Bloody 20's

Prologue

9th of January of 1924

The Night was cold like a tomb and as dark to the point that one may end up thinking that the moon and stars had suddenly vanished from the pitch black sky , it was still early winter and the ivory snow that had fallen that same afternoon was decorating the empty streets like a reminder of the celebration of the New Year's Eve that happened not so long ago.

At the distance , a big cloud of smoke could be seen if you focused your vision and it was growing bigger by every minute that passed , the source of it was a large iron steam train , that was moving forward at a steady speed to it's destination. The old machine had it's fair share of years but it was still as strong as the first day it traveled on the rails , inside of the furnished wagons there weren't many occupants , just the workers and 1 or 2 passengers per place ; one of these travelers was sitting in the far end of the wagon and next to a window , while nervously grabbing her suitcase.

A couple of minutes passed and finally the train arrived to the station with a loud screech followed by the sudden stop of all movement , from it's doors the small passenger emerged and with uneasy step she exited the wagon , once she was completely out of the railroad vehicle she stopped in her tracks and examined her surroundings , the train station was considerable small and it was out in the open , so it was colder than the interior of the wagon ; the petite porcupine hesitated for a moment and considered returning , but at the same time that this occurred a loud whistle was heard and just as quickly as it arrived , the steam train was suddenly gone from sight.

This is it , there was no turning back now.

The young porcupine grabbed with strength her suitcase and gathered all the courage she could , then she started walking to her new destiny . The empty streets were so desolated that one would think that they were in a ghost town , just thinking about this made the terrified lady's quills that were colored like a scarlet sunset tense up in the air , without a warning a chill breeze appeared on the lonely street and with it's cold embrace sent shivers down her body , this only encouraged her to walk faster so she could arrive soon to her destination ; the instructions described in the letter she received were clear enough so she could locate the residence she was going to use without having to ask someone for directions , which was a blessing for her.

Some time passed before she could arrive at the place , it looked just like those complexes of the big cities that the young lass saw once or twice in the newspapers but a bit smaller in size , when she entered not a single soul was inside , not even the bellman , now that she remembered , it seems that he was described in her letter as "very friendly fella but also very weird when it came of common sense and logic , doing a lot of unbelievable or irresponsible stuff like leaving for several hours without someone to cover up for him! " . The porcupine assumed that this was going to be a regular situation for her so she better get used to it , but she also wondered how that bellman was able to get his job on the first place , she walked through the room and across a hallway until she encountered the staircase , she needed to go to the third floor and coincidently there was an elevator ready for use , and yet she decided to not use it out of fear of getting stuck in it without any kind of help for hours , she might have felt more exhausted in the end but it was definitely safer ; When she finally arrived at her floor she was dragging her valise along the floor and there were dandruffs marking her route like if she was in the fairytale of Hansel and Gretel , she walked through the hallway and stopped in front of the door number "209" . In the floor there were a couple of newspapers of "The Daily Acorn" ( which seemed to be exclusive of this town , since the lassie has never heard from it before) , she found it odd and he proceeded to pick them up , while reaching out for one of the pockets of her faded coat and grabbing the small key that was sent to her with the letter.

She opened the door and observed her surroundings , it was cozier than she expected but now she was too tired to concentrate on that , she took out her old coat with her soft lilac scarf and put them in the hanger that was behind the front door , then , like if she knew the apartment like the back of her palm , she walked into the guest's room and let herself fall into the bed.

-" (Where is Kish ?)". That was the last thing she thought about before falling asleep.