"When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival." - Yann Martel, Life of Pi
Prologue
There was a girl whose eyes were piercing blue and whose smile was always weary or halfhearted at best. She had a look about her, that the weight of the world, in all its ashy and soot encrusted nastiness, was hers to bear and bear it she did. When she walked, it was always downcasted with her hoodie covering her amber locks away from view. Only on rare days could I see her eyes casted up to the sky and her brown hair wild and free. She made me think that maybe even I, as broken, cold, and desolate as I was, could learn to love. That somewhere in this empty cavity of my chest, I could find a place — small as it may be, for her.
But loving is a luxury that we humans can no longer afford. There was a time when cities were illuminated and subways ran, where we could afford love - but that is no more. Instead, we have rust, weeds, and shoddy electricity.
When my father cared to speak about anything other than survival, it was only of that time. A fantasy of a time where there was some semblance of peace and watching someone starving to death was an abomination. Watching someone die is just a Tuesday now — but still an abomination I suppose. An abomination I created on a weekly basis.
March 15th, 2043
I found a bus stop with an intact roof, strangled with vines and barely opaque glass. I watched the potholes littering the street fill to the brim with rain water. The wind was picking up at an alarming rate. Quite the storm tonight. Ethan told me I could find Hugh in this town camping out on the second floor of an apartment complex. I made it here by nightfall and did not plan to wait until the morning. Pulling up the hood of my raincoat, I crossed the street - my footsteps were drowned out by the rain. My eyes flicked quickly at scuff marks of mud at the front of a door. A sign of a recent entry.
With no lights within and a clearly dilapidated building, my ears strained for any sound of movement. The windows were boarded up, making me wary about the entrance. A trap?
I stepped to the left of the door, keeping myself out of the middle of the entrance and pulled the door back. Nothing. The entrance led directly to a set of concrete stairs, crumbling from age and haphazard boxes. I took two steps up and paused, peeking over the first pile of boxes on the stairs - a clear string ran across the steps connected to bunched up cans - a sound trap. I made my way over it easily and continued upwards. The stairway led to a dozen or so apartments. Too many variables.
Quietly, but with purpose - I moved across the floor. I would need to check every door, but would start from the back. Unfortunately, the mud tracks stopped far back on the steps. The unpredictability bothered me; reaching underneath my coat, I slid my revolver from my holster. The first door revealed an empty apartment with linoleum flooring covered with mold, no scuff marks to be seen. Doors two and three the same.
Something was off about the fourth. Scuff marks again, mud being kicked off at the entrance. This is the one. My first step produced a creak, it was my hope the raging weather outside would serve as cover. The room at the back was shut unlike the other apartments, no doubt Hugh's room. No hesitation now. I stepped to the back and swung open the door.
Two hands reached out of the darkness and grabbed the lapels of my jacket shoving me backwards, "I knew they'd send you, son of a bitch!" a man's face, red from too much drink spat. Before he could reach into his pocket, I broke out of his grasp to elbow his face and shoved him back further with my knee. The man crumpled to the floor while I took aim.
"Hugh?" I ask. The coldness of my voice surprised me. I looked at the huffing mess below me.
"Fuck you!" the drunkard bellowed, crawling back on his hands.
I stepped forward and stomped on his face with the heel of my rubber boot. I heard a crunch and watched blood spurt from his nose. I tried once more, "Hugh Morris?"
Laying on his back now and wiping the blood from his face, the man simply smiled and laughed. A futile laugh. I wish I could say this was an unusual encounter, but people rarely surprise me in their final moments. Whether it be their courage, cowardliness, or insanity — laughing is somewhere among it. I don't feel like interrogating tonight, there's no witnesses, and this is an unknown man. I pulled the trigger and the laughing stopped.
I stepped over his body and searched his pockets, there was a pocket knife but no gun. There's a backpack sitting against the bed, I filtered through and found a stack of envelopes — addressed to one Hugh Morris. I stuffed the envelopes back in the bag and zipped it up.
A camping lantern sat on a nearby shelf, I switched it on and peered through the bedroom window. The rain was not letting up, I would have to stay the night with the body. Poor company.