Tales of Heroes
Chapter One
Connor awoke with a start, sweat dripping from his face. He could feel his racing heart pounding against his chest. It happened again.
It was the middle of the night in the west end of London, Connor slowly turned his head to his left, bringing his alarm clock into view. 1:22 am. He had only been asleep for twenty minuets since the last one.
He gradually dragged himself out of bed and made his way across his floor towards the window, the sandpaper-like carpet felt rough under his bare feet. As he made his way across his dim bed-sit, he could hear the sounds of the city outside; police sirens screaming as they sped through town, the low humming of vehicles passing on the main road near by, and the odd stray cat hissing after some rat, enjoying the thrill of its hunt.
Connor often sat by his window, he would watch person after person battling to find meaning in their lives as they followed their own daily rituals and routines to try and give them some feeling of direction, and doing so with an almost a religious conviction.
He looked around his
dimly lit room; the only source of light was that from the street
lamps that lit the gloomy street outside. As he looked his gaze fell
upon a photo sitting on top of a rather neglected set of chest of
draws. The photo was old, and showed him a life that he struggled to
believe was once his. He looked at the little boy in the photo, the
boy, no older than five, carried a smile that was now a stranger to
his face. He looked at the similarly happy people surrounding the
boy, the proud mother and father standing over him, the seaside sun
reflecting off their sunglasses. And there sitting in his arms was
his younger sister. He didn't really remember much about his
sister, as she died in an accident not long after the picture was
taken at the age of three, but he knew he loved her, more than he had
anything in this world. For a moment he could swear he was back
there, he closed his eyes and was sure that he could feel the warmth
of the sun on his face, that he could smell the salty sea air rushing
up from the ocean as he held Katie tightly within his arms. He could
almost remember what it was to be truly happy.
But as soon as it
came it went.
He sighed, almost in painfully as his surroundings came rushing back, the grim reality of the past events returning to the fore front of his mind haunting him once more.
His simple bed-sit was exactly that, simple. The walls were covered with a grim shade of grey wallpaper, which hung hopelessly off the top left corner on the far wall adjacent to his bed.
As he watched the damp creep in from the ceiling above, he couldn't help but wonder if this was all life was. He often longed for something bigger in order to regain the happiness he was sure he felt in his youth.
He didn't return to bed that night, it was becoming an increasingly familiar sight to see him sitting at his small, single-pain window watching the slow October sun rise over the slumbering city, often wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. Connor loved the sunrise, it made things seem oddly simple and gave him a brief moment of contentment. Almost everyday he would watch the sun slowly creep up from behind the seemingly infinite horizon and would often not even hear the sound of his alarm clock as it switched onto the Radio One breakfast show at 7:00 am.
Before he knew it, he heard the familiar sound of the morning jingle, which meant one thing.
Work.
He rose from his seat by the window and headed towards his bedside sink. His 'bathroom' consisted of a sink in a little alcove by his bed, the sink was far from new and had rust and water stains climbing from the bottom of it's column, to underneath the basin. Above the sink was a small rectangular mirror with a deep crack running up the left edge.
Connor stood in front of the mirror, and paused. He was slim built and had rich dark brown hair. His face, though good looking, was worn and rugged by lack of sleep and darkened by the need of a shave. But all the same there was nothing special about his appearance, nothing special at all except his eyes. His eyes always mystified those who met him due to their colour. The iris' of his eyes were a very rich dark blue, with small flecks of ruby and purple emanating from the edge of his pupils. This baffled even the most experienced doctors, who just put it down as an anomaly of genetics.
But he knew it was something more.
Connor got washed and dressed in his Uniform and began to head for work. He had a job working part time as lifeguard at the local (and rather dilapidated) swimming pool, which thankfully for him was only a shot distance walk from his bed-sit. The last few weeks he had been assigned to the morning-swim shift, he didn't mind this too much, the pay wasn't very good, but the morning hours were often very slow with usually one or two people in the pool giving him a lot of time to himself.
He remembered one incident about 2 weeks ago, a little girl, no older than seven years old, came swimming with her mother. The girl, like most children, was very impatient and wanted to get into the pool as quickly as she could, her mother on the other hand was still trying to sort out their towels and prepare them on the side benches for when they were finished.
The little girl began to run towards the shallow end of the pool. Connor went to blow his whistle to signify the girl to refrain from running, as he did so the girl slipped and fell head first into the deep end, The sound of her muffled screams as she hit the surface hit him like a bullet, and for an instant he froze.
He could hear the girl as she chocked on mouthful after mouthful of pool water. Connor sat there petrified, trying to process what was happening, and it was only when he heard the agonizing scream of the girl's mother as she saw her daughter sinking beneath the surface, that his instincts took over.
The girl was clearly out of oxygen, the panic in her mind causing her to expel any air she had left in her lungs. And as quickly as she hit the water she began to fade under its surface. Connor dived straight from his high chair into the pool, as he hit the water he felt something he hadn't felt since leaving home. Panic and confusion flooded his mind as he couldn't find the sinking child.
As his panic increased his eyes began to surge, an intense heat was building in his sockets and temporally made him unable to move. The heat in his head grew until there was an almighty crash as the energy that was searing in behind his eyes released into the water raising a light consumed any vision he had left. In fear he closed his eyes, this feeling felt all to familiar, and it petrified him.
Then there was silence.
The throbbing in Connor's head had left him and as he opened his eyes again he new something wasn't right. He looked around only to realise that the he pool was completely empty of its water, leaving only him and the barely breathing body of a seven year old girl at the pool's floor....…the mother continued to scream…