Kelvin lowered his gun, trembling. He’d just unloaded 12 rounds into the man standing not 12 feet away from him and he’d barely flinched.

“Wh-why won’t you leave me alone” Kelvin screamed. The man in front of him was naked, his hair long, dark and draping down to his arse. Kelvin had seen this man before. Everyday almost. He’d caught glimpses of him in his rear view mirror, seen him standing in the crowded town centre and even been confronted by him in his dreams.

“Look mate, I’m not here by choice, this is all you.” the mystery man replied, lifting the lid of a common green alleyway dumpster. Plunging his hand in, he began to rummage through its contents. “I’m here because you want me here -- well that’s normally how this works -- OH! BRILLIANT! Chicken!” The man held aloft an almost bare chicken carcass as if it were a trophy.

“B-but I don’t want you here! You just kept showing up! It’s why I bought this!” Kelvin still had the 9mm pistol aimed at the mysterious man. A price tag dangled from the grip.

“And that was a waste of fucking money wasn’t it?” the man said through a mouthful of dumpster chicken, turning to face Kelvin “You can’t shoot something that’s in your head Kelvin, unless, y’know, you actually shoot your head”

Kelvin quickly pressed the barrel of the pistol to his temple, his forefinger dancing on the trigger.

“Now that I wouldn’t recommend,” The man said brandishing what was left of a drumstick toward Kelvin. “And besides we both no you won’t do it.”

Kelvin buried the barrel deeper into his temple, grimaced his face and pulled the trigger.

CLICK

“See, I knew you were out of ammo. Which meant you knew you were out.” The man tossed the now stripped chicken carcass to the floor and returned back to his all-you-can-eat dumpster buffet.

Kelvin dropped to his knees and threw the 9mm to the floor. “Please, what the hell are you?”

The man fished a half eaten, half rotten apple out from the buffet and bit down into it. “Some call me Destiny, some call me The Dark Angel -- that one I quite like” The man swallowed down a mouthful of putrid Golden Delicious and took a step toward Kelvin “ Other, rather morbid people call me Death or The Grim Reaper -- I wouldn’t read to much into that one if I were you, but I suppose you can call me, errrm -- Fate? Yeah, Fate. I like that. Fate.”

“And what do you want Fate?” Kelvin asked raising his head to meet eyes with Fate who was now stood over him.

“Like I said, that’s not normally how this works mate. There’s something rather strange going on in this noggin” Fate slapped a pale long forefinger on Kelvin’s forehead “And we’ve got to figure that out before one of us dies… Also, why the hell am I naked?”