Trail of the Dead

Chapter 6

Callan POV

Stealthily, I took the steps down the platform to the patio, careful not to startle Enya. She was perched on the top of a picnic table with a Black Label bottle clutched in her left hand seemingly looking up at the sky but really into an whirlwind of thoughts. I stood there watching her for a while, she had quite a perfect body, the worn nirvana shirt she wore hugged her in all the right places. But if you look carefully enough, you could see the muscles slightly toned around her upper arms, her posture strong and upright. Her hair flowed down to her lower back, dark brown and wavy and for the first time, she wasn't wearing her leather jacket.

"Are you... just gonna stand there?" She chimed, slightly slurring halfway through.

I didn't respond for a while, slightly shocked she noticed me and at myself for analysing her for so long. How long has she known? Gradually, I made my way over to her front. Her casted leg rested in the seat part of the table; bad arm resting in her lap. She took a swing from the bottle.

"What are you doing out here?" I asked looking her up and down.

She didn't reply for a while. Just looked out to the tree line about half a mile away. Her eyes seemed empty, like always, the shield up, but it somehow looked weaker now.

"Who are you, Callan?" She looked me directly in the eyes, obviously asking more than what it would seem to anyone else. Apparently, she was very drunk.

"Enya, you are very drunk... come on let's get you inside." I offered my hand.

"No no" she put her hands up to stop me from closing in on her. Pausing for a moment, then taking another swing from her bottle.

"Enya i'm not leaving you out here."

"I can very much take care of myself, thank you." Her expression was a mixture of amused and confident.

"Quite frankly, you sound like a stubborn 5 year old right now Enya." I remarked with my hands on my hips.

"I said I'm fine" she was almost aggressive now, she had this way of being so calm and angry at the same time, but right now, the alcohol enhanced the anger in her.

She looked me straight in the eyes, for a moment, I was taken aback, but her dark brown eyes mesmerized me, they were dark brown with a hint of gold only to be seen if you looked ever so carefully. Like the earth had formed into a perfect blend to allow her to see the world; two drops of coffee in a cloud of milk.

There was fire in her, I could see it lingering in her eyes, just below the surface. An eternal flame that never went out. It governed her, almost like her every action was dictated by the purpose that this flame gave her, but at times, I could never tell if she was fighting to extinguish it like the rest of us or keep it burning; it was her stained-glass window, the way she saw the world. At times, it was like she was waiting for someone to mess with her, so she could gain the satisfaction of releasing the fury in her, as if everyone was out to get her and she had armed herself with her anger at the entire situation and shielded herself from all the wonderful human things along with it.

"fair enough" I kept my tone light and friendly so as to not further provoke her and seated myself on the bench table next to her.

"Callan Fernsby, 25, Irish origin, specifically Dublin, bachelors in philosophy at Cambridge universit-"

"If I wanted to know your record I would know everything about your past 5 generations" she established.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that. Besides, this is a question I should be asking you, who are you Enya?" I testified.

I tried to look past the barrier of her eyes; they say eyes are the windows to the soul, but all I saw of her was the huge barricade she had put between herself and every other thing in existence. She was completely numb, as if emotions were all a foreign language to her that made her an outsider to the world. I knew that look all to well.

"Why have you put up that wall?"

"What wall?"

"The one between you and the world."

She didn't say anything, just took another swing and fixated her gaze back on the tree.

"You know how all you 'glass half-full' type of people talk about being the best version of yourself, sometimes, the best version of yourself is the monster that waits beneath the surface, waiting for the chance to take control." her tone was steady, almost like she was being bluntly honest. "I don't believe in people, I never got around to it and I don't want to. The unnecessary duplicity that it brings to your life, the keeping up with everyone else, the pretending to care, it's all energy wasted that can be used in better tasks."

"Wow, I don't think I have ever encountered a more pessimistic person in my life." I remarked.

"I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist."

"Being alone, it feels easier but it isn't. The human instinct is to be good enough for something, we are all working towards one thing or another, we'd go mad if we weren't. When that thing isn't there, you begin to create double standards of your own reality, like you can't tell what's real or fake anymore..." I trailed off. "The point stands, everyone has it tough Enya, but the solution to the problem isn't solitude."

"The solution to my problem is none of your business." She replied, nonchalant.

"No, it's not."

I knew better than to be hurt by such words, really I just felt sorry for her, her lack of ability to see the irrationality in the problems she was creating for herself. She was so consistent in the solidity of her being 'too far gone'.

"I'm after someone." She was careful with how she spoke, like she was choosing her words very carefully.

"as in..."

"as in I want to kill him." she bluntly announced.

"okay, your drunk." I stated the obvious.

She just turned around and looked straight ahead again.

"Who?" I turned serious.

"Something worse than me."

Hello fellow villains,

It's been an age. I owe you all a HUGE apology, everything has been so crazy as of late and I have my major exams this year so I've just been drained with no motivation to do anything whatsoever. But I have overcome the writer's block and will be posting chapters a little more frequently now. This is something I stopped working of a couple months ago so I just continued where I left off. So what do we think of Callan?