Covered in a cold sweat, with heavy breaths and gasps, Foster jumped up from his sleep and grasped his chest. His mind was filled with absolute fear, but he had already forgotten what that nightmare was about. He just knew that it was absolutely horrific.

“Fucking… shit…” Foster slowly swung his legs to the side and pressed his feet onto the cold floor. He looked through the slits of his blinds, seeing the club’s neon lights on the other side of the street. Under his window, a bunch of drunks were either pissing at the wall or making out, or both for all he knew.

He stood up from his bed and walked a few steps forward, soon reaching his kitchen. He squatted down and opened the mini-fridge that came with the apartment, and pulled out a bottle of water. His pipes were too rusted for him to drink tap-water.

With a deep sigh, Foster turned his head and looked at the busted AC unit that he couldn’t afford to have repaired before drinking half of the water bottle in a few gulps. Foster dropped back onto his bed as he pressed the half-full bottle onto his forehead to cool himself down.

He felt the music’s beat from the club in his whole body without even hearing the rest that made up the song. This happened every night, even during weekdays. Well, even if the music wasn’t as horrifically loud as it was, Foster wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore anyway. Whatever nightmare he had woken him up completely.

After laying there for a little longer, Foster pushed himself off his bed again and walked over to his small closet. He pulled out a light shirt and some shorts and then pushed his feet into his run-down shoes.

He decided to go on a bit of a walk to calm himself down. Just as he was about to leave, he turned to the side and saw his reflection through the mirror of the small adjacent bathroom. He pulled on his messy hair that was hanging down into his face.

“I should get a haircut soon…” Foster thought to himself but didn’t really care enough to think more about this right now. He pulled his door open and stepped outside, quickly locking his door. The lock was already so rusted that it seemed unnecessary to do, though. Through a push with just a decent amount of force, anyone would be able to crack the door open without any problem. Not that there was anything that one would want to steal in there anyway. The only thing of value that he had were his headphones, and he was already wearing those around his neck.

Foster plugged them into his phone and put on a track with a relaxing beat to it, something that could distract him for now. Loud creaks traveled through the whole building as he walked down the stairs, and he had to push himself through the drunkards that somehow made their way into the entrance-way of the apartment building again. It was like the front door was just for decoration.

As he made his way outside, Foster bumped into one of those drunk guys. He was here every Friday night with his friends, although it was more than obvious that none of them were 21 yet. This kid was probably a whole foot shorter than Foster, but he acted like he was the king of the block.

“Watch where you’re going, dickhead.” The kid snarled at him, who just rolled his eyes, “Sorry, dude.”

“Yeah, you better be. Now fuck off.” With a smug grin, the kid pushed him away. The kid was definitely trying to provoke Foster, but he didn’t care about fighting some high-school kids. Especially those that just wanted to look tough in front of girls they wanted to fuck that night.

“Sounds like a plan.” Foster replied without much emotion in his voice and swiftly stepped out through the door. The smell of urine immediately penetrated his nose, but he ignored it. He was used to it already anyway.

He pulled his headphones over his head and enjoyed the music while walking through these dirty streets. It took him only about twenty minutes until he reached the small, quiet bar that he wanted to head to in the first place.

Foster walked inside and greeted the other regulars before dropping down onto one of the stools right in front of the actual bar. He placed his head down onto the surprisingly clean surface in front of him.

“Dude, the fuck are you doing here again? I thought you weren’t paid yet?” The barkeep, Jon, pointed out, and Foster slowly raised his head while rubbing his eyes, “I wasn’t. Just couldn’t sleep.”

“Need something to help you with that?” Jon asked, while his eyes finally focused on him. Foster looked at his friend with a smile that soon turned into a grin. With a loud sigh, Jon pulled out a liquor bottle and prepared some shots for both of them.

“Tonight’s on me. But when you get paid, you better pay for a few rounds.”

The two of them grabbed the shots and hit them together, “You always say that, but I never do it anyway.”

“And you always say that you’re only gonna come back once you get your pay, but you ain’t ever doing that either.” Jon pointed out. Foster grinned and shrugged as he downed the shot. Shivers ran over his body, and he placed the glass down onto the table.

“Hah, I think that’s doing the opposite. I feel more awake than before.”

“Give it half an hour and five more of those, and then try telling me that again.” Jon laughed as he placed a bottle of beer down in front of Foster, who was playing around with his empty shot glass.

With a worried expression, Jon held his hand against the back of his head, “Foster, listen… If you need to, you can always stay with us for a while. Ma’s talking about how much she misses you all the time anyway… You can stay and find a different job than… working for him…”

Foster looked at his own reflection in the bottle of beer and slowly shook his head, “Nah, can’t keep intruding on you guys.”

“Man, you ain’t intruding, you’re basically family. We grew up together, don’t act like we’re strangers now.” Jon tried convincing his childhood friend, but he didn’t answer.

Jon let out a mix of an annoyed groan and a sigh, and rolled his eyes, “Fine, but at least come over for some cake sometime. It’s Gammy’s 90th soon. You don’t wanna miss that, do ya?”

“Of course, I don’t wanna miss that. I’ll come, don’t worry.” Foster replied as he took a sip of his beer before pointing to the other side of the bar, “Now go do your job, you’ve got other customers.”

While Jon turned around, Foster’s phone started buzzing. He was sent a message by someone. And as he was reading it, Jon continued talking.

“Don’t you dare tell me how to do my job, man. I’ve had ten times as many jobs as you did, remember?” Jon laughed. And as he turned around after giving that other customer his drink, all he saw was Foster rushing out the bar with the beer in his hand.

“Dude!” Jon exclaimed, but it was already too late. Foster had already practically left out the door. Frustrated and not knowing what to say, Jon simply yelled whatever came to mind, “You’re not supposed to take the bottles outside, man!”

Foster didn’t hear his friend anymore. Instead, all he heard was the music blasting through his headphones as he was running through the streets to where his next job was.

It took him just a couple minutes to get there after running at full speed. It was actually somewhere in between his apartment and the bar, where he was supposed to wait for one of his ‘clients’ together with his ‘coworkers’.

And when he turned around into the alley, Foster could already see both parties there. One of his coworkers was currently holding the client, that drunk teenager Foster ran into before, by his collar.

“Oh! There he is! Dude, the hell’re you doing? This little fucker nearly got away.” The thug, Foster’s coworker, exclaimed with a somewhat excited grin.

While groaning loudly, Foster ran his fingers through his hair. He placed the bottle of beer onto the trash-container next to him and quickly pulled his headphones onto his neck again. He pulled the hairband off his wrist and tied his way too long brown hair into a ponytail. Once he was done, he grabbed the bottle of beer and finished drinking its content.

“What am I doing? I think I should ask what you’re doing.” Foster pointed out in an angry tone that already made the thug shiver, “I thought I told you we don’t deal with teens.”

“Teens? What’d you mean? He came out of the club!” The thug exclaimed, and Foster couldn’t help himself but groan while taking some steps forward, “You mean the club that illegally lets in even some dumbass middle-schoolers? Open your eyes, you blind bastard. These kids are obviously like 16, 17 years old. 18 at most.”

“W-Well, they still owe us some money! They bought from us last time, and we gave them the loan, so they’ve gotta pay us back!” The thug tried defending himself, but Foster really just didn’t care.

“You weren’t supposed to sell them anything in the first place, you piece of shit. I don’t want that on my conscience.” He groaned, and the thug seemed to be really fed up now.

“Ya know what? If you don’t shut the fuck up already, I’ll slit your throat! I get that you’re the boss’ favorite, but you’re nothing but some dumb fuck that thinks he’s better than all of us!” The thug exclaimed, throwing the teenager away to the side. The kid’s hand started bleeding after falling onto some shards of glass.

Foster looked back at the thug, his patience finally having run dry. It wasn’t the first time that he had to deal with people like this in his line of work, but it was even more annoying when they were his direct underlings. He tilted his head to the side, playing along and action confused, “Eh? What’re you talking about~?”

“What am I talking about? You fucking reta-” The thug yelled out, ready to pull out a knife and push it right into Foster’s throat, but he was swiftly interrupted by a recently-emptied glass beer-bottle being broken on his skull. Like a bag of wet sand, the thug fell to the ground as blood poured out of the cuts on his head, dyeing the thug’s blond hair a dark red.

The teenagers that had been gathered by the thugs were shivering in fear. They acted tough, but it was clearly the first time that they had seen something like this in their rather young lives. Even the other thugs, more ‘coworkers’ of Foster’s, froze up and simply had to watch Foster discipline their friend.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, bud.” With a broad grin, Foster squatted down in front of the thug he just knocked out. He luckily already woke up halfway, so Foster ran his hands through the thug’s dirty hair and pulled his face up so that they could lock eyes for at least a few moments, “You know exactly that I’m better than you. That’s exactly why I’m an executive, and you’re nothing but a useless fucking goon. The kind that you can find at every street-corner. The only reason you’re even still here is because I like charity, and you’re the biggest charity-case I’ve ever seen. But if you can’t even follow the simplest fucking rules, then I guess that’s that.”

With enough force to once more knock the thug out, Foster slammed this guy’s head into the ground. While hitting the dust and dirt off of his hands, Foster spread around the blood that had splattered onto his hands just now.

“You kids…” The small group of teenagers could feel a deep, angry glare directed at them. The ‘lead’ teenager didn’t even care that his hands were bleeding from the glass shards anymore, “Get the fuck out of here already. And stop going to that bar or taking drugs, it’s not good for you. You don’t wanna end up like this piece of shit there, do you?” While pressing his foot onto the half-unconscious guy writhing in pain on the ground, Foster locked eyes with each of the teens, one after another.

“What’re you doing? I told you to get out of here.” With that last warning, the teens immediately rushed out of the alley as if their lives depended on it, “Oh, and stay in school!”

Still somewhat annoyed, but feeling better after taking his anger out, Foster climbed onto the trash container standing behind him so that he could take a break. He just spent the past couple of minutes sprinting here, thinking he was called for an emergency, after all.

“And you guys, don’t just do what this moron tells you to. Just start using your fucking heads for once. Now get rid of him. Bring him to our place on 5th street, I’ll take care of him later. Don’t tell the boss about it yet either, I wanna deal with it myself.” Foster warned tehm, leaning back onto the dirty brick-wall behind him. It didn’t take long until he heard the familiar grumbling of a car’s engine,

“Guess I’ll head back to meet Jon again…” Foster grumbled. With his eyes still mostly closed, Foster pushed himself off the trash-container. He opened his eyes as his feet hit the ground. But to his surprise, his feet didn’t touch the trash-covered cocrete, but moist dirt. And when his mind caught up to what he was seeing, he realized that he wasn’t in that alley anymore.

Instead, clean wind blasted into his face as he saw nothing but nature stretch out in front of him.

Foster was no longer in that dirty alleyway, but on a goddamn mountain in the middle of nowhere.