Gunslinger

Morpheus

the sun is high overhead,

dust swirls around their feet,

ten paces apart each man a giant.

eyes pierce, glance and squint through the haze,

fingers flex and re-flex convulsively, hands hovering just off their thighs.

The tension mounts but his heartrate slows, his breathing evens as if he has accepted the next breath will be his last.

The heat inexorable, nevertheless seems not enough to warm his body which now fills with a cold chill, a freezing fire which runs from his heart into his arms and hands.

Then he feels it,time slows, each second an hour and his vision begins to tunnel.

The time approaches, a bead of sweat which has been forming where the brim of his hat sticks to his clammy forehead has finally begun its inexorible journey downwards and gathering pace it runs down his brow.

There, The Other spots the light reflecting on the salt water droplet as it begins to move.

The Others chance comes,its just the instant after the water droplet has passed through the slender hairs on the left brow above that squinting green blue eye, momentarily freefallen and then splashed across the eyeball, his adversarys vision is for a split second blinded.

Now or never, The Other reacts explosively, right hand forms around the pistols familiar grip, his arm pumping backwards begins retracting the smith and wesson 45 from its holster just as the other hand whips around, palm flattened he catches the hammer. slamming it back the round feeds up into the chamber and is followed almost instataneously by the forefinger pulling on the trigger.

!BANG!

!BANG!

wide, he shot wide, he's never missed before,

he's never,

never....

on his knees now, his energy fading, breath becoming faster and shorter,he feels his lungs filling with liquid and realises that he is drowning in his own warm blood, he looks down at the smoking hole in his chest and then back up at the ranger... he tries to pull the trigger again, pain wracks his chest and his pistol falls from a weakened grip.

His head becomes heavy, darkness is falling, he feels no pain no, nothing, life escapes his body before it tumbles face first into the dust.

The other blinks and wipes his brow, he thinks to himself "it was close", he looks at his left arm where the shot has clipped him, it came a split second after he had fired his own round, it has cut clean through the inside arm of the sleeve of his leather coat but passed harmlessly through without cutting flesh.

He turns and walks away, another day another dollar.

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Dont often write at all really and it probably shows, this is a bit crap, but opinions please.