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803 Words
You used to spend most of your time in the library and tutoring undergrads for cash, both online and in person. Your students respected you.
You used to walk this very route, in fact, back and forth from the university library to your home. But you were carrying books then, not…
How things have changed.
Sometimes, you think back on your life and wonder: was that really you, back then? That body with its effortlessly beating heart, its warm, flowing blood, its mortal coil: family, friends, profession.
You even had hobbies. They seemed important. Everything did.
You'd been playing since you were children. The party saw people come and go every few years, but you and Alex, your storyteller, were always at the core. You continued to play through your adolescence and kept up with the habit well into your adulthood.
They still meet. You watch them from afar, sometimes, at the old warehouse. Alex emoting and gesturing in the low light of a paraffin lamp, their face intense. They'd always been so intense. The party laughing or stressing. Rolling the dice. Winning, losing. Moving on.
Not you.
You're not a part of this anymore.
Or anything else.
You look up, at the dark sky above, blotted out by streetlights, the shroud of clouds tinted brown by smog. This is what thinking back to your life feels like, sometimes. Like a layer of s**t muddies the view of your own memories, your own past. Everything seems distant, unclear, dull.
But you had a family, once.
Before you were Embraced.
Before your sire abandoned you and Markos took you in, for reasons only he knows.
You had people who cared about you, didn't you? Yes.
She closed her pharmacy and retired shortly after your Embrace.
She was a good mother. Still is, presumably, if you're still the kind of creature one can be a mother to.
She still lives in the old house under the Acropolis. Refused to move, in case you came back.
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What's the point of dwelling on these things, anyway? Markos often says it's better to move on. For you, for the people you left behind. Dwelling, trying to keep something of who you once were can only bring you pain. You and anyone you care about. Cared about.
So, then. It was another life.
Before this. This unlife.
It may sound selfish, but so what?
Any creature has the right to prioritize the avoidance of suffering.
Every animal knows that. You don't see any beasts throwing themselves in harm's way to protect those weaker or more innocent–whatever that means–than themselves, do you?
No. You don't.
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The warehouse you're looking for is a half-finished metro station, almost a mirror-image of the real one, connected to it by a narrow, blind alley. This is the kind of bad planning that happens a lot around here. Someone has a good idea, good intentions even, but then fails to implement so spectacularly that the result is a hole in the ground, people displaced, fortunes squandered.
Oh well. Suits you well enough, not gonna lie.
To get to the warehouse, you have to go through the subway proper, traverse it until you reach the far end. There, you find a door that leads to the guts of the station and, once you're past that, you'll exit into the alley.
Unfortunately for you, and perhaps for him, too, keeping an eye on that first door is within the duties of a guy that paces the back of the station, guarding the bits that are not well-lit enough for the subpar CCTV system.
You're through. The door clicks shut behind you. Now you're in the belly of the station, a dark maze of storage rooms, vents and generators.
The low hum of machinery reverberates through your bones.
How do you know which way to go?
That's the kind of thing you tend to do, and it pays off. You know the place like the palm of your own hand.
You make your way to the other side of the building in no time.
The alley is behind another door; but this one's not locked. Just a push bar, and you're outside again.
You look left and right. The alley is nothing but a narrow gap between two massive buildings, enclosed from both ends. If you didn't know better, you might feel like a rat trapped in a box.
The entrance to the warehouse is tucked behind a large metal container still overflowing with rubble from construction work that was completed years ago.
You take a careful look around to make sure no one's watching before you reach behind the container for the chain you know is there.
Your fingers feel for the rusty metal. There.
Pull once, twice.
Then, wait.
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- Writer
