Headfirst for Halos

I don't know how I got here…actually, that’s a lie. I know exactly how I got here, but I still don’t want to believe it.

How had it all gone so damn wrong?

One day everything’s fine, everyone’s happy, yet less then 48 hours later finds me homeless, broken, and on Whore Haven Avenue…damn…

~~~
My best-friend-with-benefits, Ryan, dropped me off at my house. He had seemed so tense…wasn’t normal for him. I waved as I unlocked and opened the front door of the house. He sped off without a second glance…guess it was over…

Subdued I walked into the house, but the smell of smoke brought me up short. I turned to the backyard, and saw that the back door was open.

I walked out slowly to the charred mess in the middle of it. From the door I could see it was all my stuff. I knelt down and fingered the singed bits of my possessions. They had gotten everything…maybe…

I ran up to my room and my knees nearly gave out. It was all white…no color. Any trace of me long gone and the smell of bleach permeated the air. My eyes filled with tears as I realized they really had gotten everything. In the middle of the floor was a small, white envelope with acid black ink:

FRANK IERO

Out of the envelope fell a twenty dollar bill and a small cruelly formal letter telling me to leave. My parents had closed all of my accounts and destroyed everything I owned.

Now it all made sense…Ryan had been so quiet and stiff, my parents had probably threatened to expose him.

Something in me suddenly gave way as my world crashed down around my ears.

~~~

I picked myself up and dragged my emotion battered body behind a few empty boxes, some were occupied, and others seemed vacant and wanting. I curled up in a small corner against ice-cold brick pulling my thin hoodie closer to me and tried to forget everything in a long-awaited darkness.

…

I picked my head up from the lightly frosted ground and glared tiredly into the rainy sky. My stomach growled, but I didn’t know where to go to look for food. I got up, stretching stiff, partially frozen muscles before going in search of anything resembling a meal. After a few blocks I caught a whiff of soup, my stomach spoke for the both of us.

I followed my nose to a run down shack with a long line of other hobos like me. I got in line cursing the wind and rain. I was last in a huge line, my chances didn’t look good. When I finally got into the place, I knew I was fucked.

I watched as the kitchen gave the last bits of food to the guy ahead of me. My stomach protested as I turned around and walked back into the storm’s cruel embrace. The sun peeked periodically, mocking me with its false warmth. I gnawed at my lip ring nervously as I searched hopelessly for a meal. Eventually the sun disappeared forever and I knew it was evening if not night. I still hadn’t eaten anything. I’d managed to find a water fountain, but that was far from what my body really wanted.

I curled up in a corner of the rooftop. Falling asleep with the city’s illuminated skyline before me in its mockingly glorious splendor.

…

I woke up again with the sun beating down on me. My clothes were dry, but I was freezing. I felt and heard a rattle as I breathed—pneumonia if not worse. My empty stomach and parched throat forced me to my unsteady feet and down the fire escape in search of nourishment. I had always been thin and sickly; my body couldn’t take this kind of treatment much longer.

Sniffling and coughing I tried to find another soup kitchen, but I knew they would all be closed or filled by now. I stumbled out onto the street, barely aware of the people around me. Subconsciously, I knew that I looked like a junkie in withdraw or something, but I could barely see or hear, much less coordinate my arms and legs appropriately…damn my weak immune system.

I know for sure that one moment I was looking at the horizon before seeing the gum riddled pavement. I never noticed how sparkly the sidewalk was, not until I looked closely at it. I vaguely remember someone saying something, but it had no meaning to it. I remember the feeling of floating though I was still in my body, but everything went black and I knew nothing else.

…

I remember snatches of conversations amid a torrent of nightmares and fantasies. A burning filled my body, as I tried to fight off the illness. Everything always turned black.

…

My senses came back slowly. I felt warm and dry. I smelled burning wood and coffee. My hearing was last to return with intense pain right on it tail causing me to groan.

“You’re up!” an unfamiliar voice yelped. It was happy...and worried. “You hit the sidewalk pretty hard.” He continued. I flinched when I felt a hand on my forehead—it was so cold. “Rough life, huh?” he asked though it seemed more to himself. I heard him move a little away, and after a while I peeked through my eyelashes at him.

His hair was so black the reaper must get jealous at times, and in desperate need of a haircut. He was paler than moonlight, almost translucent, and his eyes were a bright green. He seemed on the skinnier side, like me, but it was hard to tell without fully opened eyes. He was dressed in a strange outfit, almost like a 16th century Parisian-Goth in the underground-type scene. He smirked a little waiting for my response—I froze.

Somehow I made it out of the deathtrap of a cocoon and into the furthest corner, never once taking my eyes off his glowing alabaster fangs.

END OF SESSION ONE