I'm taking a joke too far.
Captain Troy Wilson of his town's branch of the First Sectis Bank was late for duty again. His bad habit of sleeping in was starting to catch up with him, and although no robberies had been successful while the guards were under his command, his superiors were picky about timing and such. As his slim fingers gripped the door handle to the guard entrance of the bank, he noticed that the handle felt grimy and sticky, and it left a residue on his skin. He wrote a mental note to inform the janitor.
Troy slowly shuffled towards his office. He was still recovering from his sleep, and his face drooped as a result. Several guards passed him on the way to the office, and each one jokingly pointed him towards the coffee machine. Troy was unamused, but grabbed himself a cup anyway. Upon reaching his office, he placed the coffee and his copy of the morning newspaper on the desk and sat in his chair, hands behind his head. In doing so, he noticed that whatever was on the door handle had gone away, though Troy had made no effort to remove it.
"Hello!" came a chipper voice from directly behind him.
Startled, Troy whirled around, but was astonished to find that nobody was there. He confusedly looked around for a bit before blaming it on bad plumbing in the walls. He grabbed the paper from his desk and began to read. The headline that morning was about a series of metallic thuds that had been heard around town two nights before, which had successfully been traced to reveal... a path with no particular pattern. Troy rolled his eyes. The police force in their small-ish town had a history of performing useless investigations, and this was no different.
"Hello!" came the voice again, this time from directly in front of Troy, and louder.
He slammed the paper down on his desk and stood up, now frantically searching for the voice's source. The office was empty, save for Troy himself. He opened the door to his office and glanced outside, only to find an empty hall. He shut the door and went back to his desk, unsettled. He grabbed the paper once more and opened it slowly, angling it so that he could see over the top.
Once again, the voice piped up with a cheerful "Hello!" This time, however, Troy could clearly identity the source of the voice: his own right hand. He brought it up to his face and examined it with wide eyes, slowly curling and straightening his fingers. "Ah, thank you! I do love a good stretch." responded the hand. Troy immediately jutted his arm out, getting his hand away as fast as possible. "Whoa, hey!" it cried, "No need to panic! I'm only a hand, after all."
"Exactly!" shouted Troy, "You're only a hand! You shouldn't be talking!"
"Why not?"
"BECAUSE THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"
"Anything's possible with force of will."
"You can't have a will! You're my hand! My brain sends you nervous impulses to you, which you then respond to with movement! THERE'S NO SELF-AWARENESS IN THIS SYSTEM!"
"I wish you'd stop these attacks on my character..." the hand muttered sorrowfully.
"You don't have that either!" responded Troy.
Before they could continue, a knock came at the door. "Sir," said a guard on the other side, "there's a couple of guys out front trying to break in! We need you out here!"
"In a minute." replied Troy, who had ignored most of the message, "I'm dealing with something."
"But-"
"IN. A. MINUTE." barked Troy. Startled, the guard fled the door to assist the front, leaving Tony and his hand alone once again. "Now," he started, agitation in his voice, "would you care to tell me what system allows you to talk to me? Is it magic? Someone mind controlling me?"
"I'm only a hand." was the solemn response. "I wouldn't know anything."
"Oh, please!" cried Troy, "Surely you know something."
"Even if I did," said the hand, now getting angry, "why should I tell you? You insulted me."
"You're my own right hand! I should be allowed to know!"
"Why don't you just back off, buddy." growled the hand. Any hint of cheerfulness was gone, replaced by anger.
"And what'll you do if I don't?" scoffed Troy, "You're just a hand."
With a series of jerks, Troy's hand grabbed his pistol and brought it to his temple, with one finger on the trigger. "This is what I can do, Troy." said the hand menacingly, "I could off you right here, right now. I'd die too, but who cares? I'm only a hand."
Suddenly, a new voice was heard, this one emanating from Troy's left hand. "Hi! I'm Henry!" said the voice.
"NO YOU'RE NOT!" shouted the other hand, "YOU'RE JUST A HAND! AND HANDS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD! JUST LIKE TROY HERE! AHAHAHA!"
"Wait, don't!" exclaimed Troy's left hand.
But it was too late. With a twitch of a finger and a bang, a bullet was launched straight through Troy's brain, ending him. His body slumped down in the chair and his pistol fell to the ground.
__________________________________________________
Zoveki was wandering the streets, his hands tucked in his pockets, when the sun arose. His short body cast a long shadow in the morning light, and he would occasionally glance left or right, as if searching for something. Finally, he saw it: a newspaper on someone's front porch. He walked over to it and, making sure nobody was watching, snatched it. Though Totch and Yanu's robbery had been successful the day before, he had to see for himself whether or not his part in it had worked.
Upon opening the paper, Zoveki was greeted with the headline "Local bank guard captain commits suicide" Zoveki read some of the story before muttering to himself "Eheehee... another one has been cured." With that, he turned and walked towards the rising sun.
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