Death Starts It All

Chapter 4

Aiden (New York, Present Day)

Escape. 

That’s the only reason I’m working in this shithole club. So I could escape.

It’s not like I had a shitty life back home though. I wasn’t abused or bullied. I just couldn’t handle being around everything that reminded me of what I had lost. Seeing all of the people I knew staring at me with sympathy and pity.

So when I was 19 I hopped on a plane and ran away to New York City. Clichéd, I know, but that’s what I did. I don’t even know why I chose New York; I mean L.A. would have been closer. I guess I just needed to get as far away from Hawaii as I could.

Anyways, the minute I got off the plane at JFK two thoughts slammed into my mind like a semi. They were about the fact that I was alone in the big NYC and that I had almost no money and I had nowhere to live.

So I hit the streets and ended up getting a job as a bouncer at the punk club ‘Adrenaline’. It wasn’t difficult for me to get considering I’m 6’4”, have piercings all over my face, and I’m pretty buff considering I spend a lot of time at the gym. I look like the perfect addition to the staff this particular club, especially as a bouncer.

After that, I was able to find a crappy little apartment to rent and for the last six years I’ve been working my ass off earning a paycheck in this dump.

So that’s how I’m here, standing by the doors of the old warehouse that’s been converted into the club I now work in with my arms crossed over my chest. My eyes scanning over the crowd of gyrating bodies, flashing lights, and smoke. Searching for anyone doing something that would require me to step in and toss him or her out. Which doesn’t actually happen that often.

Therefore my job mainly consists of me standing around watching drunken idiots grinding on each other and listening to the pounding beat of the music blasting out of the speakers in the ceiling. That and also having tipsy girls trying to get in my pants, which might be the greatest thing ever to a straight guy, but since I’m gay it does nothing but piss me off. Ugh, working here is so much fun.

When my shift finally ends for the night I let out a huge sigh of relief since now I can go home and lock myself away from all the people and noise for a few hours.

Yeah, I’m kind of an antisocial, loner like that. But come on, anyone would feel the exact same way if they had to do my job.

As I walk the twenty blocks it takes me to get home, I make myself look as menacing and physically capable as possible.  I mean this is New York and a mugging at three in the morning is a distinct possibility.

I’d really rather that not happen.

I finally get to my run down apartment building and walk up the four flights of stairs it takes to get up to my apartment. Joy. As I unlock and enter my personal domain, I look around to make sure everything is still in its proper place.

Tiny, barley working T.V., check. Stereo, check. Kitchen appliances, check. As I continue this mental checklist of all my stuff, I see that everything is still as I left it, down to the peeling paint, stained carpet, and moldy tiles. I know this makes me seem either ridiculously paranoid or massively OCD but I’ve been robbed before so being extra cautious and observant makes sense.

I head over to the wall across from the T.V. and pull down the Murphy bed and then collapse onto it, without even changing my clothes, so that I can sleep for the next twelve hours.

Unfortunately, my mind seemed to have other plans because instead of allowing me to go into the sweet oblivion that was sleep it decided to just start running random thoughts, that really weren’t that important, through it. Stupid brain. Why won’t you shut up?

I sigh and run my hands over my face. Guess I’m going to have to do my personal version of meditation.

I then lift my right hand above my head and stare at it. I send a ripple of energy through my body and into my hand until a small burst of flame suddenly appears in my palm.

I stare into the flame for a while and then start sending more energy into it, causing my entire hand to become engulfed in flames.

I lift my other hand so that they are level with each other and send another burst of energy toward the flame covering my right hand. The flame is now traveling down my arm, across my chest, and up my other arm, so that the flame in now in my left hand.

All the while, I’m staring at the flame in an almost trance like state.

It’s weird, normally when I do this it’s so I can drain off any excess energy, both mental and physical, so that it’s easier for me to fall asleep, but this feels different. I feel like I’m seeing all the answers of life and the universe as I stare into the flame, which doesn’t make sense since I don’t have that ability and I certainly don’t want to gain it.

After what feels like hours of just staring at the flame, I suddenly snap out of the hypnotic state I’m in. The flame disappears and I get this sudden urge that I have to do something important.

Be somewhere important.

I get up and start to pack my meager belongs and available cash into an old duffel bag. While I’m doing this, I call up my boss and tell him that something personal has come up and that I’m not going to be able to work for a while. He then proceeds to scream at me and says to never come back since I’m now fired.

God, he’s such a douche.

Once this is done I leave the apartment, hail a cab, and tell the driver to take me to the bus station.

We reach the station and, after I’ve paid my fare, I head inside and then over to the ticket counter.

The man behind the counter looks up at me with a bored expression and then asks me in an equally bored tone “And what can I help you with?”

“I’d like a one way ticket” I say.

“To where?” he asks.

“Nashville”.