Chapter One: Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

The alley was a dismal place, littered with broken bottles and dreams. It wasn’t any nicer in the torrential downpour.

Something softly splashed behind me. I knew better than to hope it was a particularly large rat. I spun, my momentum carrying my first into my would-be attacker’s face. Bastard had the nerve to look surprised.

I sent my other hand sailing into his jaw. 200 pounds of glorified thug crumpled onto the pavement. With a sigh, I ziptied his hands and feet and rolled him off to the side so he wouldn’t get run over. His face was perilously close to what might have once been a burrito. I nudged it a little bit closer.

A sharp gust rippled a nearby trashbag, and I kicked it reflexively. The rain bore down with renewed agression. I gave the poor sod one last glare and I squelched my merry way to my apartment.

The third floor is, in my opinion, the best floor to live on in most cheap apartments. Floors one and two are too easy to break into. Any higher than the third and you start limiting your escape options, though the fourth is a good alternative, provided you’ve got at least one more floor above you.

My hands shook as the adrenaline wore off and the cold settled in. It took me almost twice as long as usual to get my door open. I watched the mirror as I slid all the deadbolts back into place. My body ached for a warm shower, but I forced my self to do a quick sweep of my small apartment.

The water scalded my freezing skin, but the warmth refused to seep into my bones. I watched the blood and dirt swirling away. If a forensics team ever got their hands on my apartment, they’d have a field day.

Pajama clad, I made my way into the tiny kitchen. I wished I could order take out, but if the delivery man didn’t try to kill me himself, someone else would be waiting in the lobby, and I wasn’t sure I had the will to fight for my life again today. Instead, I grabbed a box of macaroni from the plywood shelf above the sink. Malnutrition was going to kill me before any of those idiots ever did.

I ate the boxed macaroni the way boxed macaroni is meant to be eaten: sitting on a wobbly plastic folding chair and staring desolately out the barred window. I tried to look at the bright side. At least I wasn’t waking up in a wet pile of trash with burrito sludge in my face.

I left the dirty dishes in the sink, because if they finally got me tomorrow, I didn’t want to have wasted my last night on earth doing dishes. I did, however, brush my teeth, because dying with orange teeth seemed too pathetic even for me.

My mattress squeaked predictably as I settled onto it, the usual broken spring digging into my back in the usual place. The water stain on the ceiling looked a bit like an elephant today. I yanked to chain dangling from shade-less lamp on the floor beside me. The semi-darkness wrapped me its bleak embrace.

Cars raced nowhere on the street below. There was something comforting in the sound. I closed my eyes and imagined it was a vast river, its current carrying me far, far away.

That night I dreamed of a cottage draped in roses, of a clear stream singing, of dazzling sunshine that promised eternal safety and warmth.