Death Scenes: Small Change

Tommy Vercetti holds his gun in one hand, and his intestines in the other.
He is slumped in the back of an abandoned taxi cab, watching his blood ooze across the battered black vinyl and seep into the old yellow foam of the upholstery, staining it a strange orange.

He got the cheap hood- the other cheap hood, let's be honest- that gutted him. He's sure of that. It's something, at least. More than he has any right to ask.

It doesn't hurt much, and that's good. But the way his breath is hitching startles him. It shouldn't be this dark. There's a streetlight right fucking there. It shouldn't be this dark--

And then he's on his feet outside the taxi cab, and his body is whole, and the rumbling hum of the city around him has stopped, just stopped, and the street is empty--

Not quite.

There's a girl leaning up against the lamppost, all in black. She's smiling, a little.

"Hi, Tommy."

On some deep, primal level- ha, on a gut level, Tommy understands.

"Guess that's it, then?"

"Yeah. It is."

He looks over his shoulder, at the gun still clutched in his lifeless hand, and at the mess of his stomach. "Glad now I ain't got a wife or anythin'. Glad my mother's not gonna haveta know 'bout her only son dyin' like this." He looks back at the girl. "I wasn't that great of a guy, I guess."

"You were who you were. It's over now."

She reaches out, and there's only peace in her eyes, only understanding. "Take my hand, Tommy."

He feels a weight fall from somewhere he didn't even know he still had, and puts his hand in hers.

And so it goes.