Genre: psychological/tragedy. Dalan goes through his days drunk, never questioning where he came from. When one night he sobers up, he finds to his horror that nothing in his reality had been what it seemed.

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It was a Friday night, the post-obligation evening when souls of any age left their worries behind, lowered their guard, and indulged themselves in both innocent and sinful ways. In the heart of the city echoed the thumping beat of a packed nightclub. The events that transpired within those walls were only witnessed by some, for amongst the oblivious youngsters walked Dalan, and close to him his comrades. They were there on a mission and focused on only that once they had entered the scene. It had always been a simple routine, walk into the club together, move like a force, find a victim. Preferably she was already drunk, disorientated, maybe a little helpless. They pushed themselves through the party, in the blaze of bliss they were nothing but shadows whose thoughts were unimaginable to the unsuspected patsies around them. While they stood hidden among the chaos, not much needed to be said, Dalan had found her, their target for the night.

Concludingly he glanced back at his three comrades and nodded his head, a simple signal to divide themselves into the crowd, as swift as slivers of spirits among the living. None would see that their eyes were aimed at the young woman, alone at the bar. Her eyes as blue as she looked, tired and tipsy, blushed cheeks speaking of youth, her attention glued to her phone and one hand lazily covering her drink.

It was the thrill, the sly use of skill, the exploitation of their unmoved hearts and the feeding of their untamed instincts. Dalan was so sure he could spot the glister of his comrades’ eyes, no matter how camouflaged they were. They were invisible, waiting for him to make the first move.

While he approached her from behind through the sea of light, his hand slid into the pocket of his slacks, and in the quick withdraw his fingers curled around whatever was trapped in his palm.

Standing right behind her he tapped her on her left shoulder and as she turned, he greeted her with a confident smile.

‘Hi…’ he followed up. ‘Can I buy you a drink?!’ speaking courteous.

She curled her coloured lips into a polite but declining smile. ‘That’s okay, I got my own.’

‘Smart,’ he feigned his defeat. ‘Can’t be too careful these days.’

Dalan knew how to let his body speak for him, despite how his clothes were weather damaged and how he wore a five o’ clock shadow, all it took was a gentle lean on the bar and a slight pull on the corner of his smirk to assure her assiduity. He even felt confident enough to gently lean in to her, turning his lips to her ear and speak with feigned sincerity. ‘You’re really pretty.’ And as she bashfully looked away his palm swept with the grace of that of a magician over her exposed drink. He had already seen the smile on her face before she supressed it as he politely pulled away, her blush barely visible in the lights.

‘So, what’s your name?’ she asked, he watched her drink from her glass as he lied.

‘Sean.’ In the chaos of light his eyes flicked as quick as a bolt from her to his accomplice standing only a few feet behind her. Just a second of eye contact was enough, he nodded while he inquired in return. ‘What about you?’

Her name was Ann, she told him, though he listened to her with assumed intrigue, the information she spewed wasn’t received, for in his peripheral vision he was aware of the whereabouts of his comrades. One of them was meant to step in to claim to be her relative, to take her away from him as soon as she’d become unwell, take her outside to their car.

For him it was just waiting to see the light in her eyes dull, but then, out of nowhere, he instead felt a punch. He got turned around, pulled on his shoulder and punched to his jaw, and none of them had to think twice about what that meant. Feeling a second pull on his sleeve he knew that time it was his comrade Jerry, there to rescue him from the assault. As Jerry pulled Dalan along they all found each other as if they had done this many times before and the four of them pushed aggressively through the crowd to work their way through the hall and to the door. They were lucky the interrupter had chosen to stay with the girl and didn’t seem to have alerted anyone else, so before the attention of the security was involved, they had made their way to the outside world.

With haste they stepped out the door into the streets and landing on the pavement Dalan turned his head to see if they were followed, ignoring the disappointed cursing coming from Cain, his second comrade.

‘You think they saw us?’ Jerry exhaled, straightening the collar of his shirt. Dalan’s intoxicated head was spinning from rushing out for dear life, the adrenaline stronger than the alcohol. However, they had little time to gather themselves, startled by a scream.

‘Hey you!’ did it sound from the club, instantly resuming the chase.

Thane, the last of the four, called to run, pushing Dalan in his back while the rest of them followed him to the parked car under the streetlight at the corner. Though it was unlocked, Dalan hesitated to get into the driver’s seat. Aloofly aware of their pursuer’s approach, he looked at his comrades.

‘What?’ Cain asked.

‘I’m kind of drunk,’ Dalan confessed.

‘Who the fuck cares! Just drive!’ Thane screamed, and Dalan didn’t think about it anymore. He got behind the wheel and Jerry tossed him the keys from the back seat.

‘Let’s go!’ He turned the key, pushed down on the gas paddle bouncing the car over the curve and rushing into the road, tires screaming on the turn. The collective, drunk excitement turned into an adrenaline filled panic, he raced through the streets, narrowly avoiding a biker while having three bickering voices telling him where to go, barely listening.

‘Go left!’

‘Go right!’

‘Watch out!’

And when the car started to slip, spinning out of Dalan’s control, they screamed from the top of their lungs until the car came to an abrupt stop, crashing its tail into a corner streetlight. Upon impact they were shook across the car, the back window splintered, and the backseat passengers were slammed to the doors. Dalan’s head bumped into the side, for a second he was dazed, watching the empty cans roll from under his car seat as the motor died. From beside him he heard a deep exhale, he looked up at Cain, who swore with pain and slowly gathered himself from the crash. No matter his bruising, his temper hadn’t died.

‘What the hell happened?’ he barked, his flaring eyes set on this reckless driver.

Dalan, unimpressed with the lingering tantrum ignored him and turned his head to the rest. ‘You all okay back there?’

‘Answer,’ Cain insisted.

‘Chill…’ Thane groaned, he took his cap off to dust it. ‘We’ll get it next time.’

‘Yeah, next time somebody else will slip it,’ Cain grudgingly muttered.

Dalan sighed. ‘You’re all fucking assholes.’

And that’s who they were. As they got out of the car it was obvious how little they cared about what they’ve just been through. Thane wiped the dust off his black baggy jeans, the chains hanging from his belt rattling as he did. After he put his cap back on, he reached for his pocket and to no one’s surprise he revealed a gun, just to check its condition. Jerry ran his hands through his messy, light, short hair, pulling it through his fingers, letting it come together fixated in the layer of styling products. Cain had eyes that summoned shivers down your spine, the unblinking stare of a madman, and whenever he’d stare, Dalan would stare back. It was the question whether it was because he felt no fear for the guy, or because he was still ignorant of what this man was capable of, despite all he had seen.

Because they were the kind of men to roam the night after they tried to kidnap an innocent woman, to kick the trashcans, to check garden locks for a way in. The kind to walk by a liquor store, drunkenly wondering how to get in, crazy enough to consider it when Thane hinted at it with his weapon. They had been the kind to sit in on a poker game, where Cain pulled a knife if it didn’t go their way. They were the kind to lurk the clubs and stalk the youngsters at their own parties to take whatever they could get their hands on.

Thane was still a teen himself, one on the hunt for the thrill, addicted to the drama, never living until he nearly died. Having his gun pressed to his body was his drug, and drugs were just fillers. He’d pick whatever wallet he could find, flow the cash back into his business, never would his suppliers know where half the merchandise went. And if he had to, he’d pull up his skeleton scarf-mask, lower his cap, pull out the gun and point it to whomever he saw fit, for nothing but the contents of the till. Although he had wondered, would the thrill of the kill be even greater than the thrill of the hunt?

This is where he met Jerry, who didn’t share young Thane’s love for the edge, he instead was cursed with an itch, one that only a predator would understand. If love means nothing at all, then hate meant even less. He bought the roofies from Thane until they choose to join bonds and made a deal, they’d trade the means for the thrill. Jerry was a young man of charm, at his day job he had his looks working for him, the man with the ocean blue eyes and the stylish beach blonde hair didn’t need the hunt to get his way, Dalan figured that had made it to easy for him. A model citizen at the day, a two-faced demon at night.

Cain was the one Dalan had met at the poker game that he’d never forget. When Dalan had started to suspect one of their opponents was using a slide of hand, it took Cain less than a second to get up and pull the cheating prick from his chair, plunging a shiv through his shirt while he was pushed to the wall. Cain had yelled at Dalan to grab the money and go wait in the car, and when Cain joined him minutes later there was blood on his hands. He never told Dalan what happened, he just told Dalan where to go, with a tone as cold as death. And who was Dalan to question a leader like him, he was no one.

His memory of where he came from had been suppressed, he couldn’t tell the tale even if he wanted to. All he knew was that since he followed Cain, he had a way to live. They lived in an abandoned home, boarded up windows and a cracked lock, a filthy kitchen used for anything but cooking food, stashes hidden under the floorboards.

While they strolled through the night Dalan longed for his worn-out mattress, his head still spinning from the booze. As he followed his friends his attention was captured by the full moon, sometimes it seemed it looked down on them, like a God’s judgement. Suddenly, he was pulled on his hoodie.

‘Dude,’ Thane pointed at an open window, while Dalan had been lost in his thoughts they had found their way to a resident’s street. The square was dead quiet, all the lights were off. Only a wary cat purged on a trash container watched with regard what they were up to.

‘Fucking score. If someone climbs in and opens the door-.’

Dalan looked at Thane, he quickly realised that all eyes were expectantly set on him, like they always were. Even though he usually didn’t mind, he shook his head.

‘Man, I’m still drunk.’

‘Just go,’ Cain grunted. ‘All you got to do is open the door,’ he instructed with a low voice as he unfolded his butterfly blade from his pocket with a practiced, sly swing. ‘…and we’ll take care of the rest.’ His eyes shifted to Thane, who answered with a confident nod and an excited shine in his eyes. Dalan much rather went home, but he knew there was no point arguing. ‘Fine,’ he rolled his eyes.

They lowered their bodies to sneak up to the window, featherlight on their feet. He took a breath, eyed the drainpipe and pulled on it to test its stability. He nodded his head at his comrades.

‘Go.’

The three of them left him to it as they snuck off. Like felines they soundlessly moved around the premises, as if they weren’t even there. Dalan gauged how high the window was, before stepping his feet on the bolts of the drainpipe and pulled himself up on the window frame. He knew that if there was anyone awake or around, he’d be caught in no time, so while his body hung into the window, he held his breath and listened, letting his eyes adjust to the pitch black of the room. He realised quick he had climbed into a bedroom, an empty one at that. That was enough for him to know the owners weren’t home. He climbed in and got on his feet, alerted when the cat had followed him in, unimpressed with his efforts it stared him down. For a moment so short Dalan felt intrigued, but he realised he had three people waiting for him.

He stayed cautious and quiet even though he was sure he was alone, listening to any evidence of human presence as he walked step by step through the bedroom. He noticed a wooden Christian cross above the door, the room itself perfectly tidy, the bed was an empty single, he wondered who lived there.

He poked his head through the bedroom door and scanned the living room, confirming what he thought, he was alone. So, he moved to the front door with a relieved sigh and squeezed the lid to open it.

‘Coast is clear,’ he sighed again, which gave them the green light to walk in and look around. What happened next was predictable, Jerry scouted the bedroom while Thane went through the kitchen and Cain was, Dalan knew, clever enough to know where to look for the motherlode.

Thane went through the drawers. ‘Just some silverware,’ he complained, smashing the drawer close, the silver cutlery clattering on impact. Dalan shushed him. ‘Neighbours.’

‘Who cares!’ Thane said, he opened the cabinet door, and with a celebratory “fuck yeah” took the open box of cereal. Irritated Dalan rubbed his forehead, until Jerry called for his attention, standing in the doorframe to the bedroom. ‘There’s a lockbox in the bedroom.’

Dalan pursed his lips thoughtfully, not fully understanding why he said what he said next.

‘Under the bed?’

Jerry nodded and beckoned him over, Thane followed Dalan in, still with the stolen box of cereal in his hands. The two of them watched how Dalan pulled the lockbox from under the bed. It was made of metal and closed with a padlock. He placed it on the bed and tugged on the padlock curiously, but in vain.

‘You know,’ Thane muttered through the munching. ‘My dad gave me a lockbox like that before he died, he told me to put all my change in it, so I’d save money for a rainy day.’

Dalan peered over at him with a raised brow. ‘What’s your point?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m saying, it’s probably cash.’

He looked over his shoulder at Jerry, who answered before Dalan could speak his mind.

‘Don’t have any tools with me.’

Which meant they were taking the box with them. When Cain entered the room they looked up, the cigarette between his fingers told the tale of a failed undertaking. ‘Nothing, these people are poor.’ He tabbed his sin, letting the ashes fall onto the worn-out carpet. Dalan let his eyes travel from the fallen ashes up to Cain’s eyes. Brown-black, they told no story, not even when they met Dalan’s in one of those defined moments where you’d think that whatever they were thinking would be hung unspoken between them like a mute entity, anything that would maybe tell him a little more about the eminence that Cain was. Never did Dalan know if Cain was truly that empty, or if there simply was no such bond, but despite the warningly narrowed gaze, Cain was quick to look away again, and instead addressed the wooden cross above the door. Dalan followed his example.

‘What are you thinking?’ Cain asked, once he had seen that Dalan too had his attention set on the cross.

From his peripheral vision he observed Cain observing him, still there was nothing to read from him. The silence that had come to veil the room hadn’t creeped up on Dalan just yet, until it did.

‘Nothing, I guess.’

‘Good,’ was the immediate response. ‘Keep it that way.’ And with that he dropped the butt and dulled it between the carpet and his heel. Dalan turned around to catch the boys staring at Cain and him.

‘What?’ Dalan asked.

The reason why Dalan would look for an implicit connection was that to him, they sometimes seemed to speak to each other without him. But as they signalled that it was time to leave, he convinced himself again that he was just paranoid. They took their loot to the place they called home, where it was tossed on the desk and forgotten about for the moment. Dalan was quick to lie down on the stretcher placed in the middle of the dusty living room, where any surface of furniture was covered with scattered tools and trinkets, which cloaked the sins sprinkled between them. With his hands behind his back he stared up at the ceiling, staring into the centre of a broken chandelier. Some of the crystals were missing, and most of the lightbulbs were out. The wires at the base were exposed and frayed.

And somehow, for reasons he didn’t know, his mind drifted back to the cross. Like it was a memory, he pictured looking at it from the bed in the bedroom, but his conclusion was that maybe he had sobered up, things may not have gone the way he thought.

Somewhere in the background Dalan heard Cain muttering something about the lockbox, with every unnerved breath Cain drew his tantrum became a little louder, until out of nowhere he spoke with a voice drenched in anger, tipping over the desk chair with an aggressive kick, but Dalan wasn’t receptive to the noise.

‘Cool off,’ Thane had come from the kitchen with a bottle of jack, he swigged it tauntingly while staring back into Cain’s burning gaze, like Thane already knew what was going to happen next.

Cain lashed out. ‘Grow the fuck up!’ Suddenly, the lockbox got hurled over Dalan’s head and clattered onto the dresser, casting the trinkets off upon landing. ‘You can’t mess around like a stupid teenager forever!’

Dalan sat up straight on the stretcher to look at Thane, this might be the nuance he had been waiting for, to see a glimpse of humanity between any of them. The untamed flames burning on Cain’s face weren’t new, but never had he seen anything Cain said get to Thane, and he showed it did, in the way he swigged the bottle with distraught riddled in his movement. Suddenly Dalan felt it, a sense of defeat among all of them while Thane and Cain stared each other down. Jerry had been quiet, like Dalan he was stuck in the middle of it. He shook his head at Dalan to answer his questioning shrug, which was the smallest piece of interaction that Dalan needed to finally feel like he was part of some sort of conversation. Jerry left for the kitchen, leaving the three of them behind with a tension so sharp it could cut their throats. With the bottle in his hand and his teeth grit together, Thane turned around and headed to the stairs, they all knew he was going to the roof, leaving Dalan alone with Cain.

Cain breezed like an angered bull, and before Dalan could ask he had already set his sights on him.

‘Don’t bother, you’re just as stupid as he is.’

Dalan was baffled, Cain opened the front door and left slamming it shut behind him. Dalan had seen him angry before, he had watched him trash the house, he would never forget the day he met him, seeing no hesitance in the man’s body language during the critical moment the butterfly knife was pulled. Yet this time, Dalan felt there was something to it. It hadn’t been since he met them that he would think about what something could mean. There was one thing to do, and that was to talk to Thane.

The so-called roof was a comfortable spot just above the balcony on the top floor, where they could climb up the ramp to the top and sit. Every one of them had a spot to go to, and that spot was Thane’s. Dalan sometimes questioned the wisdom behind drinking whiskey on the edge of a roof, but he never said it out loud, not until that night.

He carefully sat down beside Thane as the youngster swigged from the bottle, leaning back to dangerous levels but somehow managing himself just fine. The air was warm for a fall night, the sky was covered with threatening clouds, the chill of a rain warned them for a downfall to come. Dalan did not know how to start the conversation, mostly because Thane already seemed to have forgotten about the disagreement, whatever it may have been about. When the silence persisted Thane turned his head at Dalan, waiting.

Dalan figured he should just ask. ‘Is everything okay?’

Thane breezed a chuckle, it felt nearly condescending. ‘Yeah!’ he exclaimed. ‘Honkey-fucking-dorey!’

‘I mean…’

‘I know what you mean, and I wouldn’t be able to tell you, I guess he’s stressing about the car.’

That didn’t make sense. ‘It’s just a car,’ Dalan shrugged.

Thane’s eyes scanned the neighbourhood, how they had managed to squat a house in such a place like this was beyond them. Looking into the window of the house across the street they saw the hints of peace, the cosiness of a warm interior, the results of a loving, daily routine. Never a question about tomorrow, no question about who they were.

Dalan insisted. ‘It’s not like that though, since we’ve been to that house, everyone seems a little off.’ Upon that, Thane’s finished bottle was tossed off the roof and over the fence, exploding in pieces when it hit the asphalt road.

‘I’m sure it’s just because of the setback, I guess he expected to score more tonight…’ He muttered his words, swiftly grabbing a cigarette from a pack stashed in his pocket. Dalan noticed the slight frown, the thoughtfully pursed lips, the whole expression that Thane showed him as he looked up struck Dalan as odd. Luckily it meant Dalan finally managed to make eye contact and found a hint of something he could not quite place, like Thane was gauging him, and then concludingly offered him a smoke. ‘Don’t think about it,’ he said.

And despite of what he just saw, he chose not to.

Dalan couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t quite place it, but it felt as if his world had changed. So, during the morning hours when most of them had gone to their own room to sleep, he sat on the doorstep outside the front door, only then had he lit his smoke. The rush of nicotine allowed him to think, he tried to rationalise what he felt, he tried to figure out what might had been different, but nothing of what he had seen in the last 24 hours had been anything new. And when the sun started to come up the train of thought had gnarled on him enough for Dalan to feel overpowered, with a need for answers. He dropped the cigarette and left it to burn out in the grass as he got up to get back into the house.

But he was met with a surprise.

Jerry was on the stretcher in the living room, and Dalan had awaken him and his unexpected female companion as he entered the house. All he could really see of her was her blonde, messy curls spread over Jerry’s shoulder. He was baffled, and as if the answer would be behind him, he looked outside before looking back at the immodest couple.

‘When did she get here?’

Jerry, wearing nothing but boxers, was clearly just waking up. His supposed girlfriend was still stuck in a hazy slumber, moaning comfortably, her allegedly naked body advertising itself under the thin woollen blanket.

Jerry answered with a groan, managing to lift his head to peer at Dalan through squinted bloodshed eyes, a face robbed of its blush. Dalan nudged his head at the girl, waiting for a response, but all he got was a satisfied smirk. Jerry laid his hands behind his head, proudly stretching every trained, exposed, trembling muscle that pushed under the surface of his skin. The bedroom door at the right at of them opened, a bare-chested Thane stumbled out of the room with a freshly opened bottle in his hand, his wobbly walking and pained groaning showed all the signs of a hangover. Thane’s grumpy morning face perked up at the sight of the surprise.

‘Nice!’

Jerry turned his head to Thane. ‘You want to see something beautiful?’ He grabbed the woollen blanket and lifted it off the girl’s body, revealing to Thane what Dalan could only imagine. As it should that did wake her up, with an offended gasp she grabbed the blanket from him and wrapped herself back up.

‘Damn girl,’ Thane placed the bottle on the dresser, and searched in the pockets of his slacks while his eyes feasted on her beauty while he could. ‘You got no reason to hide.’

She rolled her eyes, her smoky eye make-up had run down, her red lipstick had smudged across her cheek. She asked Jerry where the bathroom was and skipped off to the end of the hall to the door he had pointed out. Thane, rolling a joint on the dresser, watched her pass right behind, having his eyes trail whatever bare skin he could spot, before she left his sight. ‘Damn,’ he muttered again.

Dalan bit his tongue, feeling a little irritated, especially when his eyes fell on the aftermath of this endeavour, the unsightly remains of a used condom.

‘Dude!’

‘What!’ Jerry looked up. ‘At least she won’t be fucking pregnant.’ Thane exhaled his drag with a soundless chuckle, his smirk nearly as subtle as the one that curled up on Jerry’s face. Dalan barely noticed, his attention was draw to the empty wrapper, like an itch. Somehow the whole scene tickled him, and Jerry’s words were bothering him like needlepoints poking at his brain. And the wrapper, somehow began to feel more like a memory than something he was looking at. A girl, blonde, young, to him beautiful, if she was just Jerry’s hook up, then why could he remember a laugh, a smile.

It was as if he travelled through time, echoes of voices pulled him away from reality, he could barely believe he would forget something like this, but he had to ask. He looked at Jerry as the proud conqueror sat up, and then at Thane enjoying the smell of his creation, and they looked at him as if they were waiting for him to say it.

It hit him. ‘…Didn’t I get someone pregnant?’

He had to go alone, he hadn’t been without his comrades for a long time, they were always together to have each other’s backs. But there was no way he could show up on this girl’s doorstep with three thugs right behind him. He knew they weren’t far, he was pretty sure they followed him anyway and were waiting around the corner, but he didn’t care. He still wasn’t certain if what he remembered was right, he just knew he had this hunch, this dreamlike recollection of somebody living in the house he had found his way to. It was a fenced property, a house he would consider as big as a mansion. He figured the only way to find out, was to go ask. Much like his friends, he was dead to shame, dead to the world, in the worst-case scenario he would be send away and he could go home being as empty headed as he always was.

He pushed the massive black gate open and stepped over the pebble-covered path to the front door, having no idea what to expect, he just knew he was in the right place when he recognised every detail as he saw them, like the window box of daffodils at the front fenestra beside the main entrance door. The little window on the door was barred off and the woodwork had gracious carvings. He scratched his belly hesitantly, but then pushed his finger to the doorbell, like a shy tower bell it rang.

When she opened the front door, like thunder had hit him, her name came to mind.

‘Amy?’

And she knew him too. ‘Dalan…’ she smiled. ‘…I can’t believe you’re here.’ She beckoned him to come in, quietly he obliged. ‘You’re so lucky my dad isn’t home right now.’

He responded with what was the only thing he could conclude with pure, low self-esteem fuelled logic.

‘I guess he doesn’t like me very much, huh?’ He was led out of the hall into the dining room, an art decorated place leading to a luxurious kitchen. The dining table set for lunch and a table below the window served as a home for little crystals and minerals. Dalan was confused, he found himself turning around slowly in awe of what he saw around the room. His eyes fell on an abstract painting of a woman holding her baby, he had seen it before.

‘Dalan?’ she called his attention, ripping him from his daydream. He turned back to her and for the first time he noticed the way she looked at him. She wasn’t just happy to see him, he saw a smile of joy, eyes that glistered at the sight of him, the humble posture, the bashful nibbling on her own lip. He knew he was right to suspect there was something more. Eventually, after she restlessly shifted her weight from one foot to the other, she asked.

‘Why, after so long, did you decide to come back?’

‘I don’t know,’ was all he could say, yet to figure out if he was following a ghost or a memory, and letting himself spew whatever thoughts his scrambled brain threw at him. ‘I guess I just wanted to meet…him?’

Amy smiled. ‘Her.’ She exhaled what felt like a storm of heartache, and before he knew she was embracing him with the little strength she had, thin, warm arms cradled around his neck. All he could do was look at her, the familiarity of her face paining his brain. Was he ever sure that his memory of him kissing her, touching her, her lips smooched to his cheek, wasn’t just a dream?

Probably not, for next thing he knew she led him to the baby room and lifted a squirming bundle from the crib, proudly presenting what he had forgotten about.

He had lived a dulled life, a smoky haze within the walls of his own lost paradise, he cared as much about anything as anything cared about him, which included his strange companions. Being reunited with what he had forgotten, a girl that somehow used to love him enough to let him this close and to see the result of that held to his chest as he closed her in his arms, was powerful enough that it should be able to bring any ghost back from the brink of death.

It hit him when he looked up to Amy, and he remembered meeting her at school, where she beat him in a soccer match and made fun of him for it, there was a time that he was alive. He didn’t realise he had been holding his breath, until Amy showed him a picture frame.

‘Dad doesn’t know I still have this.’

He recognised her instantly, the soccer girl with the curly blonde hair that was nuzzled in this strange boy’s arms. A little “wanna-be” bad boy with short shaven hair and a cap. That boy was not good enough for her, he had no idea what he was going to be, and Dalan didn’t recognise him, nothing but a depersonalised memory, maybe not even a memory.

‘…I should go.’ Assertively he pushed the baby girl back into Amy’s arms, careful to not drop her, but hasty enough to see Amy’s face drop with dread.

‘Dalan…’

‘Sorry,’ he muttered, not sure where to look, he turned to leave the nursery, halted at the door.

‘Why did you do it?’

He stopped, a thousand answers, none to be remembered. His eyes shifted to Amy’s presence just at the side of him. Stilled he walked off and left the house, maybe it shouldn’t have been so easy to walk away from the mother of his child.

Now the outside world was like an illusionary puzzle, nothing around him meant what it once did. His head was spinning, his sense of direction gone loose, so he closed his eyes, shut off the world around him. The picture, Amy, the emptiness of his mind washed over him like a shroud, separating him from the world. Now that the poison was emptied from his veins, from his memory echoed the cries of sorrow, sighs of pleasure, the pain of loss. He opened his eyes, he knew to follow his instincts.

And the city became familiar in a new way, like a hometown revisited. Somewhere known was a place to go, just a building with a sign saying “Mental healthcare facility”, hidden between a bank and a liquor store. And he remembered having walked those halls before, having stood in that entrance, smiling at a woman, shaking her hand politely. A young woman with a blonde bun, big glasses adorning a pair of welcoming, brown eyes. A smile slight and subtle, and he spotted her watching him from across the hall, his entrance had halted her step.

He saw her and knew: ‘Misses Jackson?’

‘Hi, Dalan,’ she smiled, she approached and extended her hand. ‘It’s good to see you.’

His bewildered face was read like a book, he shook her hand and asked with wariness.

‘Were you expecting me?’

She smiled. ‘We didn’t have an appointment if that’s what you’re asking.’

None the wiser he stared at her and she patiently waited for him to gather his thoughts.

‘…I have questions…’ he suggested, and with a welcoming wave of her hand she beckoned him to follow her in.

And he knew her office, the desert plant in the corner, the black and white clock ticking obnoxiously through the square office space and the tidied desk graced with colourful stress toys. Dalan rubbed his hands together watching her sit down with a file in her arms. She placed it in of her on the desk, with her hands rested on it she addressed him.

‘Tell me about these questions you have.’

He thought about his words, placing his cold hand in his neck and squeezing his skin in his palm.

‘Tell me what brought you here,’ she continued.

It was hard to know where to start, he had no idea what part of this neverland he had landed in. ‘I saw Amy…’ he explained, feeling like he had started halfway through the story.

With that she opened the file. ‘How did that go?’

He realised then and there that she had all the answers.

‘I held my daughter,’ he stated with an abrupt urgency. From beneath her glasses her eyes shifted from the file to Dalan, she nodded acknowledging.

‘How did that make you feel?’

The breath he took while thinking what he thought clutched his lungs, but he exhaled his answer truthfully. ‘Nothing.’

Another nod, the lack of shock was almost irritating to Dalan.

‘Dalan…’ her eyes read over the document in front of her. ‘Do you still see Thane, Jerry and Cain?’

It was like he was looking at a blank puzzle, like with a jigsaw, he had only found the edges of what framed his forgotten life. From her he could get the picture, he just had to ask.

‘…How much do you know? I barely know what I am doing, and why I do it.’

‘Dalan…’ she said again, a sincere pat on his wrist, like she was comforting a victim.

‘Do you remember how you met them?’

Yes, he met Cain at a poker game, and through Cain he got in touch with Jerry and Thane, his comrades and support in his criminal ways. That was the reality he had always known, and he realised it when he said it.

‘…I met them here, right?’

And when he came out of the building the sky had already shimmered down to a crimson veil, ending his day with a threat of the night. Miss Jackson’s words rang through his brain like a trauma, he’d step outside finding that his world had become disturbed, and he would explore it from a new point of view.

His friends met him at a bar, where they talked about their plans for the night and all he could do was listen and observe, watch them talk to one another like he was merely watching a show, a pointless display. What little sincere interaction they had shown in the last twenty-four hours had retreated into the frigid souls of criminals. It was hard for him to believe how he had never stopped to think about it before, how he had never seen it.

And this time when they walked into the club, never had their eyes seemed so empty, never before had he felt like he was looking at puppets, and their masters controlling them in the back of their heads. Dissociated, for the first time they seemed mindless.

And then an awful fear gripped him, feeling like a strap smothering him and taking his breath away. Was he like them? If somebody looked at him, would they see the same emptiness?

It was like he was surrounded with ghosts, a new dimension had formed between him and reality, one in which he had to question everything.

He took a deep breath, he listened to the people laugh and talk, he let it sink into him how they followed the rhythm of the music, girls and boys who danced with feigned ignorance yet their life lit eyes were scanning everyone around them like lighthouses. He wondered, as he watched his friends nod to the rhythm, if they looked alive to others. To anyone their smiles could seem so genuine, they’d blend in perfectly with the crowd, and like any other day no one would guess what would be going on in their collective minds, but this time around, now that he knew what he didn’t know before, he looked at them and he saw it clearly. The life he had thought to see in them was dull, nothing about them was real, they were not who he thought they were, they were nothing.

And it broke his heart. His mind dragged him through the memories of their endless endeavours, slipping roofies and crashing cars. Breaking into windows, knocking in stores for loot.

But thinking back to all those moments, it became painful to realise who had been the cause of all of their activities, the physical power behind the damage they had done to the world, he was forced to see them for who they were; nothing but useless mirrors of his own. Nothing but corruptions following him around.

Between the flashing of lights and the drumming of the bass through his ears he saw Cain at the bar, his narrowed eyes watched the crowd for a victim, and Dalan was expected to do the same. But then Cain caught his stare, any other day Cain would have scoffed him, cussed him out and told him to focus on their plan. Instead, this time Dalan saw calm in his face, a perceptive blink of his unusually relaxed eyes, followed with a nod. As if he was trying to hear what Cain was thinking, Dalan held the stare, and when his hand slid into the pocket of his hoodie it hit him like an awakening splash of water; his fingers curled around the metal touch of a butterfly knife. Like a trigger it set off the memory of the poker game. So attentively had he watched Cain knock over the chair he had sat on and mercilessly thrust the knife into the hustler’s gut, even then not a light of life in the man’s eyes while Dalan watched his victim collapse at his feet.

Now he had the knife clenched in his fist, and he was forced to see them for who they were, shadows of a worthless mind, garbage to the products of society, too deeply lost in their own perception of reality that there was no going back for them. Only one way but down, taking up space while falling. They had to go.

He could feel them right behind him as they walked home, he was sure if he looked back, they would be talking like any other day, but with his vision on the road ahead he was sure he felt their eyes burning in his skull. He had always known them to never show him any nuance, but he had become more paranoid than ever that they could read his mind.

Any other day he would have been too drunk to think it through, or to even just think. Had he never met his daughter it would have never come to this, and despite the lump in the throat, he blessed her little soul, she would never know that she made the world a better place.

Maybe it didn’t have to be this way, maybe he and his friends could live on doing what they’re doing, maybe he could just pretend he still didn’t know.

But entering the messy, filthy house his heart sank to the bottom of his shoes. Looking around at his comrades, eyeing each of them, observing every detail with a mixed sense of curiosity and dread, he knew there was no other way. For there was no place for them in this world, anyone would be better off without them, he had no other choice but to make them, and himself, pay for everything they had done.

His hand patted his trousers’ pocket expectantly, and the weight swinging in the fabric confirmed what he already knew. He held his breath, he looked around to see they had caught up to his silence and were watching him as he felt the tears building up in the corners of his eyes. All eyes were on him when his uncertain hand lifted the gun, and Thane’s natural reaction was to pat his own pockets to find they were empty. ‘What the fuck, Dalan!’

‘Hey…’ Jerry stood up from the bed, his hand lifted to reassure him. ‘Are you okay?’

But Dalan didn’t answer, nerves crawled under his skin when he spotted in each of their eyes that they began to realise what was about to happen. He lifted the barrel and aimed it at Jerry, while in the corner of his eye he saw Cain, the senseless murderer.

Cain spoke with the demeanour of one, not a sign of fear in his expression. ‘I’d like to say I’m surprised you’d turn on us this way, but I am not.’ A heartless smile. ‘After all, you’re crazy!’

‘Shut the fuck up, Cain!’ Thane yelled out, fearing for his life, in the second Dalan looked at Thane he saw his eyes trail to his only escape route.

‘Dalan…’ Jerry’s voice echoed. ‘It doesn’t have to end like this.’

None of them questioned him, confirming what he knew, so he answered knowing he was right. ‘Yes, it does.’

So he shot, a thunderous sound that shocked through the air, a bullet aimed for Jerry’s heart. With a gasp the man collapsed to the bed and lifelessly rolled onto the floor.

‘What the fuck!’ Thane grabbed the nearest bottle he could find, flung it at Dalan in a flair of panic. It shattered against the wall and the trigger was pulled for a second time. Thane’s body pushed upon impact to the wall, gasping and squealing he sank through his knees, his arms squeezed around his waist. In front of Dalan the gun began to shake in his hands, resonating his anxious mind. Every muscle in his face stiff with tension, his jaw clenched, lines of salt marking his cheeks.

And during this frenzy, before Cain could even speak Dalan turned his gun to him, with two hands on the chamber, he squeezed so hard his fingertips turned white, and with panic torturing his lungs like he inhaled glass with every breath he took, he unloaded the shots in his direction. Through the blur of his tears he couldn’t see where he was aiming but he shot three times until he heard the body drop.

And as the blur in his eyes cleared up to reveal to him the reaping he had fulfilled, stood between the bodies of his victims, they were all he could see. They were representative of the lifelessness of the world around Dalan. His heartbeat slowed to a near stop, he looked at his right to the dresser, where between the scattered pills and layer of dropped tabaco he saw the dented lockbox. He put the gun down next to it, and instead grabbed the butterfly knife. With the death silence punching his ears he carved “TO AMY” into the top.

Picking the gun back up, with his back to the wall he slid down to sit on the floor. He pressed the barrel to his heart, his breath trembled through his sobbing, his terror pumping through his body as he screamed to summon the power to pull the trigger to his only redemption.

And after the last shot the sirens began to sing in the distance, paramedics arriving at the scene to find the body and report the incident. The morning news told the story of the known local thug’s lone suicide found in the abandoned house. One could never imagine how many people were saddened by the news, everyone in the little town had seen him at least once, wary for his actions as he wondered the streets alone, all were sympathetic for his fate. His social worker was contacted to help bring him back to his mother, who with a broken heart sat down with Amy to hand her the recovered lockbox. They hugged, talked funeral arrangements, said their goodbyes and wished each other the best.

In solitude she wept in the nightlight glow, praying her baby girl would never know better. When she was ready, she pulled the little key from her wallet and opened the lockbox. She found the funds for a rainy day and pictures of the best summer times; the letter with his handwriting was only for her to read. She squeezed the paper in her hands as tightly as she could, even though it could never again make the world a better place.

By Terrinia Tells

From: Netherlands

Website: https://www.territellstales.com/

Twitter: terriniat

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