Page 3 of Blood Red Woes

The emotion inside is overwhelming, and I’m forced to close my eyes to stop any tears from falling. I hold the picture against my chest and roll onto my side.

I don’t cry. Not anymore. I promised myself a long time ago I wouldn’t shed a single tear more.

You’d think it’d get easier, that the grief wouldn’t suffocate you as much as the years go by, but it doesn’t. Nothing ever gets easy.

I drift off to sleep on an empty stomach.

Sadly, it’s that same empty stomach that wakes me a few hours later. Just before midnight it demands food, and I roll out of bed, abandoning the picture of my dad on the comforter. I hold a hand to my stomach and say, “Yeah, yeah. Food. I got it.”

My feet shuffle out of the hall and into the kitchen area. I pull out a cup of ramen, add some water, and toss it in the microwave. I yawn, still half asleep, and grab myself a fork. When it’s done, I slip my shoes on and sneak into the main hall. Within a minute, I’m on the roof of the building, my feet dangling off the edge as I eat and watch the world around me.It’s my favorite spot.

A college town, the nightlife is hopping. The streets are still packed, and people dressed in clubbing attire walk the sidewalks in groups. If things were different, I could be one of them.

I eat the ramen slowly, the weight of all the bad news finally sinking in. Honestly, I have no idea what I’m going to do, howI’ll survive. All my life, my goal was to make my dad proud, but I can’t do that if I’m homeless, jobless, and kicked out of college.

Glancing up at the dark sky, I shout, “Fuck!” That gets some of the people on the sidewalk to glance up at me, but I’m above the streetlights and Frank’s bar isn’t lit with multiple neon signs like most businesses on the street, so I’m pretty sure they can’t see me.

“What am I going to do?” I ask myself in a much more normal volume. “Stop talking to yourself, for one. Get your shit together, for two.”

I was going to say more, but right then, across the street, something flashes. Something in the alley between the bank and the chiropractor’s office—yeah, another reason Frank’s business isn’t doing too well: it’s in the shittiest part of the city.

Anyway, back to whatever it is. It’s bright, some kind of intense flash of golden white. It’s strong enough to light up the whole alley and then some, but after two seconds it fades, as if it was all in my imagination.

Everyone on the street and sidewalks go on with their nights, completely oblivious to whatever it was.

Huh. Maybe it is all in my head, somehow.

Either way, something tugs at me, and I decide I have to go check it out.

I get up and head down the fire escape, down to the alley. I stop by the dumpster and immediately see two big eyes staring up at me.

Stripes, the alley cat. Frank won’t let me bring him in, which is fine because I don’t have the money to take care of a cat, but… I still bring him food when I can. Maybe I pity him because I understand him, the having no family to take care of you bit, or maybe I just like cats.

Or both.

I set my half-eaten ramen down before him, and the black and gray cat meows in thanks before pushing his face into the bowl. I pet him from his head to his tail, and his little butt goes up with my hand, as if he’s relishing the affection.

“Don’t know what all you can eat from it, but you’re welcome, dude,” I say. I pet him for a few more seconds, and then I stand, straighten myself out, and leave the alley behind, my destination across the street.

That flash… I never saw anything like it before. I have no idea what could’ve made it. It was too bright, too blinding to be a snap of a camera flash. It was powerful enough to encase the entire alley: the dumpster from the bank and the three floors of brick walls on either side of it.

And the weirdest part is I don’t remember seeing any people in the alley. That means whatever it is glowed by itself.

This is one of those moments where you could say curiosity killed the cat. Me being the cat. It probably isn’t the smartest thing to hike across the street and go into another alley in search of answers that, in the grand scheme of things, won’t affect me at all.

I wait until traffic clears somewhat, and then I rush across the four-lane street. I make it to the sidewalk on the other side of the street and dart into the alley. It’s like the entire world is carrying on, oblivious to what happened here.

Which is insane, right? That flash was super freaking bright. I don’t know how I’m the only one who saw it.

I head deeper into the alley, on high alert. I don’t hear the sounds of people waiting to jump me. In fact, the deeper I go into that alley, the less I heareverything. The cars on the street. The people on the sidewalk. The general nightlife of the city. It’s like I step into a vacuum, a void where all sound ceases to exist.

I pass the dumpster, finding it’s overflowing. A few bags lay against the bank wall, and the smell is enough to make menauseous. Urine. Someone definitely took a piss here. I hold a hand up to my nose as my face wrinkles in disgust, and I’m seconds from turning away and leaving—because it doesn’t look like anything is here—but then something strange happens.

In the vacuum of no sound, the wind blows. On the gentle caress of that wind, I hear a voice. Whispers. Murmurings so low and incoherent the little hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stick straight up.

My eyes scan the small mound of trash bags next to the dumpster bin again, and this time I see something poking out between two bags. Somethingglowing.

“What the…” I whisper, inching closer to it. What is it? Is that what made the entire alley light up? My incredulousness and my curiosity overpower me, forcing me to bend over and carefully move aside the trash bag on top so I can see the object better.

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