The crowd surged around him as if it had a life of its own. As if it wasn’t a group of thousands of people but was one huge, pulsing life form.

It pushed him from side to side. He let the flow carry him from cart to cart through the market.

So this is where I’ll die.

He tried to look interested in the fish being offered.

Will these same people be back tomorrow? Will they know I died here?

Probably workers would come by and wash his blood from the cobblestones below. A squad would interview witnesses and in a few days no one would know what transpired here.

At least that’s the plan.

Then he saw them.

A dozen meters away, two men stared at him through the roiling crowd. He looked at them with resolve, accepting his fate.

He barely heard the gun shot before the white hot pain erupted from his chest. As he fell to the ground, the searing pain wrapped itself around his mind.

I hope this works.

And then the pain swallowed him completely.

He lay still, rivulets of blood slowly flowing away.