Come Knocking

CHAPTER 1

The lone figure hobbled painfully down the road, one hand clasped to his bleeding thigh, the other just hanging aimlessly by his side.

He wore a filthy white shirt, the collar now dog eared and embedded with stale sweat. The baking sun bore down on his navy, army-style, jacket - burning its fabric so intensely that the colour pigments had actually started to fade, giving the whole coat a washed out purplish tinge at its fraying edges. Upon the jacket's left arm was a peeling smiley sticker, the actual curl of the paper contorting the smiley's face into a strained grimace.

The other arm was stained with blood.

"Go... go... with the flow -" He whispered quietly to himself, head hung over, cast in thick shadow by his greasy hair. With every jaunty step he took, a spurt of blood escaped from his clutching hand and dripped onto the tarmac road - where it sizzled in the sun.

He wheezed and gasped, as if his throat was lined with dry sandpaper - and yet he still whispered quietly to himself, those same words over and over again.

"Go... go... with the flow."

Fields of daisies surrounded him - their once canary yellow petals, now scorched brown; dead and lifeless. Everything dead in this world, apart from him, the punishing sun in the sky, and Death itself.

He shook his head swiftly once - for no apparent reason.

["You don't have to, babe - we can work it out!"]

"No... we... ca-n't..." He groaned to himself, shaking his head side to side, his free hand starting to twitch.

"Can't... just can't -"

A slight wind suddenly blew from the north, lifting up his mopped fringe, scantly revealing his face. His skin was sickly white, the hair only moving enough to reveal a circular scar gouged all the way around his right eye - the pupil of which, was pooled with blood.

He smiled, a lopsided grin that revealed pristine white teeth.

["No, no please - just put it down, we can sort it all out!"]

"Baby, baby, babyyy..." He spoke clearly, his tone now remarkably smoother and refined. In some eerie way it was as if he was trying not to laugh at something, the same sort of tone a school kid would use when trying not to laugh at a joke as they're getting told off by a teacher.

It was as if... well it was as if he was in his own little world, talking to a person that was only existent in his head.

["I don't care what you've done... I still love you!"]

"No you don't."

His leg continued to bleed, and the sun burned even brighter, but he stood up straight - well almost, one shoulder sloped slightly to the left side. His leg was bent at heavily at the knee, blood running in rivets down his pants.

["Jay... l-listen, j-just put it down - there's no reason for this!"]

With a flick, he shook out a seven inch carving knife straight out of his sleeve - the hand holding deadly still.

The blade glittered in the sun.

["Jay - no!"]

He lurched forwards, holding out the knife to his side and flicking with a menacing flair.

"Baby be still... just go with the flow..."

AJ