Crash. The sounds of another fight bleed up through the floor boards from the room below, reaching the ears of the teenage inhabitant over the music blaring from the headphones that covered his ears. Bang. The teen presses the pause button on the mp3 player as he listened to the scene in the room downstairs. Attempts to make out what was being said - or rather, yelled and screamed – were in vain. It got to the point at times that all that could be heard were obscene curses being thrown back and forth from one parent to the other. He sighed.
They had said that one moving downstairs, out into the vacant apartment would be a 'good' thing. There would be little, if not any more fighting going on. They would be separated from each other, and every two weeks he and his brother would alternate from one parent to the other. He would take his sketchbook and a few pencils downstairs and to the apartment where his mother or father (whoever decided to move 'out') would cook supper for the two siblings, they would watch TV, or play some video games or whatever caught their attention at the time, and life would go on like everything was normal. When the two weeks were up, it would be time for them to go with their father, who lived upstairs and do the same thing. The house would be peaceful again until the parents decided who would get the house, how long each one would get the kids, who would have to pay for what expenses... All of it was lies. The fights still continued and they still never got along. Sometimes he wondered if they were actually doing this for his own benefit or out of their own selfishness. He pressed the same button and after adjusting the volume all sounds of the on-going battle was drowned out by heavy rock music once again. The teen picked up the mechanical pencil and tried to turn his attention back to the sketch awaiting him; trying to escape to a not-so-far-off fantasy world somewhere between his own imagination and the lyrics of the rock song blaring from his headphones.
Though the music and headphones put up a good fight, the one downstairs was much too great and his mind was slowly ripped away from his 'safe haven' by his ever-so-loving parents once again. Brown eyes looked up from the desk. Glancing over at the clock on a night table by his unmade and messy bed, he pushed himself out from his position at the desk and stood up. Sliding the mp3 player into his jeans' back pocket, he took a light gray and dark gray stripped sweatshirt off of one of the hooks on the back of his closed bedroom door. Putting both his arms through the sleeves, he pulled the hooded sweatshirt on over his head and looked at his reflection in the mirror. The teen in the mirror staring back at him shook his head a little, and fixed his bangs. He was a thin seventeen year old who didn't stick out much in a crowd. His hair wasn't overly long and dark brown. Reaching just a little past his ears, with the bangs being longer than the rest, which were usually swept off to the side, or tucked back when there was work to be done or he had just thought of a new piece he wanted to get drawn on paper fast. He pushed his dark blue half-rimmed glasses up by one of the arms and quietly slipped on a pair of shoes before opening the door and heading down the hall, to the stairs and eventually out the front door.
The two downstairs still continued to fight and argue over who knows what. He really couldn't keep track anymore. They would fight over everything and anything. He kept quiet as he heard one exclaim that the house was not being sold, walked to the front porch, grabbed a key off of the hook on the wall before leaving. Slamming the door a little too hard and departing down the driveway and out onto the dark deserted streets.
He just simply had to get away from it all. Just for a little bit, at least. A little stroll out and away from the house would be much more effective then the world between his imagination and the lyrics of his favourite band. He didn't have a set destination, just out roaming the streets, not thinking about where his feet were taking him.
The teenager absolutely loved going out at night. Looking up at the shining stars in the black night sky, he could wander around or just sit down on the outskirts and stargaze for the rest of his life with the cool early summer's night breeze wrapped around him, comforting him. He would be quite content just sitting there; thinking about what's really out there, all the other planets, all the other galaxies and far beyond. Thinking about if they were truly alone, on the little planet they liked to call Earth. No other living species besides them in the vast outer space. It couldn't possible. Right? Man hardly explored his own planet, let alone others far, far away from what they liked to call their home. In the teen's mind, it made everything else seem so insignificant. The human race could be so arrogant at times. To believe that they were the only ones that exists. That every other planet was just a giant piece of rock, floating in their place, with no other purpose then that.
He inhaled. Able to feel the cool night air travel down into his chest and fill his lungs calmed him somewhat. Night time was always so peaceful here. Living almost on the outskirts of a city not too big, not too small, the twilight hours were surely one of the most peaceful times (Unlike say, Las Vegas; The City of Lights.). Most of the city went to sleep with the sun as it slowly drifted lower and lower behind the horizon. In return, this brought daylight to another town for a little while and to be replaced with a bright moon.
He exhaled. His mind now slowly drifting from contemplating if there were other life forms out there, to something his English teacher has brought up in class a few days ago. They had been talking about literature in general. No matter how different two stories were, there were always different symbolisms and motifs thrown in. Usually, the night would be used to reference something evil, something sinister. Night time was when the creepy crawlies and ruthless walkers of the night came out of their coffins in search of their next unlucky victim. Or things like the monster that lived in children's closets, only coming out at night and shrinking away into the shadows when the sun rose the next morning to be replaces with their favourite sweater or stuffed animal casually thrown in among the inanimate objects.
Of course, there was a flipside to everything. The opposite of night, was day. The opposite of evil, was good. Daytime was when the sun came back from its little vacation once again to replace the moon that had temporarily taken its place. The teen stopped for a few seconds. Having sworn he heard something, soon to write it off as a pigment of his imagination. When daytime came, it quickly vanquished the monster in the closet, sent the creepy crawlies back to the safety of their underground home. The nightwalkers, slightly less pale from the feast of their latest victim off the street slid back into their coffins right before they went back to an almost dead-like slumber, waiting for the Sun's next departure to stalk the streets and carry on with their lives.
This time, the boy was sure he had heard someone kick something from behind him, having heard the sound of metal hit metal. Maybe an abandoned soda can? No. It was much too loud to be that. Stopping dead in his tracks, not making a sound, he let free a breath of air he had unknowingly held capture in his lungs. His heart however, remained caught in his throat, rapidly pumping blood from the heart, to the veins that branched off, getting smaller and smaller until they were nothing more than mere capillaries. His dark eyes glanced over the ally way, the overturned trashcan that lay on its side a little ways away. Nothing.
He felt foolish for thinking there was something 'sinister', something 'evil' behind him. After all, just because you can't see that sweater-monster lurking in your closet during the day or the creepy crawlies, or the bloody thirsty walkers of the night during the day, it doesn't mean they simply just cease to exist until the Moon took over again, just to repeat the same old cycle over and over. They don't exist. Nightwalkers don't exist. Vampires don't exist. He tried to convince himself. He was beginning to be a hypocrite as he turned back around and picked up a faster walking pace as his heart stayed firmly in his throat. After all, it wasn't just long ago he saying to himself it was a very egotistical thing for mankind in general to believe they were the only ones in the universe? But this was folklore and legends meant to scare little kids away from going out at night or in too deep into the woods behind their grandparent's house. There was no evidence that vampires really did exist. That the walkers of the night were more than just old stories about the beloved dead rising and walking once again. But there was no real evidence that Earth was the only planet to have living parasites in the entire universe either. Just stories passed on from one believer to another. He however, didn't make it much farther down the sleeping streets.