The Night’s Shadow
By
Syndicate Luna
Night, a time when the moon and stars paint the sky with their beauty for all to enjoy. A time when quiet tranquility reigns to allow those who live during the day to rest and recover. However in the cities, these qualities are often forgotten about. The lights obscure the stars and dim the moon while the constant noise of vehicles break the silence. However, these things mean little to one person, a young man in his mid-twenties who lives in the city that never sleeps, New York. To this man, even though the lights block the stars, he can feel them in the sky. Even if there is constant noise in the city, he can tune it out without a second thought. Then there is the aspect of the night that few consider and fewer still respect, the shadows and the darkness they bring. This man not only respects the shadows that the night brings, but he also uses them. To him, the shadows are a place of relaxation, a place to retreat to when he feels the need to get away from the chaos of the city.
Saturday nights, a time when most people are out with friends, at a movie, restaurant, or party. Me? I have a routine. I start as soon as the sun goes down with a long walk to a relatively secluded bar known as the Wishing Well. It doesn’t have wall to wall TVs or slot machines like most bars do, but what it does have is a bartending god. Watching him make drinks is as captivating as any dance can be.
If I walked straight to the bar from my apartment, it would take about two hours, but I like to take different paths every week. This week I decided to have some fun and use alleyways as much as possible. Not the smartest thing to do but when you know every nook and cranny of the area, it’s easy to avoid the stupid people. I arrived at the Wishing Well around 9:00. “Hey buddy, thought it was about time you showed up.”
‘Is it bad that the bartender can time my arrival?’ I chuckled at that thought as I walked up to the bar table. It stretched across the back half of the building with a dozen or so tables filling the rest of the space. In one corner there was a pinball machine, the owner was a beast at it, and in the other was a 60 inch flat screen TV. All in all, it was a cozy place to relax, chat, and have a few drinks.
“The Saturday I don’t show up without letting you know is the day you should start worrying Dan,” I say as I sit down. Dan is the owner and bartending god standing at a whopping 5 feet 5 inches with short black hair, brown eyes, and average build. Don’t piss him off though, because he can and will kick your ass six ways to Sunday.
He laughed and responded, “I wouldn’t take that seriously if you hadn’t already shown up sick as a dog a few weeks ago. You can’t break your routine, can you?”
I shrugged, “What can I say, I’m a creature of habit.”
“So, what should I start you with today? Shot, beer, one of my famous mixed drinks?”
I thought for a minute and decided to go with one of my favorites. “Get me a Bloody Mary, and make it burn.” I say with a grin.
He chuckled as he retrieved the mixings for my drink. “Should’ve known. You’re the only person I know that likes their drink hot enough to bring tears,” He says as he pours a generous helping of tabasco into a glass. “So how’s work been?”
I give an amused snort at this, “If you can really call it work.” The “work” in question is a website I created to sell various pieces of woodwork I make. Anything from simple picture frames to decorative room sized display cases are a few things I make during the week. I also take commissions for custom works if it interests me, which it normally does outside of the few orders that you could literally make with a handsaw and some wood glue. I make enough to pay the bills and have some leftover spending money. “It’s a little slow right now. I have a few pieces in the works and I haven’t had a commission in a few weeks, but it’s always like that for a while after Christmas,” I say as Dan hands me my drink. “Fast as always Dan,” I take a drink “and still the best Bloody Mary around.”
“That’s because no one else knows about your extreme tolerance for things that will burn the tongue out of most people. And I would like to keep it that way, don’t want to lose one of my frequents.”
I laugh, “You don’t have to worry about that, I won’t leave until I beat you in pinball.”
“HA! Good luck with that sonny. You’ll get free drinks for a year if you ever do,” Dan says in his cocky attitude.
“I’ll hold you to that.” We both laugh at this.
We continued to talk for a few hours before I attempt to break Dan’s high score again. I didn’t even get close. “Dammit Dan, how the hell were you able to get 78 million? This thing only goes to 99!”
He chuckles and replies “Face it boy, you’ll never beat me.”
I gave a small laugh. “That just means I won’t be leaving anytime soon. Anyway, I think I’ll call it a night. I’ll see you next week.”
“Watch yourself out there. All the idiots are out this time of night.”
“It’s me we’re talking about here Dan, what could happen?” I say as I give him a wave and walk out the door.
The second part of my Saturday routine is simple; spend the rest of the night wandering around New York until morning. I just walk in random directions while sticking to the shadows as much as possible. The reason I have been able to do this for the past 4 years without incident is because I have a particular talent for blending into the background and going unnoticed. It’s a handy skill to have and it has gotten me out of trouble more times than I care to count. I can also be fun at times to find out that I’m being followed by some would-be muggers only to slip into an alley, hide in the shadows, and watch as they walk by wondering where I went. I haven’t been found yet and I don’t plan to anytime soon.
I left the Wishing Well at 1:30 in the morning and started my trek into the night. It’s about 6 hours till the sun starts to rise so I spent a good hour and a half wandering around and decided to take a break for a bit to see if anything interesting passes by. After 30 minutes of nothing happening, I start walking again. I spend another 2 hours wandering before I stop again.
‘Something isn’t right. I’ve never been out for 4 hours and not see anything,’ I think as I stop in a small alleyway. It was then that I heard the sound of a high pitched scream….a little girls scream. I immediately make my way in the direction it was coming from and hoped my paranoia was overreacting.
“Get back here you worthless piece of shit!” I heard after jogging for a minute. ‘…fuck,’ is the only thought that goes through my head as I slip into the shadows of a small alley. I’m there for only a few seconds before I see a little girl run by screaming, followed by an average sized man shortly after.
I sit there for a second stunned before I run out after them. ‘Oh hell no!’ I think as I chase the man down the street. Sadly though I can’t fight for the life of me so I resign myself to follow them and only try to attack him if things get worse. After a minute the little girl turns a corner and I start to get my hopes up. I recognize the corner as one of my favorite spots to ditch people who are chasing me. Not far around the corner is an alleyway that branches off in multiple directions as you go further in. As I continue to follow them, I pray the little girl is smart enough to run there and hide somewhere. I make the turn and smile inside as I hear the man yelling, trying to find where the girl went. ‘Good job kid. Now stay hidden for a bit’
I slip into the alley before he can see me and start to slowly make my way down it, hoping that I find the girl first. After walking for a few minutes I hear her crying around the corner. I try to figure out a way to approach without making her panic ‘I can’t just walk up to her and calling out to her will just make her run…shit, this is a really bad idea…’
I creep up to the corner she is hiding behind a pray that my idea doesn’t end horridly. After a few seconds, I brace myself and jump around the corner. The first thing I do is cover her mouth to keep her from screaming and immediately after I pin her to the wall hard enough to keep her from running but not enough to hurt her. As I expected, she immediately starts to struggle in an attempt to get away.
“Shhhhh. I need you to calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. Relax okay, relax,” I say to her in a quiet and calming voice. After a minute of trying to calm her down, she stops trying to break free and stares at me with fear filled crying eyes. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you,” I say quietly. After a few minutes she starts to calm down some more. “I promise, I’m going to try to help you. If I let you go, do you promise not to scream or run?”
The girl doesn’t stop staring at me, fear still in her eyes. But now there is something else there as she stares, hope. After a few seconds of hesitation, she nods. “Good.” I say as I let her go. After I let her go I sit against the wall next to her. Now that she isn’t panicking, I was able to see what she looks like. She was about 4 feet tall with shoulder length red hair and currently wearing a white T-shirt and pajama pants. If I were to guess, she was about 10 years old. But there were 2 things that caught my attention right away. First of which was the fact that she was covered in cuts and bruises, most of which didn’t look recent, and it looked like she hadn’t eaten in days. When I saw this, I immediately got pissed and wanted to find the guy that did this to her and kick his ass into a coma, even if I can’t fight for shit. This however was put on momentary hold when I noticed the second thing, her eyes. They were something I didn’t think was possible. Her eyes were blood red. How I didn’t notice this when I was trying to calm her down is beyond me.
After getting over the initial shock of her eyes, I motion for her to sit down. After a moment’s hesitation, she sits next to me…shaking like a leaf. It’s the middle of January and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she isn’t shaking just because of fear. So I take my jacket off, put it around her shoulders, and hug her close in an attempt to keep her warm. After about 5 minutes her shivering starts to slow down, so I decide to try to talk to her.
“Feeling a little better now?” She slowly nods. “That’s good.” I sit there with her for a few more minutes before I finally ask “Can you tell me why you’re running from that guy? What happened? Who is he?” I already have an idea of what happened but I need to make sure…I just hope I’m wrong.
She sniffs and her shaking begins to intensify again but she answers in the most melodic voice I have ever heard, “That was my daddy. He wanted to hurt me because I left my room.” She starts to cry again. “I was hungry, and daddy doesn’t give me food. So I have to take some from the kitchen when he’s asleep or isn’t home. He caught me going back to my room with food and said that he’s had enough and he started hitting me. After a while he stopped and went back to his room, saying he was going to end this. When he came back out, he looked scarier than any other time he was mad at me, so I ran.” I sat there for a minute after she finished. ‘God dammit…I hate it when I’m right sometimes.’
“P-p-please…d-don’t hurt me.”
This takes me by surprise so I ask, “Why would I hurt you?”
She answers, “D-daddy says my eyes are a c-curse. H-he says that I’m e-evil and I don’t deserve to l-live.”
I look at her for a minute before I start to laugh. She looks up at me in confusion as I do so. After I calm down a bit I ask, “Want to know what I think?” She gives a hesitant nod. “I’ve known you for less than 20 minutes and I think you are the sweetest little girl I have had the pleasure of meeting. In fact, I’m having a hard time deciding what’s more beautiful, your voice or your eyes. There is no way you are evil.”
She stares at me wide eyed, not believing what she just heard. I just give her a caring smile as she does. After a few minutes, she suddenly hugs me and cries. “T-thank you,” she says between sobs, “thank you.”
I look at her face again and she is smiling. A smile that can light up the darkest of days. A smile that I found myself wanting to see on her all the time. We sat there for what seemed like hours, eyes closed, enjoying the quiet of the alleyway.
*CLICK* “Found you, you little piece of shit.”
My eyes snapped open ‘FUCK’ and without thinking, I threw myself between the girl and the gun that the guy who I assume was her father was holding.
*BANG, BANG, BANG*
I barely felt the bullets hit my back and neck. After a few seconds, black started to creep into my vision. The last thing I saw was the terrified, blood covered face of the girl
‘Son of a bitch…I’m pathetic. I can’t even keep a promise to a little girl.’ After that thought, everything went black.
“Do you really think he’s the one?” A feminine voice asks.
“Yes,” a masculine voice replies “he has a pure heart that will not be easily corrupted. However, he will not be able to do it alone. When the time comes, he will need help to keep him from falling into despair.”
The owner of the female voice looked worriedly at the other being. “I just hope that they will be able to accept him before it’s too late.”
“As do I Aurora, as do I.”
