RED MASK | raphael hamato

ONE.

Your uncle's apartment kind of sucks.

There's nothing really wrong with it, you suppose. It's not too small, and its location is a nice blend of both convenient and quiet (or, well, as much of quiet as you can get in New York City). It just feels more like a shell than a home. Everything is blank. There isn't much here besides the bare minimum. It's abundantly clear that your uncle barely spends any time here, certainly not enough to take up any sort of presence around the apartment. Something about the lack of life in the apartment makes you feel disconnected, almost ghostly, both haunted and haunting.

So you try to avoid it as much as possible.

Honestly? It's not too hard. Your uncle gave you a credit card loaded with more money than your frugal self could ever imagine using, and you've got pepper spray with you, and you're in freaking New York City, so you can do basically anything.

And it's summer, and you don't have school (save for summer homework) and you've been given nearly zero adult supervision, so you spend a lot of your days sleeping later than you should, and a lot of your nights staying up later than you should, a little bit of time at the library, doing summer homework or working on hobbies, and a lot of time wandering around the city, finding cool little shops and and buying something when you feel like it, and sometimes dropping by the occasional restaurant or convenience store when you get hungry. A couple times you try going to see a movie or a Broadway show, but you feel weird about doing it on your own.

It's nice, mostly, to be able to go do whatever you want, whenever you want. But walking around the city, it's easy to feel crowded or lonely or somehow both at once, swallowed up by the skyscrapers, so you spend more time exploring at night, when the city quiets down and the air is different. The noodle shop you like is always open, so that's nice too.

It's one of these nights you're out exploring, reminiscing a bit about your old life, when you come across him.

* * *

Walking down the empty street by yourself is not a pathetic way to spend a Friday night.

Or at least, that's what you tell yourself.

This happens more frequently than you'd like to admit. Night falls, you'd still be awake hours later, and a wave of dread and loneliness and restlessness would wash over you. You'd feel so trapped. So you'd go for a walk, looking for someplace to go, only to realize there's nowhere you can go where you feel like you belong.

Still. Walking helped you take your mind off things, sometimes. Plus, fresh air was always good.

So you keep trying to tell yourself.

In your distractedness, you stumble and almost fall off the sidewalk into the street. Somehow, you catch yourself, but in the process, you hear something clatter and rolls into an alleyway. You've dropped your pepper spray.

"Dammit," you mutter. Small pockets are the bane of your existence. Stepping closer to the alley, you take out your phone and turn on the flashlight. Too late, you realize there's a figure already standing in the alleyway, hooded face turned towards you.

Before you can blink, there's a blur of motion. You feel your back slam against the hard brick wall of the alleyway, the breath knocked out of you. The figure raises some kind of metal cylinder above you, like they're about to smash your head in.

Oh shit, you think. I really wish I hadn't dropped my pepper spray. You could really use it right about now.

But also, if you hadn't dropped it, you probably wouldn't be in this alleyway right now to begin with.