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The Crow: Phantom Gate Part 3
11:00 PM - Thursday, August 3rd.
A foggy night, Ricky's walking down a city street to get back to his apartment, it's drizzling out. An underground comic book store is still open, there are a few people in there thumbing through some comics one wouldn't find at their local Barnes and Noble. Ricky walks in to see what's new in the underground comic scene. The guy at the counter is reading a newspaper and drinking some coffee. Ricky's attention is grabbed by something he sees behind the counter on a shelf. A graphic novel called "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams and Other Unfinished Works."
"Excuse me, sir." He says to the man at the counter.
"Whattaya want?" The man asks him.
"What is that you have on the shelf back there? That graphic novel."
"That? That's a comic by a local artist who was murdered a year ago, the comics in the graphic novel were found still being drawn in his apartment and the publisher released it as a tribute to him." He tells him.
"Can I see it?"
"Yeah, sure." He tosses him the graphic novel, "Just don't rip it."
Ricky looks through the graphic novel, all his unfinished stories, poems, strips, sketches, stencils, and drawings that weren't published before he died where in it.
"All of these... I did all of these for her..." He says to himself. "Do you know anything else about the death of Ricky Thompson?"
"Huh? Who the hell are you anyways, kid? Coming into my store looking like a clown and asking all these questions?"
"Just tell me everything you know and I'll be on my way." Ricky demands.
"There's a convention next month, his publisher's gonna be there, ask them."
"Well I just don't have that kinda time, now tell me everything you know."
"Alright, after he was murdered, his girlfriend would come in here all the time for about a month, like every day she was in here asking about him and reading all his works that we had, and then one day this guy Mark just walks in and sweeps her off her feet and she stopped coming. I really didn't pay attention to their conversation, but she seemed happy that he came to be with her. Hey... you know you kinda look like Thompson."
"Ever hear of resurrection?"
Another customer yells to the man at the counter from the other side of the store.
"Hey, do you guys carry Fritz the Cat?" he yells to the man.
"No, we stopped carrying that after R. Crumb disowned the movie." He yells back.
He looks back at Ricky to notice that he's no longer there. The man looks around the store to see that he's no where to be found.
"Freakin' kids these days." He says to himself as he gets back to his newspaper and coffee.
Ricky's now back at his apartment, going through all the drawings he did for her that he never got to give to her, all the stories and poems he wrote. He then finds a box filled with old pictures of the two of them together.
"Damn, so many memories." He says as he flips through all the pictures. "I need to get my life back, and I need to get it back now."
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