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A man was lying against a wall. A wall torn to pieces by bullets and explosions. Blood was splattered on the wall, and slowly slid down to the floor, leaving dark red trails where they went. A lot of it was his own. Some belonged to his killer. Not that it mattered right now. He looked to his left, where a man was crawling away.

His legs and been shredded by an explosive the blew the wall out. Now he was slowly vacating himself. Unlike the man on the wall, he had a chance for life if he escaped fast enough. He groaned in pain as some of the ceiling fell upon him and pinned him to the floor.

"No!' he screamed, trying, unsuccessfully, to crawl out.

The man on the wall started to laugh. It sounded like strained wheezing.

"You're stuck...with me...now..." he said, pausing for breath every few seconds, "And soon...they're gonna...nuke this whole...place..."

At those words the man started shoving with all his might against the rubble. He grunted and groaned, heaved and strained, to no avail. He was truly trapped. He looked around and spotted the man on the wall.

"Damn you," he said, "This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. I'm not supposed to be here! I can't die here!"

"You'll die...alright. And I'll...be here...when it...happens..."

He looked up and sighed, trying to marshal his strength. He didn't want to die here before the fireworks. He wanted to see this man panic. He could hear the plane now. He didn't know how long it would be, but it was growing louder every second.

"Won't...be long...now." he said, smiling.

"You might die," said the man, "But I won't."

He raised his arm and pulled the sleeve back to reveal a small wristwatch. It was blinking and sounding an alarm now. Suddenly, with a smile and the push of a button, he disappeared. The man on the wall had just enough time to scream, before his world ended in a bright flash of light and fire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The man with shredded legs reappeared in a room filled with lights, listening to the sound of machines whirring right next to him. He screamed in pain and watched as three men in white lab coats rushed to him. On looked at his legs, and then back at him and said, "What the Hell happened Jack?"

"Well, first I was sent to the wrong time. Second, a man attacked me with a semi-automatic machine gun. And third, right after I got the gun away from him and blasted him with it, a bomb went off outside completely obliterating my legs for the third time this year. Can I please go to the hospital before we talk again?"

The man nodded to the other technicians who were carrying Jack, and they set him atop a stretcher and wheeled him outside of the lab. Much to his dismay, there was an ambulance outside the lab. That meant they knew something might go wrong, but they refused to tell him.

Well screw them, he thought. This is gonna be my last job. Not one more time. Too much can go wrong.

They loaded him in and strapped him down as the ambulance started speeding away. He wasn't so worried about his legs, as he was about the car crashing. He watched as a medic inserted an I.V. into his arm, which was delivering into his system what he hoped was morphine.

After several minutes, they arrived at County General Hospital, a place that had an exceptional emergency room, as he had come to learn personally. He was wheeled through the door right as the morphine really kicked in. After the head nurse told him to be calm, he passed out and thought no more.