cure my bloodlust - VaNoé

new acquaintance

With heavy steps I walked, lost in thought, through the empty streets of this long, nerve wracking night which was slowly coming to its end.
A new morning would soon dawn and I wanted to use the few hours until then to think a bit.
It would be plenty beneficial for me, to first deal with my rising stream of emotions - irritating and distressing me, so that I was left without a clear hold of composure, accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of helplessness.

Exhaling in frustration, I sat down on a two-tiered entrance steppe, near the narrow road.
The streets had been really empty, no one would pass by here or walk along - at least, the probability of this happening was not high, which I only welcomed.

Dejected, I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my thighs to bury my face in my hands.

That had been a complete failure!
I must have gone about it the wrong way.

In my mind, I ran through the whole course of what had happened in the last couple hours.

The alcoholic's eyes shining with scorn and his unforgivable words, the incomprehension and rejection from the policeman - all this was foreseeable, nevertheless pretty much disappointing.
Still, what hurt a lot more, was that I had actually believed it could have been different this time.

I bit my lower lip, as I felt anger tense my body.
Anger about my new self-doubt, that I had sworn not to allow anymore.

The crushing feeling of lacking power and exasperation I felt, made it difficult for me to grasp a pragmatic thought -
so I kept reminding myself, that I could not afford weakness.
I had to keep a cool head to regain my determination and strength!
No, I would not let that get me down...
Here and now I would feel bad about it, but new perspectives will bring new confidence by sunrise.

"Hey, don't hang your head like that!"

Huh?
I jumped to my feet in a jerk, my eyes searching the area for the owner of that voice, appearing so suddenly out of nothing, tearing me out of my oppressive thoughts.
It did not even took me the length of an breath, to find him.

Not much far away from me, was the one obtrusive guy who had followed me, just before the terrible incident!

"You again..."
I narrowed my eyes to look at the man suspiciously.
How long has he been there without me noticing his presence?
Had he been following me all this time?

"Wow, you don't seem so happy to see me again!"
He approached me laughing and stopped a few feet from me.
He seemed quite cheerful, in contrary to me - for the circumstances that something terrible had happened minutes ago.

"What do you want from me?"

"I just want to talk."
He put a hand on his hip and leaned slightly forward to peer curiously up to me.
My eyes followed his movements.

Would he want to continue the short conversation from earlier?
If this was the case, I would not go into it, nor reveal anything more profound.
Nevertheless, I asked rather apathetic.
"Talk? About what?"

In a moment of distraction,
I could make out the outlines and details of the building in front of me, as my eyes blurred out the stranger, for a few single seconds, paying attention to the locality around us.
That was a clear sign, that it was slowly but surely getting lighter.
Soon, the first birds would start singing to announce the morning, and the dark sky would gain more and more colour.

"So, an independent journalist and writer specializing in vampires?"

In an instant, my contemporain had regained the focus of my attention.
My eyes stuck questioningly to the stranger's smile, which was much too cheeky for my taste.