Remission

by Aalt-Jackal

The events of the Asylum remain a loose blur in the mind of Miles Upshur. He struggles to exist in a world he has been rejected from, followed somehow by that place as though stained in the dark shadows that once comforted and concealed him. Control is an illusion that people accept, but what happens when a man decides to break the illusion?

The door held firm when I pulled at it, the knob refuses to turn and the latch in the frame would not give me the inch I desperately wanted. It's a natural human thing, to obscure a line between wants and needs. Needs are very basic, everyone needs food, every person needs water. The water doesn't have to be clean for you to drink it, that's all desire. You could drink foul water, it might or not kill you but you could drink it, nothing was stopping you. A person could live without shelter, wander aimlessly across the roads and towns they come upon. It call came down to what would benefit your current situation.

The door didn't need to open, I wanted it to open. The hall extended some ways into dark shades, frail tatters of the atmosphere clinging to my skin whenever I went from the drapes of functioning lamps to those same shades that were always so welcoming. I wanted the dark. I roamed in it, for I was only guaranteed safety in the heavy drapes that brought about claustrophobic suppression. Smothering my lungs and eyes like a wet blanket.

A sound from somewhere, a wall over or the floor above. I pause to crouch and listen, the camera held in my hand as I flipped off the night vision. Conserve power. Batteries were hard to come by, and they drained fast. The sounds of fumbling drifted off, I couldn't decide from which direction they had come from. I just took it slow creeping, soft steps on the old boards. The air was stuffy, stale, and had the tinge of abandon.

The visor crackled as the damaged feed distorted. I watched it, agitated by the fear that at this moment, this is when the camera would die completely. The image cleared and I let out a little breath.

Broken bed frames lined the sides of the wall, pitched up and out of the way. The few chairs that had somehow survived the rage and predatory destruction of people, popped out around ever other mattress frame. Most the tables had given their lives bravely in the name of the clubs I'd seen the people, the variants, prowling with; the nail notched ends already stained with dark fluid. A small shudder moved through me. Stay focused, don't let them catch you off guard. One swing was all it took.

The hall came to a T, above the light flashed and sputtered. I knelt down, putting myself out of range if I were to surprise them, whoever. I checked around the right corner, saw nothing but the battered door frame and a lone door to the pair that would have shut off the remainder of that hall. I turn slowly back to the other hall but I cannot see far beyond the dark drapes, with the light overhead interfering in the NV.

I decide to check the right side, slowly rising to my height and slipping under shadows. I stifle a sound when the smell hits me. Sour water and the stew of spoiled meat, like a dumpster in the peak of summer. The hall opens up into a room that takes a right, filled with broken furniture and the remains off bookcases. A draft slithers over my neck and I stand to look over on the body, half hanging from a shattered window and its thick bars. I creep across the floor evading fallen books and fat bugs scuttling around. I hesitate to the sound of crushed insects as it takes me back.

Takes me back to that bright room, and the putrid air that had no oxygen in it. Only methane and urine, distilled into its most basic components. I take another step and falter, rather fall I just lower to my knees and sit in the dark. The storm, where is the storm? I turn to look at the window and the body but only see dark night and swirling leaves. I lower the camera and raise my hand to press to my temple and wait as the sound crackles in my mind. It sounds like leaves rattling through a chipper and rose, the rumble of the machine fills my thoughts.

My hand.

I press each finger after the other against my scalp. I know how to do this. It helps me focus, brings me back a little more. One. A sharp constriction takes my chest and I loose air, I try for a gasp but choke out again. Hang in there. Focus on calming, don't panic. Miles. Don't. Panic. Two. My jaw locks as the sounds clear. I sense a presence near, moving closer.

"Sleep therapy gone too deep," he says. "We were waiting for you."

Three.

I take a slow breath and open my eyes, little by little. The room is filled with gray light pulsing up the walls, familiar scents trail back to me. No rot. No aged wood. Just the scent of my unwashed clothes and dirt. I hadn't bathed since the day before.

The chairs not mine. It's an old recliner I picked up from one of the tenants that moved out. He didn't know me very well, but the chair was old and he vouched to pitch it. I told him that my room was closer.

I remained curled into the back of it, my legs knitting as the feeling worked back into them when I shift a bit. I'm certain if I provoked the sensation too much I'd piss myself. So, I restrain my movement and zoned out on the space of wall away from the telly. I didn't watch the static, didn't focus on it or try to make out the shapes my brain insisted were there. But it was mesmerizing if I wasn't careful. The TV might've snapped to snow and I hadn't realized it before I drowsed out. Or I just dozed off. That was a high possibility.

When the final kinks had worked out of my leg, I crawled out of the chair and walked over to the telly to shut it off. It didn't come with a remote. It was the old box televisions from before the medieval days, when people went to work without handheld phones and when cassettes were what you watched movies on. It had a big crack in the side but it worked, and it was only ten bucks from the pawn shop.

I went to the bathroom. Shielding my eyes from the light until I had adjusted to the brightness. The bathroom wasn't large but it was functional, and nothing dripped. I pulled back my sleeves and washed the gray dust from my arm, then turned the tap off before drying my hands. My focus went to the mirror and the man that stood before me. I couldn't evaluate if there was much difference in my eyes, in the way my brow sculpted my expressions before I went… There. I didn't have a picture to compare my reflection with and I had a feeling I'd be disappointed by my conclusion, regardless.

The time on my phone read eight. Maybe too early to start the day but crawling off to bed didn't seem the better option. I set the phone by the sink and crossed my arms beside it and leaned over. I don't remember what I was dreaming, I knew I didn't want to. I wasn't trying pick out fading details, but a small linger of that smell caused my body to wince. Physically, I withdrew from the reflection and left the bright room and retreated back out into the black veil, the shadows that were cool and revealed nothing.

Light was coming in from the blinds of the living room window and cutting smalls slits in the shadows with stale amber. I stood beside the wall staring at the daggers reviewing the evening, what I had done. Work. An uneventful and boring day. I was getting paid, but the job was far from steady. I needed to think of something soon.

A walk would help. Clear my head, distract myself with new sights. Maybe I could ask around. I was fumbling in the dark for my coat before I remembered I'd not taken it off when I stumbled in. I just needed to put my shoes on and head out the door.

The doorman wasn't in when I walked out. Probably a quick bathroom break while it was quiet. I pushed out the front doors and let the cold air envelope me. As I moved from the buildings front, I zipped the front of my coat up and pushed the hood over my ears.

Bright lights from the street lamps filled the dark roads and sculpted the fronts of stores and large empty lots. The breeze was moist causing the air to be much colder than it could be, and as the minutes rolled away the night grew colder and colder. I distracted myself from the ache working through my toes, if I moved my mind somewhere else I'd forget. For a while, I could forget.

Few people were out at this hour, it was ungodly cold to be out with no destination. I pressed my arms tighter to my sides and curled my hands against my gut. It was impossible to get warmth from my own body; my metabolism was on a steady decline. I knew because I couldn't recall when my last meal had been. Piss poor it was, and too long ago. I felt sick thinking about food, my mind didn't need to be there.

When I received my commission fee I had gone out, determined to feed myself properly after a week of nibbling beef jerky and whatever else sort of dollar item I could afford. It was the local's favorite and rumored to have some good, home cooked meals. I had a mental list of what I needed and didn't bother with a drink when the waiter came by. It took five minutes for me to put half the meal away, and in the next thirty seconds I was in the bathroom. The only highlight of this fiasco was the restaurant owner's wholehearted apology and the free 'meal.' I was given a gift card, but I haven't gone back since.

After that eating had become a hit and miss. Little meals, to prevent myself from getting overwhelmed. Even then I would still take off to the nearest bathroom and purge whatever I had consumed in the last hour or day. Hell, my stomach didn't seem to need a reason to throw me heaving over the toilet. I was getting used to it, sadly. The first incident put me in a locked bathroom while the staff outside cooed comforting words, asking if I was all right, if I needed a doctor?

'No! I don't need a god damn doctor!' No. I was meek and polite, and said in my most controlled voice, "Just… give me a minute or two. I'm fine." And I huddled down in the small water closet beside the toilet bowl with tremors and tears, demolished under the weight of my failure. Then, that voice as clear as a bell, rang in my ear sweetly.

"Aw, c'mon buddy. We're not done yet."

I was asked to leave after a loud 'sound' brought in the manager, with a key. They didn't understand what had happened, and admittedly, I didn't either. My reflection was jagged and ruined in the shattered mirror, but I had felt some peace in my mind. They were disquieted by my expression and everything else that was in my face and for that reason alone, they didn't make me pay for a replacement. They just didn't want me to come back.

My heart thudded as I mingled with the memory. The pain of rejection, the isolation, the way people look at me. In a way I never come back. I'm still locked in that place, different scenery, same scenario.

The walks not helping much. I stand beneath a lamppost and look across the road, to the all night convenience store. I take a deep breath and let the air warm before I exhale. The cold feels good, I've never been fond of it but it feels good. It's crisp and clean, though there are grease stains and the scent of gasoline from the store. A car is being fueled up as I cross the parking lot, I don't see the driver anywhere. A few cars are parked in front and around side of the building.

A woman is speaking to a man beside his car. She's caught him and asking for money. I've seen her around the other day and like a dolt I gave her money.

"I've just escaped an abusive relationship," she says. She looks healthy, dressed appropriately for the weather but for those tight pajama jeans she wears. The man is older and wears a beard with his thick dark coat. He looks sympathetic but annoyed by her presence. "Anything will help. Please."

She looks at me as I walk by, we catch sight of the other briefly. She can't bear to hold my gaze and returns her attention to the stooge.

"Here's two dollars," he grumbles.

People are disgusting.

I pull the door shut after me as I walk into the store. The hood over my ears falls back too much and I rumple it down around my face as I turn to the back of the store, without glancing at the cashier. There are hotdogs cooking, or burnt, and the warm smell of popcorn. The stores on the old fashion side, catering to the tourist that come through. It probably makes more on chips and bottled water than it does gasoline.

Mirrors are set up at the back to make visible the activities of the browsing customers. I brush by a man flipping through a biker magazine on my way, and keep my head down as I head for the dairy freezer. I could get better milk for cheap tomorrow, when the suns out and warm and the all the shops are opened. But it's late and I don't give a damn. If I feel like eating later, maybe I will. I also need sugar, but I don't dawdle around the isles or the customers poking around, before returning to the front.

The cashier wants to ask me to lower my hood. I can see it in his face as I present my goods. But he's just a kid, and I look like some irritable asshole that doesn't want to hear that bullshit this late in the evening. Instead, he says, "Will that be all?"

I'm going through my wallet, making sure I CAN pay for all this. There was a wad of money shoved into my breast pocket, and I fumble with the zipper while he goes to ring up the items. I keep my fingers pressed together because I didn't remember the prosthetic for my index finger. It's in one of my pockets….

A loud voice booms through the windows. I tilt my head, keeping my face downcast as I try to see where the voice originates from.

"Yeah. I'm good," I say, half distracted. I twist my head all the way up when the commotion hits its crescendo. A car has parked sideways in front of the store. A nice looking car, an Altima shining under the lamp lights of the gas pumps and the stores buzzing neon signs. A man is yelling at the 'domestic plea' woman, and she's trying to argue back at him.

Tears stain the woman's face, making her skin blemish and darken in the light. She keeps glancing back to the store and indicating away, to the side. The man screams back, loud, demanding.

The only sound in the now silent shop was the freezers at the back humming, and the low creak of the hotdogs on the rotating burners. The shoppers near the glass windows stare out, curious and in the same niche stunned.

The man has the woman by the arm and is dragging her back towards the car. She puts up a struggle screaming, reaching off from the store towards the back. The side lot where the others car are parked. Her words are garbled, choked by her soaked face. "Nic," and "Stop" Cut through the glass.

Someone in the store coughs until they wheeze and clear their throat. Then, it's the hum of machines and the vacant stares of the spectators. Aren't we a bunch of animals? Sit around fully willing to watch a woman get torn apart by her predatory lover. Isn't anyone going to call for help? Do the police still exist in this world we've fallen into? Once the illusion of control cracks, none of them last long.

I shift my footing and drop the money on the counter. I look at the cashier expectantly as he gives me a brief glimpse, before turning his eyes back to the parking lot. "I haven't got all night," I mutter.

"Right." He rings up the difference and hands over the change, repeating the amount shown as though to make it honest.

"Do you have a phone?"

He stares at me, eyes wide. "Yes?"

"Then call the police."

The shrieking becomes desperate. I turn in time to witness the man bring his hand down, the force drives the woman down. He does this over and over, hard slaps that cause her to scream like she is being torn apart. It's a… grating sound. Deafening. Painful. Dying. This is what death sounds like when someone other than you has found it. You can appreciate the notion while knowing that you would sound no different, if you were in their place.

He's trying to get her up, to haul her towards the car, but he resumes beating her down while she's still conscious. Of all things in this mess, a child, a little girl! Streaks across the parking lot and rams the man in the side. She grabs the pant legs from behind and thrashes, struggling to pull the two hundred pound tsunami of muscle back off of her cowering parent. The woman is screaming, trying to get up as the man throws the woman down and struggles to kick the kid away.

"Are you going—" When I turn to find the cashier, he's gone. I turn to look at the specters, and a few near the stores front pretend they can't hear, and busy themselves with looking through the rows of candies and automotive tools.

I never left that place, not all the way. Maybe it was the way we look at the world, or the way we're deluded to see our world. That's what put me into journalism in the first place. People were numb, they refused to see. Refused to think about the world we inherit. My job was to catalyze the truth and enhance it, bring people into the world they had the gall to deny. As if to say one thing, was the same as it being a valid fact present before the next human. In their belief, if they shrank away and pretend hard enough, all the wrongs and evil would go away. It was a game. The winner took enough to survive, the loser submitted to the natural order and accepted the leftovers.

The harsh cold shocked my lungs as I pushed out the doors and raced toward the Altima. I shout, trying to get the man's attention when he caught the kid by her wrist and brought back his hand. "Don't touch her!" I pretty much crashed with him, throwing him backwards into the shiny car.

I wasn't thinking straight. I heard sobbing and words, the woman calling her daughter over. The girl was beside us, as he pushed me back by the collar of my coat. The hood snapped off and cold filled the ball of warmth that had coated my neck. I drew back my arm and punched out, missing when the guy ducked his head. I fisted my other arm as I teetered back on one leg and flung the fist up to his stomach, but he caught my arm and swung me away with a hard spin. The woman was trying to collect her daughter up and escape, as I was flung back against the car.

A sharp and familiar heat spread through my side. I gagged at the sensation, and saw glass. Glass glittering in the bright lights, and the sudden impact that jolted through my body. My brain locked on the scent of old office, withered wood and rot.

Then it was dark and cold, light was blazing down over us as the abuser's fists flew out catching my brow. My head snapped back damn near snapping off my spine, I twitched as my nerves reset from the collision and I smelt the burning computers. My mind spun as I put my feet back to the asphalt and managed to glare at the man.

The next time he threw a fist out, I blocked with my arm. His arm glanced off and I reached my free hand up, locking around his throat. He wasn't intimidated and began beating the side of my head until I released and crashed sideways. The sound of the neon signs burrowed into my head, and became all that I heard. The tempo rumbled, vibrating through my head and neck. He kicked me in the ribs as I tried to crawl away. It was hard see. A flash of red half blinded me as I received another impact. I try to curl over the greasy cement to protect my side, but my body has already gone ahead. Dark lights wash my senses away.

The man wobbled as he stepped away. "This isn't none of your business," he panted.

I wasn't listening. Not to him. I listened to the buzzing of my brutalized skull, and stared at my hand as I gripped at the filthy parking lot. The haze of darkness draped its blankets over my senses, the air became warm with the contact and I let myself dive deeper into the slumber it insisted upon.

"Don't be messin' with what you don't understand." The man, Daniel, gave the broken figure another hard kick in the side to enforce the lesson taught would be memorized. The body gave a thick grunt but it didn't move.

Daniel wasn't concerned if the fallen man was dead or not, he probably wasn't by the way he groaned. But that matter didn't concern him. What did was his wife and child. A friend had warned him his girl was taking their daughter out and begging for money, and she used the sympathy card.

Their relationship had gotten tense after he had witnessed it himself. He assured his friend April wouldn't run off, she was getting extra cash and that was okay. It wasn't disloyal to him. April wasn't sleeping with other men so it was fine. But they insisted that this was worse, that she was actually thinking of leaving him. HIM. The man that took care of her, gave her a child, and paid for their bills.

He had to take her back, convince her to stop. Break her in if need be. A woman couldn't be out on the streets like this.

Daniel scowled when he reached her. April was still crying, clutching their sobbing daughter to her side. "You stop that now or I'll give you something to cry about." Daniel grabbed the child's wrist and yanked her back, prompting a shriek from the woman. He took April's upper arm and hoisted her to her knees. "We're going back now. Get on your feet!"

April's daughter was struggling too much and he was forced to shove her aside. She'd be hurt, but he could pick her up easier and get her in the car. His wife would follow, she wouldn't think not to.

"Run, Nicole! Run!" April screamed. She gripped Daniel's hand and held on before he could turn away.

Nicole ran over to the car and moved around the broken man. She knelt near the bumper as her father fought to get her mother untangled from him. Tears fell from her eyes in little beads. The situation wasn't new, but it always confused her. She loved her mother dearly, and yes, she loved her father as well. But sometimes she didn't. Sometimes he wasn't nice, but very… frightening. He wasn't mean to her, but sometimes her mother left their room with tears in her eyes and sometimes she came to sleep in her bed. Nicole never complained, because there were some things she was told not to ask about, or talk about with other people.

Nicole recoiled when the man pushed himself up off his stomach and rolled over. She watched him, wondering if he would get up and what he might do if he could. Ragged screams came from her mother, as her father struck her face and renewed his mission to drag her to the car.

"Get in the car!" Daniel snaps, at Nicole. "In the car! I won't tell you twice!"

Nicole was about to stand and do this, but the lights around the parking lot flash and darken. She stood beside the Altima's chrome bumper as the lamps above the gas pumps pulse briefly, dim, then went dark completely. Her father didn't seemed to notice. He was fumbling with the door, trying to control the weary fight of the mother and command the child. All in the same snarl.

"Nicole! In the car!" Daniel wrenched the door open, and lowered an arm to wrap over April's middle. He jerked back when the door snapped shut. "Fuck!" His voice trailed off. He didn't like to cuss around Nicole.

Daniel put his knuckles in April's long hair and stared at the door. The air was calm, with a faint smell of gasoline and cigarette smoke. Or was that metal? Burning copper. Something was wrong with his car. A low crackling was in his head. He put his free hand to his eyes as the pressure grew. The cold breeze whistled through the neon sign and the lights hummed. A low scraping moved closer to where he stood, screeching and dragging. It reminds him of nails on a chalkboard, and it was coming from the car.

The vehicle jarred on its wheels, causing Daniel to shuffle away as the noise continued. It rattled over the harsh pavement and echoed off the store front. He couldn't figure where its origin was but it was on the car, though there was nothing visible. Just the shadows cast from the front of the store. The scuffling faded, and for a moment the parking lot was still. Aside from the woman clawing at his pants leg and sobbing. A Boom ignited, dulling his ear drums.

Nicole yelped and held her ears as the tire at the car's front deflated out from a large tear.

Daniel huffed and then smiled, laughing at himself. The tire had just been about to burst, for whatever reason. His wife had her car, he could take her keys—

A force as physical as it was strong shoved him back. He nearly lost his grip on April's hair, but remained standing and staring.

At nothing.

"W-what's—" Before Daniel could finish, he was shoved down onto his back. He screamed and released April's hair to grip at… to grab… something! There was nothing but cold air. He was staring at nothing trying to perceive a shape, drag his shattered reality back into focus. The buzzing of the neon sign was like a nest of hornets in his head eating his brain. Pressure worked around his ribs and tightened. "Aw! WHAT? What s'this?" He chocked. Pain and terror leaked through his pants in a dark stain.

April crawled on her hands and knees to Nicole, and pulled the child in her lap. She cowered beside the car and held Nicole's head, and kissed her cheek. "Don't look baby. It's all right. Everything's all right," she stammered, "I'm sorry. Please, don't look." She pressed her child's eyes into her neck and turned her head, only to watch her husband fly at the car. The vehicle rocked beside her, and she scooted a few inches away.

Daniel clawed at open air, sometimes feeling an arm or a face to hold but grasping at nothing. He was thumped back against the car and 'swatted' over the Altima's hood. He crumbled to his knees beside the hood and pushed up on his arms to rise, but was instead lifted from the parking lot and tossed through the glass window.

Shoppers unaware of the past few minutes, snapped to attention when the glass shattered and a body flew through to crash with shelves and snack items. Beef jerky and canisters of foot long sour treats scatter over the checker board floor. People threw themselves to the furthest walls to keep out of the way. The ones that had been specter to this point take off, weaving through the toppled isles and out the store doors.

Daniel groans as he struggles to get himself up. He'd shot up on heroine before he left the house, it had helped. He doesn't take note of the odd angle his arm is in, or the gashes over his legs. He's staring at the scattered chip bags as they are brushed aside by nothing, but the colors between the floor and nearby candy bars. Something unseen is milling around, making an indirect path towards him. Daniel finds no aid in his shattered arm as he rolls over, intent on moving away. He turns his head to the nearest shelf bent from impact, when it creaks. He stares but there is nothing. His mind seeks out, attempting ulterior methods of picking up what his eyes insist is not present. He puts his face in his hand and groans as the tension rises, and that sound. The chatter of cicadas in the heat of summer, and the heat. Burning his throat and baking his brain.

Then it's a shrieking. A harsh turmoil working through his sinuses and twisting into the back of his head. When he's certain he can take no more he drops, going limp over the crushed shelf.

The cashier exits from a closet door behind the counter. He freezes when he sees the state of the store, a phone held to his ear. The voice on the other end of the call prompts a response. "Please, just get her fast. Oh shit. Holy crap." He taps the screen on the phone and hurries around the counter. Only to halt and stare on the broken man, the shattered windows, and the wrecked inventory. Outside, the woman sits with the child. They are the only conscious people in sight.

The cashier races outside to check on the woman. "What happened?" Is the first question he asks.

The woman sobs, shaking her head and holds her daughter tighter. "I don't know. I don't… he just— I don't know!" This went on for a while as she struggled to keep her daughter calm, and sought some comfort in that process.

The cashier turned then to the man that had bought the milk and sugar, believing he had had something to do with this turn of events. But the man was out cold, if not dead. "Sir?" he asked, nudging his shoulder. "Sir? Are you okay?"

The man comes to life suddenly and grabs his upper arm in a steel shattering grip. The cashier is certain the man will snap his arm in half, the cashier howls and shoves away, or tries to pry the cold knuckles off his arm. After an agonized snarl, the man does release his hold and struggles to get on his knees and drag away from the store, or go somewhere else. He doesn't get far before he's supporting himself on one arm, the other grips at his hair as he stares off into nothing.

Then finally, he slumps to his side still perched on his knees and sits like that for some minutes. The cashier doesn't go near him again, nor does the mother crawl away from the Altima. The only sound drifts down from the neon sign of the store buzzing, and the steady breathing of the folded man.

It is years before I come back. My chest is bruised and pained, I take a deep breath as though it is the first real breath in many days. Asphalt, tire rubber, bad oil. I blink my eyes into focus as I push up carefully on the arm under me, and promptly buckle forward to regurgitate bile on the foul parking lot. I stare at the yellow line under me as it turns orange. Blood. Where did the blood come from?

I feel my ribs shift as I lean back and raise my head. Ah yes. That asshole. Should've seen the other guy. I look over slowly to the car beside me, and the wife and child curled down beside it. I blink at them, unsure of what should be done.

"You okay?" I turn to the voice a little too quickly, and topple over when I see the store.

"W— T'fuck happen?" I snap. Glass is everywhere, the windows are shattered. The inside is a war zone, a few bags of chips have escape their country to brave the other world. It looked like a car just flew through the whole front.

"Dunno," the cashier says, and he looks over his shoulder. "I went in the back to call the police, when I came out it was totaled." I'm using the edge of my hood to dab at the blood on my face. My hands are shaking bad, but it is very cold and I'm very cold. "I called the paramedics," he goes on. "You shouldn't move around so much."

I push to my feet and wobble a bit, my mind still fuzzy from hard blows I received but it's clearing. "I'm all right," I hiss. "You didn't need to do that." The glass crunches under foot as I cross to the doors. I stop to evaluate the store, and see most of what I expected. My blood runs cold when I see the abusive man laid out like a blanket on one of the isles racks. What… the fuck? I glance to the shattered window then back to the broken man. Glass everywhere. What happened?

My arms sink at my sides, and I feel the pressure of blood through my ears and throat, warming my face. My hoods down.

I fix the hood, retrieve the milk and sugar from the counter and leave. I pause to look to the woman and child huddled together, beside the shiny Altima. Oh, he called paramedics for them. I want to ask her questions, but I'm afraid she'll start screaming. I leave. I walk away and I plan to never come back.

"But…" He trails off as I walk by, milk in one hand, sugar in the other. "You need to file a report too."

"I saw nothing," I mutter. "Good luck with the store."

I have too much time to mull over what happened on my way back to the apartments. My head aches from being pummeled, but that store looked worse. Geez, what happened? Some gung-ho biker show up and beat the shit out of that guy? Or a Terminator? I almost regretted not asking the woman and kid, but damn my head is throbbing with icy needles. But, they looked traumatized enough, and I didn't need to be there when the cops show up. They'll ask a lot of questions and they won't like that I don't want to answer the very basic ones first.

I bury my face into the side of the hood as the patrol cars blazed by, sirens howling and lights flashing. The smell my blood and vomit is overpowering. Don't focus on the noise, block it. I'll get back to my room, make some strong coffee and have a bowl of cereal. It'll be fine, this'll blow over. It always does. It will.

Promise.

I open my eyes and see amber light from the street lamp above. The air is unbearable cold. I'm shivering hard but have no way too ward the chill off with the milk and sugar occupying my hands. I keep walking. One steady foot after the next.

I don't dwell on it, don't think about these matters for long. Have to leave it alone and move away. Dangerous thoughts. A bowl of cereal, some strong coffee, and watch something till morning.

For a while I had deluded myself into the ideal that I did escape unscathed. I had gotten out with my sanity mostly intact, mostly. And most of my body in one piece, mostly. Better than most, better than the others. The ones left in dark shadows and cold, sterile labs. I'd gotten out and ran far away.

But… I didn't.

I never got away. It followed me. The thing in the dark, the entity fabricated by the minds of broken men.

I look across the street, to the dark wall beyond the lights. I couldn't be sure, but I felt it. If I wasn't careful, delved back to that place, I could feel it. Humming in my mind, biding its time. Was it lurking nearby? What did it want from me?

I turn back to the long sidewalk stretched before me, and the endless rows of buildings and gaping lots. It was calm and silent, there were no sounds but for the rare vehicle out on errand. I keep walking.

I can't stop here.

An hour later, I trudged wearily into my apartment and put the milk away, and leave the sugar on the kitchen counter. I went to the bright light of the bathroom to check how I faired. My face was bruised to hell and cut, and blood had been smeared all down my coat. I washed the dirt from my face and dabbed the blood from the cut with a damp wash cloth from the shower. I took my coat off to treat the stains, only to find that my undershirt was much of the same.

The front and back of my shirt were blotted with rich dots of blood, like finger prints. Yet, there were no visible wounds on my skin. Only the unaccounted mars that dotted my chest and legs from wounds I had never seen. Wounds with no origin or healing. I didn't want to remember. Didn't want to go back. Most of me left that place. Most of me escaped. That was good enough.