Hey! Thanks for the feedback, y'all. Here's a gift fer ya. Part three will arrive the same way. ^_^

Gun in my holster, pills in my gut, and a strangely renewed resolve in my mind, I unlock the white, wooden door I had almost aerated not twenty minutes before. Just before I touch the doorknob, I stare at my reflection in the polished brass. My eyes staring back at me from the knob, as if they were someone else's eyes, triggers a memory so vivid and clear that it takes every last bit of the drugs now racing through my veins to keep the memory from taking over completely.
While I'm spared the cruel sensation of my body being hijacked like an airplane, my mind is still assaulted by the barrage of imagery and broken sensations. I'd equate the experience to skydiving while blindfolded, or scuba diving in the wake of a passing ocean liner. Either way, it feels like a dive.
I'm seeing two images now. One was the cheery, shiny doorknob relaying to me the image of my harried eyes, bloodshot and encased in darkened eye sockets. My memory was the second image, superimposed and overlaid on the first one, as if I were viewing my memory through a very thin slide. I try to suppress it, and I'm mostly successful.
Before I'm allowed to leave my mental recap, however, I'm reminded of three particularly broken images.
The first was the image of my former partner being strapped down to a stainless steel autopsy bed, oddly pristine in the depths of the humid jungle.
The second was the image of his eyes staring back at me, pleading with me, begging me to remember something for the nice men (ironically, I can't remember it now either).
The third image, more faint than the others yet more potent by far, was enhanced by his screams filling my head like electricity in a light bulb. It was a single frame in a single second of film, but it made the rest of the movie fade to the back of my subconscious, only to be released at another time like this. The image, though very faint, was perfectly in synch with the one in my apartment. It was nothing but my partner's haunting, hazel eyes, no more than an inch from my face. In a Ziploc bag.
Without warning (as if any of this happiness had any sort of precursor) his screams grew louder and louder, making my eyes wiggle loosely in their sockets. The images suddenly stopped rolling, and I could once again see the only thing my eyes were pointed at. Themselves. They were wide, frightened, and, strange enough, less bloodshot and dark-lined than before.
I could also see my teeth, and it was then I realized that I was now the one doing the screaming. I always found it fascinating how I could entertain rational ideas and the logical process of thought even when the rest of me was enveloped in mortal fear. Maybe that's how I deal with the things I see and do. Maybe that's why I keep having these flashbacks. Maybe I'm just losing it. Maybe I already have.
I open the door, and a rush of warm, salty air fills my nostrils. I inhale deeply, relishing a spare moment when I can feel something without having to remember something else. Just before I close my apartment door, I step back in to retrieve some information from the dossier.
I know James Marcus' name, what he looks like, and approximately where he is now, but I needed something else. Something whose purpose and importance currently escaped me, but somehow I knew it was something I needed. I open the red envelope again pulling the packet of plastic-wrapped information out again. I searched through the photos, the files, and the various artifacts that helped to expose his location, spreading it all out over my sheets.
Three items caught my attention - an old rusty key, a surgical pin that "fell out" during one of his escapades, and a strange little piece of metal that held no discernable shape, but still felt pertinent to the issue. Before another memory could remind me what these things meant to me, if anything at all, I scoop them up. I don't know which one called out to me, but I'm sure all three have some purpose.
I make a promise to myself; give James Marcus a memory he can recall for eternity.
Without another look back, I lock my apartment door and head out to the park.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Heh, maybe one day I'll write more than a page, huh? Chapter 3 coming soon!