The Shattered Mirror

Prologue

The noise of the city penetrated the thin walls of the apartment, despite Howard Finnigan's best efforts. Which is how the windows had come to be stuffed with threadbare blankets and stained pillows. The air was hot and stifling, the kind that is almost thick and humid enough to touch.
The young man was sprawled lazily over the couch, which was shoved carelessly against the back wall of the room so that one corner jutted out further than the other.
Howard placed his lips around the rim of a bottle and took a swig of the still-chilled beer inside. He always said that he was yet to find someone who kissed as good as a cold beer, when it was plain to everyone else who knew him -and the unfortunate souls who dated him- that the relationship between him and Stella Artois was something that could never be replicated.
Howard was watching TV, as per usual, although he wasn't really paying attention. As far as he was concerned it was just another shitty 'reality' show. For such a young man he was a being of old-fashioned comforts, refusing to get caught up in the buzz and noise of the modern world. He enjoyed forties music considerably more than the dance tracks that DJ's seemed to crap out every other day. He wasn't beyond smoking a vintage brand of cigarette simply for the nostalgia of it all - he figured that if he was going to poison his lungs he would do it in style. This was an almost full summary of Howard's character.
And precisely why he was to die this very night.
It was in the middle of the night, but it never seemed that way in New York. It might as well have been the very height of the day. Howard himself had his shirt unbuttoned and hanging off of his body and his hair in disarray, sweat beading on his pasty skin as he lay in the living room that could only really be described as 'sticky'.
A sound like a floorboard creaking echoed through the apartment. Howard considered investigating it, but eventually decided that he was too lazy to bother.
That was his first mistake.
Then there came a loud shattering sound from the bathroom. At that, his laziness was banished, and he leapt to his feet.
"Who's there?" He demanded, his thick New York accent made thicker still by the alcohol.
That was his second mistake. However, as we all know, there must be a fatal third. It was a simple one, really, and one that surely would have saved him had he not been too intoxicated to stand properly;
He didn't run.
Instead, he staggered drunkenly towards the bathroom from where the noise had emanated, supporting himself on the wall. And, despite the television being deafeningly loud and the sheets stuffed into every crevice of the room, it wasn't quite loud enough to mask Howard's bloodcurdling screams.