Blood's Passion

Muddled Dreams ~ Chapter 1.

It started on a cold and windy night and you can hear the children still playing out on the streets around you. You can hear the church bells ringing in the distance as you trail down the damp crooked street. The wind rushes against you and you look up, seeing a auburn haired tall young man. You stand facing off against each other as the minutes pass, before realizing it would be polite to smile, and then you walk off away from him. You note that he stays standing there after you have left, but when you turn around he has disappeared.

You think to yourself, 'That was odd...'You look around at the houses that surround you still, noticing as you continue down your path that as you step, each house's lamp lights up, as if by your step, your power.

You stick to the sidewalks and keep an eye out for any more stragglers at this late hour. Your pace is hurried and you glance around several times as you stride down, down, down, the sidewalks and pathways and alleyways. You resist the urge to stop and peek into a shop or two, and soon you've reached the train station.

You shove your plastic pass into the machine, grateful when it quickly returns it and push past the cold metal bars. Your train is there, waiting just for you, ready to leave. You smile grimly and step up just as the doors slide close behind you. The pale yellow lights cast an ugly sallow glow onto the people sitting and shuffling around the compartment. There is graffiti in the corners and gum under the seats, so you stand, holding tight to the thin pole that is closest to the exits.

A homeless man sits in the corner on the floor his clothes ragged and stinking and the others cast worried and hateful glances towards him, as if poverty is the worst sin. A woman wearing all hues of red pastes another coating of bright crimson lipstick to her lips and smiles into her mirror.

Three teenagers, two boys and a girl huddle together on the seats, backpacks tossed onto the floor next their feet and phones clutched close. A man dressed impeccably in a suit and tie scowls at the ragged man sitting on the floor and holds his brief case and folders closer to his side.

You take them all in, the sight of these people as the train jerks and shudders along.

You feel pity for the homeless man sitting in the cold corner on the floor, hated by the man in the suit, scorned by the woman in red. You wonder how the girl feels cloistered between the two boys who protect her so obviously. You wonder why the man in his spotless suit bothers to go home at night when he loves his work so much, you wonder why the woman in red cannot see that she is beautiful without all the makeup and bright attention grasping colours.

When the time comes for you to step off the train, you smile at them all, the shivering man on the floor, the worried man clutching at his briefcase, the woman wearing red, the teenagers in the corner. You smile and you step off the train.

When you finally arrive home, you call out for your mother and your father, knowing that they should be home from work by now You search the kitchen for your mother, and then for your father and when they aren't to be found you head upstairs, goose bumps rising on your flesh. It is cold and you are home alone, and the stairs creak loudly as you go step by step.

You go reach the landing and look behind you, almost expecting to see your father there, waiting to laugh at you for seeing monsters where there aren't any. He isn't there, no one is. You move down the hallway to your parent's bedroom and press your palm to the door knob's cold metal. Turning it slowly, giving them that last second to jump out and make it all better, you open the door and look into the room.

You pull your jacket tighter around your shaking body as you enter the bedroom and look about. The bed is made, the curtains are open and faint moonlight pools inward. Undeterred you march over to the bathroom and yank open the door, only to find it is empty both of monsters, and your parents. Should you look in your room? The basement? Where could they be, where would they be? You finally think to pull out your cellular phone, not wanting to go down to the basement just yet. You dial your mother first, and then when you reach the happy tune of her voicemail, your father.