Mykael's Song: It Teaches Us Nothing

Part 1:Nascent

(Dedicated to Patrick Barnes and Abby Lawson.)

Thunder sounded in the distance as Mykael stepped from the shower. He peered out of the window to catch a glimpse of the lightning, as it illuminated the outside like a Polaroid. Walking over to the mirror, he wiped the condensation on from the glass. Mykael studied his warm, golden-brown reflection, as he ran fingers through shorn, woolen hair. Dull blue eyes stared back at him. A steadily escalating sense of foreboding came over him. He had been feeling strange for the past couple of days, but couldn't explain why.

A wisp of steam danced lazily past the mirror, which had fogged up again by now. Mykael wiped the glass again. His mentor was gone – his sister off doing gods knew what, bills were due, and he'd ostracized most of his friends, but those were the beats of a monotonous drum that gave him some sense of normality, mundane problems that he was strangely enough – relieved to be having. No, something else wa- the thought fled, with the sound of his phone vibrating sporadically in the next room.

Hey man, we were supposed to see Headless Clone of Sting yesterday: 8:30

It was Ari, his brow furrowed a little less now. Ariana was one of the few friends he hadn't neglected to talk to since his homecoming, and how could he? He'd known her and her family since he was in the first grade.

"The punk tribute band to Sting?" How could I have forgotten? 8:31

Not cool, man. 8:32

Can we chill later this weekend? Vickie's birthday party is tonight 8:40

You know I hate Vickie. Plus aren't you seeing her? 8:43

"Seeing" is a relative term. More like, glancing: 8:45

Glancing felt like the right word. The sound of Victoria's name made him cringe if he was being honest with himself – which he seldom was. Their relationship was a strange one, to be sure.

Heh. You're awful. I had better hear from you by Sunday, Have fun. 8:47

Mykael pulled on a pair of black track pants. His thick cotton hoodie fit loosely around lean shoulders. He scooped up his wallet and phone from the nightstand as he started for the front door. Placing his hand on the doorknob he stopped, and looked across the lifeless living room that was missing all the things that made home feel like home, through his doorway, to the night stand. He let out a sigh of exasperation and turned back. He opened a drawer full of receipts and unopened mail. Pulling it from the nightstand, he flipped the drawer over – windowed envelopes and faded receipts rustling as they fell onto the bed. He flipped the drawer over again, this time putting his hand on the underside, and popping the false bottom out of place. A SOCOM Mk23 lay snuggly in corrugated foam, placed neatly next to two extra magazines, and a suppressor. There was a note attached to the handgun, scrawled in tight, Cyrillic letters:

Eyes to the shadows, rybka.

-Molotov

Fucking. Molotov. Mykael hated it when his sister quoted their mentor – almost as much as he hated cryptic post-it notes. He hated it even more when she was right about something, and he didn't care to listen, which was pretty much all the time. And he hated it still when she called him rybka. It meant 'little fish'. She'd always told him that even though the little fish was small it never stopped growing until the day it died.

"Damn it," he whispered to himself.

This was her gun. Technically perfect, the MK23 was durable, waterproof, the polygonal barrel made for competition grade accuracy. This was a handgun only a fanatic could appreciate. She even had her name engraved on the trigger-well; you couldn't even see it unless you looked for it. She said it'd be too showy on the barrel.