New Beginning 729

Six weeks earlier, a doctor had given me less than two months to live. It wasn't a formal diagnosis, as such -- more of a threat. His wife was beside me at the time, and neither of us had expected him home so early.

I'm the type to sleep right through the alarm, dead to the world, but there's something about the cool, dry click of a hammer being pulled back that cuts right through the sweetest of dreams and it had me instantly awake. It was still dark. I could smell cigar smoke and whisky -- a...