ALONE
Darkness moved around him, like a physical thing, it had a heaviness to it, clinging to him as he strained through it. It tried to crawl down his throat, eat at his skin, working to dissolve him and make him one with it. A hiss issues from the dark, an eerie exhalation of air, a point of reference in the unending oblivion. He turned toward the sound, orienting somehow in the utter blackness, and drifted toward it. In endless time and no time he came to a point, where darkness seemed to give away to another presence. He could see nothing, but knew something was there…….waiting. One thing he knew, and knew well, was patience. The dance of emptiness, of time without meaning, and so he faced the darkness and waited. The change was creepingly slow, almost unnoticeable, but in utter darkness any change at all can lead to perception. It was cold and soft and smothering, but he was patient and waited. It slid over his skin like a knife and whispered softly into his mind, but he was patient. It scraped along his nerves and wept empty tears into his soul, yet he waited. Gathering his will, he focused himself and snapped his eyes open.
The room lay quiet and dark around him, the only sound the wind outside his window and the night noises of the world around him. He lay for awhile, letting the chill leave his limbs, and the darkness drain from his mind. Then he was up and moving, a drifting shadow in the darkness, moving through the city, a living ghost haunting the alleys and darkened corners. Then up he went, like an animal he scaled the walls and ran across the rooftops, higher and higher he went. Leaping and griping, his fingers and toes sure as they found crevice and ledge he climbed and then came to rest. He could look for miles from the towers heights. He settled into a shadow and tried to process the dream. He tilted his head back against the cold stone and stared up into the darkness of night and tried to remember. It had been long ago, but sometimes it seemed only instants.
He had always been the odd one out, smaller and leaner then most of the others. Easy prey for the larger and stronger, the streets were a brutal land and children were ignored in their poverty and cruelty. But, though he was small, he was smart and quick and learned the worlds lessons well. Trust was but a tactic to lure in future prey. Friendship but a painful loss, not yet conceived. Physical pain, but something to endure and then gone. Hunger but an emptiness to be filled to fuel survival. And so life went from the time he left his mothers skirts until his 8th year. Her survival meant he needed to be away from her and so he roamed. He climbed and hid in the nooks and crannies of the roofs. He slunk into the sewers in the bitterest cold, gaining some warmth from the excrement of the city. He fought when he was cornered, but that became rarer as time went by. He learned to avoid those who might harm him, he became a living ghost in those years. Unseen, overlooked, ignored….those were survival. He stole when hunger cramped his stomach, when the cold bit deep and the nights grew long.
He saw less and less of his mother, sometimes months would go by before their lives might drift together again. He was probably 8 when that happened for the last time. For once he was not hungry, the winters cold had passed and food moved through the port, easy pickings for a small nimble fingers. He had even managed something extra for his mother and he sought her out in her small back room at the brothel. Like always, he drifted in, as if he did not exist, overlooked by any that might even care to glimpse him. Her door was open and he slowed as he approached, sliding along the wall so the floors bore his minimal weight with no sound. He glanced in low, snapping back quickly as her eyes met his from but inches away. Empty battered eyes, devoid of all life and pain. The cuts and scrapes not even having a chance to bruise before death had found her.
He stepped into the room, over the body and looked around. Just a discarded rag, used up and tossed aside, the description seemed to settle into his mind. He blinked his dry eyes, thinking perhaps there should be something to feel, but he had started building his walls so young that his foundations were set on bedrock and would not shift. There was nothing for him here, if there had ever been...but still something held him to the spot. Voices approaching drove him into the dark recesses of the rafters as the madam led the guard in. He watched and listened as they spoke of the sailor who was her last client. The madam looked put out that the body was tying up the room and wanted it removed quietly and quickly, the guard just looked tired and bored.
Once they were gone he moved through the rafters, listening and watching, until he had what little information he could glean, and then he drifted into the night. He found him passed out in a dark alley, vomit and blood still covering him. He wreaked of liquor and rotten teeth and unbathed humanity. He looked at the man with empty eyes then heaved and rolled him over. Pulling a small piece of metal from its makeshift sheath, he studied the man, as if he were a dog to the skinned for a meal. He had sharpened the metal over many a long night, rendering one edge sharp as a razor. The man had not even grunted as he rolled him so he decided quick and clean. The large veins on the inside of the legs would be the quickest so he cut the cheap cloth away and set to work. It only took a few minutes and the man never stirred, as the pool of darkness spread between his thighs. He looked up into the dark skies and wondered for the last time, why he felt nothing….and then he was gone.
He sighs quietly and looks down from the stars and out over the city. It seemed quiet and peaceful in the middle of the night if you did not pay close attention. The dream was coming more often and he felt a restlessness that was not normal to him. He rubbed the worn silver coin between his fingers and frowned. He had made his pledge over a quarter of a century ago, but it still called to him. The Lady had always been honest with him, hers a knife edged existence. He snaps the coin into the air and then snatches it back. Luck, the fickle bitch, how he loved her sense of humor and spite. He idly dances the coin across his knuckles and purses his lips as he remembers.
