"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" Sarah asked for the hundredth time as they meandered their way towards the front door. "I mean, Chris could always go with you, or... you know, we could share-..."
"Sarah, enough," He interrupted, rolling his eyes at her paranoia, "I'll be fine." In one swift motion, he spun her around and pulled her against his chest, her surprise ringing out in laughter. "I'm a big," As both of his arms wrapped around her waist, he twisted. She was pulled off her feet, giggling all the while as he continued to tease her, "strong," for all her effort she couldn't escape, but he let her get her feet back. He couldn't resist a quick tickle, hearing her shriek and call for him to quit. "manly man." He finally let her go and she shoved him, before clinging onto his arm.
"Sarah, I can walk the whole one (or so) miles home without an escort from your anal-retentive brother, who - I point out - is way more likely to try and leave me in a ditch." James reached behind to Sarah's neck, having to lean down to bring their lips into a chaste kiss.
"He would not; be nice." Sarah whined, "Why can't you just get along with him?"
He noticed she was really stressing out about this whole thing, the past week getting to her, and for a short moment felt a bit bad about putting her through any sort of anxiety or fear. He knew the local news stories and rumor-mongering was starting to wear her down. However, he knew he couldn't stay the night (not only did he have work first thing in the morning, but Chris would raise hell). Besides, if he indulged her every time she panicked like this, she'd only loose faith in him, and never trust he was capable.
James hugged her, burying his head in her shoulder, "Because Chris doesn't like it when I have sex with his baby sister." She gasped, slapping him semi-seriously, so he reiterated, "I'll be fine," and pulled away, messing her hair up in that way she always absolutely hated.
"Ugh, you ass!" her weak laughter was a nice, if temporary, break from the pressing gloom. "And it's nearly two miles!"
"What, did you count?"
"The internet exists, you should try it."
"Oh, and you're beautiful and smart. Now, I really have got go, babe. I'll be home in 40 minutes or so, I'll give you a call, now, kiss."
Sarah humored him with another kiss, "I love you." He gave a quick response and hurried out the door, by now quite late heading home. He'd bounded most of the way down the walk to the street-side when she'd called, "Be safe!"
A silent back-handed wave was his only response as he briskly walked down the side-walk, moving out of view. As he rounded a corner and took off towards home, his thoughts drifted; his brisk pace soon fell into a comfortable, quick but unhurried stride. Step after Step took him further from the rows of neat little houses into a different sort of neighborhood. Closer to where he lived, while no where near slums by any means, it was a bit more downtrodden, a hint less nicely put-together.
For example, in Sarah's neighborhood they more-or-less knew all their neighbors by name and calling out a greeting or an invite to a block party would be expected. Where James lived, not so much. People didn't have much, not even necessarily privacy, but they did have the respect of being left alone for the most part. They had anonymity and kept it that way, unless some individual was foolish enough to wind up in the wrong section of the local newspaper (which, incidentally, wasn't all too uncommon).
Sure, his home wasn't much, but it was home, a home that was nice enough, small, free of pests and major crime, and he'd keep working until one day, he moved up in the world. He'd have a house, a wife, a dog, and if he was lucky Sarah might be that one. He could finally prove himself to the world, and he was looking forward to his future.
Daydreams intermingled with woes of trying to calculate how much sleep a human really needed to stay living versus how important it was he actually got a shower or breakfast. Onward through the streets his feet took him along the by-now familiar route. He did pay attention to his surroundings off-and-on, keeping a general, if lazy, look around for any trouble.
Finally, he turned to cut through the clear wide-alley to get the last 2 blocks to his apartment building. He always took the back-stairs up, as did almost everyone, so the short-cut was not only quicker, but well-traveled. Currently, a lone man was standing in a hooded sweatshirt smoking a cigarette, slightly turned away as he leaned off the corner of a building.
James didn't give any greeting, and the man didn't either, the only sign of acknowledgment being his shifting to the side a bit further out of the way, likely conscious of the smoke. With out bothering the man or his business, James kept right on walking without a care. He pulled out his phone to check the time, knowing he'd have to take a quick call to Sarah before hurriedly getting ready for bed or she would only call and wake him up, then proceed into a bad mood for the next week.
A sigh later, he moved to put the phone away in his pocket, as a cold, sharp feeling between his shoulder blades jammed taught every single muscle in his body. The cold bite of steel was burned away by the fevered rush of blood, a shocked gurgle the only sound as his mind stumbled into a blender of survival and confusion.
As the man behind him reached around to place a hand around his throat, his mind focused on to the faint smell of cigarettes. He was jerked backwards, his phone was thrown from his grasp to skid across the concrete out of reach. Instantly, he pulled himself into any attempt at action, or breaking free, survival instincts flaring through his body, adrenaline blocking pain of his wound. He tried to drive one elbow into the assailant while grasping for control with the hand around his throat.
Before his weakened muscles even made an impact, an excruciatingly painful sensation pierced into his neck-side. Instantly, he fell paralyzed, breathless, boneless, as he could feel every slow crawl of life leave through that pain.
He longed to scream! To move, to fight! Yet there was a hopelessness as he imagined the vast network of veins being ripped out of his body through that opening, his heart furiously beating a broken rhythm.
It hurt! It burned, but more so it pained, like decay was setting in and his body was turning petrified while alive... dead...
Darkness came long before he realized it was over, when the last bit of air trapped in his lungs, closed off by the tension, rolled out in a weak, wet plop. He never thought a dead man could think, could feel it when his body smacked against the pavement in an abnormal heap. Darkness, darkness, and a deep voice so close it seemed to echo in the recess of his mind, "I'll see you again soon."
As he faded into a heavy, unwelcoming void, his thoughts left him with a cruel parting.
That was Chris' voice.
~~*~~ - ~~*~~ - ~~*~~ - ~~*~~ - ~~*~~
The afterlife was... cold, wet, and dark. At least it seemed that way, among the ins, outs, and lack of time or direction. There was the rare muffled sound he couldn't place, and the brief flash of a gray-hued light that outlined an image or shape he couldn't identify. Senseless, the world around him had no life to it, nor did it have any nothingness. No hell-fire, no peace, no emptiness... He'd always thought of 'nothing' as the lack of 'something', but now he finally understood that there would never be a name for.... this.... where there was not anything, there could not be anything, even a name with which to call it. There wasn't awareness, or a lack of awareness... in.... out... in... out...
In and out, senseless and meaningless brief happenings brought neither emotion nor clarity, nor a story nor a reason. There was just... lack, and the knowledge that before now, it had been impossible to be alone. A tether he'd never knew had connected him to everything, every small tiny rock and grain of dust or sand, every particle in the air, every sway of the wind, every plant, animal, creature, and person, up to even the sun, the moon, and space itself, every tiny atom in all creation was inter-connected, one giant living, pulsing, thing, a life all it's own.
Without a doubt all life had indeed been ripped from him; he knew, if there had been an afterlife, good or bad, or anything at all, it had been robbed from his grasp and fate left him alone. He wasn't even cold anymore... Not truly alone either, he just... was.
He was, and he was in a place that was not, once and for all apart from that connection, that life. There was plenty of time for this thought to grow and become a thing of itself, not living, but equally alone, and... draining...
Irritating. That connection, that life-force he'd been rudely pulled away from was... closer, but not to be, not here. It was hard to pin down, to decide if he longed for life or true non-existence, or some semblance of afterlife. Something had been removed, changed, and with it, he was... removed, changed, this pressing sensation that gave him a longing.
The more he was here, the more comforting it became, the more he laughed in the presence of the unwelcoming oppression. He accepted each happening as it came, dismissed it when it left, careless if such a thing happened once more or never again. In... and out... In.... Out... In..... A bright and burning horrid pain burst through him, whatever he was, into his own little lonesome world and pierced the lack with a mix of darkness and light, each like violent, fast-moving and agile things that lashed back and fourth with barbed whips, each searing pain burning brighter and brighter.
The pain, the light, he rejected every sense of it with all his might, but it was gaining, the light overtook even the darkness now and now.... No, before he'd had himself, he was... and now, he wasn't... he had... nothing, or something, here, but...
No, send him back, he longed to return to himself, to that odd little place of truth, that pocket of awareness where he was, and he was all that mattered. Before had been peace, as this was torment! No, send him back, send him back, send him back.
"I want to go back!" he yelled, suddenly the bright lights all came to focus. Images, in color! They surrounded him in every conceivable direction, layered on top of each other grain by grain and bit by bit, a whole sphere of influence he could see every piece of, in, through, and around every possible obstacle and angle. The rush was overwhelming and he could feel a small, weak sense of that same in-and-out, weak now, distant... Calming...
He realized all too late where he was, with the soul-torn wracking sobs and fists meeting wood, a body falling, on it's knees; his mother bawling and forever broken... she was crying, over his closed casket offering words so jumbled he could hardly understand the concept of language, especially after his existence without it, or the need for such connection.
After a while, he recalled the meaning of two words that almost made him feel a heart-beat, in this empty shell of non-existence that he was... "My baby! My baby!"
So loud, so... no, he understood anger, and she made him angry. He wasn't hers, not now, he was... well, he was... and she wasn't. She was connected to all the other connections, a nothing, a mere particle of something far bigger, something that pulsed like a bulbous blob, a wasteful and disgusting thing that somehow produced something.... beautiful...
He noticed it now, that something beautiful, golden and silver, as reflective as a mirror and as vital as blood to a heartbeat... it flickered in untouchable flakes all around, yet no one could see... He could see, and oh! All throughout their bodies, and even encased in the stems of the dying flowers on the casket and pulsing like small, loose spider-silk between each major person or thing according to their own connection, the strength of it.... life.
Life, this essence of life was something beyond itself, something rare, exquisite, a delicacy they were unworthy to know of. Longing... He did not long for them, or their lives, that meaning they sought in their grand scheme of existence... he longed for that essence he could feel hold up in the hearts of these people... He...
But he was not in existence, he could not reach it, could not have it, no matter his hunger or craving.
Instead, he tried to satisfy himself with the cruel meaninglessness of it all, of these people here, not too many, but family and friends he eventually put names to. His once mother, once father, once family of all sorts, once friends, and co-workers, once.... Sarah. Ah, yes, she was very important to him, wasn't she? He just couldn't figure out why. Once-Sarah was nothing now, and he had left such things behind. But why did they weep so?
Of course, not everyone was showing emotion at all, a few even respectfully bored, some stayed longer or left quickly, and all of it.... worthless. A throbbing noise that must be speech after speech, no doubt of his brief time spent as one of them and their loss, weighed on him, like mucus, something he longed to be cleared of and forget about. It hurt, drowned out by the pain of being here, among them in whatever form he did or did not take. He didn't belong here, not now.
Soon, they moved him, and his images mostly faded down into a somewhat acceptable blur of grays and dull colors. It brightened up once more after a while, slowly at first, and then near sudden as he found himself watching the people once more, around fresh dirt and the deep dark hole he was to be lay in, perhaps forever.
Yes, it was clear, in that ever-uncertain way of things now: this must be his grave, his return to that sweet place of non-existence where he was, and all else was not... Once mother, he admitted was a good woman, that would likely die off before her time. Would she be granted to be as he was? Or did she have another fate? Did any of them for that matter? Was this the fate of all, to be thrown asunder once being used by the living form was over? Somehow, he didn't get the feeling that was the case, but just as quickly that thought, too, seemed to leave.
There wasn't much left, now, no emotion or need or desire to hold his care or focus, unless he could have even a taste of that... that essence dancing outside of his ability to even reach for, let alone grasp.
He supposed he should look over them one more time, in case things changed and he grew to regret ignoring their presence. They couldn't hear him, nor could he actually speak or have presence they way they did, but none the less:
"Good-bye, once mother, once father... Once aunts, uncles, cousins... farewell once friend, we grew together, but I will leave first. Once-Sarah: once-girlfriend..." he saw her, more clearly now, as she was crying and weak in her knees, yet quietly, with an emptiness in her eyes that would almost make him wonder if she was dead, if not for the life flowing through her. She was cradled in arms by a blurred-out mirror of fog, of a being he couldn't quite sense as he could the living ones...
It had no life... no tethers of gold-and-silver silk, no flowing essence or pulsing force. It was comfort, kin...
Dark...
empty...
cruel...
The being focused in, suddenly, taking all his 'voice' thought, and became clear, first the eyes a glowing hazel, then hair dark as night over, around an aristocratic face. Next showed a cold, dead smirk gone unquestioned, revealing slowly one antagonizing fang before the other. His whole appearance slammed into view with all the knowledge that came with it: his killer, monster, unconnected, Sarah's, attack, pain, death, Chris. His killer was...
He could not think, nor finish the thought, could not summon any form of emotion or reason or care... Chris was kin? What was kin? What was he?
"Go to sleep, I'll come and get you when you're ready."
And he did, not back to non-existence, but a sleep from which a horrid hunger grew...
