "The streets were cleared of any pedestrians. Just us, facing eachother, what ever we could find in hand...Guns and knives, of course, but also wrenches, signs, anything that could be excused as a weapon."
    tab "The bloody battle started. At that moment, the rest of the world didn't even exist. It was just the thrill of battle. Moaning and groaning...people collapsing. Every pounding sensation of my wrench felt so good."
    tab "Then a police siren rang in the air. We started to move away as fast as we could. Any idiot would know to do that."
    tab "But today, the police men weren't just out to arrest. They were out to kill. My gang members fell, one by one. An ocean of dead bodies littered the ground. Charles and I somehow managed to escape. We stole a car, and left, finding ourselves eventually in your cozy neighborhood of Doom's Street, or formerly known as Blossom Street." He looked at me with cold, grief filled eyes, and said,
    tab "Do you know what that was like? Seeing my best and only friends shot down one by one? It was a man slaughter! We didn't kill any civilians. It was simply a battle between two gangs."
    tab "This was no little battle..." I interjected. "You guys were killing eachother!"
    tab "Oh, and so shooting everyone down would be the obvious solution to that?!" He was getting angrier with every word.
    tab "You guys were a threat if you were killing eachother just like that."
    tab "Eliminating the threat, right? You know, that kind of sounds familiar. What I did. With you, with Charles, and soon with the rest of the police."
    tab "This isn't going to happen. None of it" was all I could think of to say.
    tab "And what do you have to empower that?" I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out.
    tab "But let's move on. The murder itself. I'm sure you want to know precisely how it happened. Right?" I nodded.
    tab "Yes."
    tab "All right. Grab the popcorn, this could be long."
    tab "You can cut it with your nochalant attitude, Kyle!" I exclaimed. I was tired of his sarcastic comments, tired of the fact that he sounded like the talk of murder was like the talk of a sun shiny day.
    tab "Oh, let me assure you, Chad. I care very much about this case. That's why I made yours the first and most thoroughly thought through of all."