the end and the beginning

Ryan stepped out into the warm, sunny day, the air tainted with the scent of death- innocent death. "Fil died, last night; apparently Grandma Pearl found him." None of these names or these people were familiar to Ryan. The voice identified itself as Rizzo Sprayberry. Clio was leaving, and Ryan would be left all alone, to fend for himself. She'd explained to him that she wasn't his emotional life support. The chaotic swarm that engulfed Washington Heights seemed to speak to Ryan. For a split second he felt the pain caused by the club that struck him in the back of his head. The next thing he knew he was at the bottom of an unknown body of water. There was no question in Ryan's mind that the same people who had killed his family were behind this. In the present situation his mind slowed down time long enough for his dying thoughts. Would anyone know that he was gone? Any heart feel pain as a result of his absence? Clio was leaving. She would never know he was gone. What about the red girl, Nicole? "What, the one that you had meaningless sex with?" His mind seemed to argue. No, she would never know he was gone, or care, for that matter. Life had given Ryan a chance, a chance to be loved, but he had pushed away those who could potentially have cared about Ryan; hell, he pushed away those who DID care about him, so that he could focus on how angry he was. Suddenly, time released itself upon Ryan and everything happened at once. Water began to fill his lungs as anger began to yield itself to the sweeping current. Wherever Ryan had been dumped, he had been miraculously placed next to the remains of his car, with only one of the tires ruined by the explosion. Ryan fought against the water and the ropes that bound him to the metal chair keeping him submerged, and managed to extract the air out of the tires and into his lungs. This bought him valuable time that he used to locate a sharp rock with which to free himself. Ryan swam to the shore, released and ready to begin a new life.