Faction of Time

I

666 LOST SOUL BAR

MEMORY LANE, HELL 42223

06NOV 2008 2300

"Gather around boys, I will tell you a story." A couple jokesters wandering through the bar's double doors interrupted me. One had sodden the room quiet; they cut me off as I disclosed my trip from Vewhos to this bar. The mood was buzzing. In the far corner of the club, two beauties sat at a booth. I heard their gossip like cicadas and it recollected into a single thought: her.

I was contemplating about Roué.

I took a whiff and the bar had this sickly aroma as if death had crawled up a cow and died. I twirled around in my chair and scanned the place and had seen the wallpaper reminded me of a chicken coop. I may have seen six maybe more spiders roaming, and God, did I crap my whities when one crawled across my hand. There was a sturdy bar table that crossed to the other end of the room, the surface clustered with empty beer mugs. I steered my stool around, reaching for my cup. I had turned to face a red-pigmented man. He ran a searching gaze over me, so I did the same to him.

I swore this punk wanted a fight.

He didn't though. He smiled, his teeth were blacker than the emptiness one encounters seeing at the end of a well. He ceased and lowered until our matching gazes ended. After a second of waiting to see what happened next, he'd risen with a bottle in both hands. He grasped the neck of the glass and popped the cork off; it fizzed like a Sprite can.

"What's this?"

"Something to chill the nerves." He pronounced his 'S's with a 'Z' sound and his 'V's with a 'W.' I chucked the cup back, chugging it with a single gulp. The first swallow felt like a spoonful of wet cinnamon. It burned like a salt on an open wound in my throat, and it still burned after as I chugged a cup of Coke Cola down. I coughed my way through the burning sensation, I looked back to see his crooked, griming grin. It stretched from ear to ear; his gums brown and bare. "Take another," he said.

"No."

"It won't be as bad as the first." He held a 'daunting' smile- from the looks of this guy I was sure he was a pervert in his old life. I pressed the glass back to my lips. I took a confident swig this time, quick and out the way, allowing it to flow down my throat without effort. He's right, the second time is easier.

"I guess you were right."

"I really wish I was." I could only imagine a pedophile saying something like that.

This is my life now, living with a bunch of strangers and drinking all day. I made clear I'd stay roughly 10 paces from the bartender; he told me he was an ice cream man on Holiday Lane, yeah right, he was selling something on the down low and it sure wasn't ice cream. Besides that, my name's Grumbled Uhr. I've been through hell for the last couple months. Lost the girl of my dreams, and if I mistakenly send a guy off to his death, somehow I'm the bad guy. I sacrificed my life to leave my friends and family over an obsession I thought wasn't one. I did something wrong, and it all started in September. I wanted to continue where I left off in my story, but it turned out there was always something interrupting. For example, this one now, someone had plopped a seat beside me and stuck their balled fist beneath their chin looking at me as if they're hypnotized.

They hiss and cooed below my jaw. I tried to ignore them but suddenly they blew through their pursed lips, and the hot air created this odd sensation on the side of my neck.

So, ten paces from this guy too.

Someone tapped me from behind, so I looked over to answer with an inquisitive hum. I'm met with a boney forefinger the size of an AK-47 bullet and as silvery as cream, too. "Hey new guy, how'd you get here?" the bartender asked. He shined the table, hocking up a big wad of saliva and smearing it all over with a dish towel.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you." I flipped my shot glass upside down onto the table; it made a soft thump sound. I hopped out my seat and waved my hands in the air as if this story is about to go Merlin on their asses. "As I was saying, it was a Monday. Roué —"

"Who's Roué ?" A crowd assembled, murmurs struck, then become passive cases, and suddenly a hand leaped out like a daisy in the snow from a stranger in the far back. His blue finger and chipped nail in the air, he shouted, "is she the reason you're down here?" I shook my head. "Someone put a hatchet in your back?"

I raise an eyebrow before glaring at him. "Just listen. Roué and I were walking through the halls of Narfi when a fight broke out. Before I came here, I was a senior. Now, standing with you lot down here, I'm just a load of nothing besides passing memories.