Foreboding

Chapter 3

Down the street, at the end of a the cul-de-sac, stood a broken but functioning house, it's electricity faltered and the water ran gluggy, but it was enough to live in. There wasn't much to it, just one bedroom, one bathroom, a toilet, kitchen, and lounge area. That was it, there was no backyard, and what must've been a spare room had once been turned into a meth lab, although it was all burn down and empty now. Besides Claus, the only inhabitants there were the rats and a couple of possums that liked to throw things down from the ceiling and scatter throughout the house causing havoc like children.

The neighbourhood wasn't much better, a couple of pot dealers lived down the road, a pink and green kombi parked out the front on the dead grass. In general, it was a run-down place, empty bottles and McDonald's chip packets dragged across the road in the wind, plastic bags wrapping themselves around weeds and streetlights that failed to work.

It was the kind of suburb where a freak could live and not be found, judged, or (hopefully) murdered.

Tugging off his black Dr. Martens and throwing them off to the side, Claus trudged into the bathroom that contained a little bath with a shower-head over it, a tiny basin to wash your hands and brush your teeth, and a little cabinet to keep medication and whatnot in. The white walls were peeling, as though some monster with wicked claws had been trapped, tearing at the walls with some hope of escape. On the doors of the cabinet was a mirror, shabby and smashed as it may be, it was enough to see ones reflection in.

Claus's reflection was foggy, perhaps it was the drugs, but he could've sworn he was fading, "Shit!" He swore quietly, feeling the mark the woman had left on his neck. Could hickeys get infected? He had no clue, but something was wrong, very wrong, and not only was he light headed, his teeth hurt, as though they were being pulled and stretched inside his mouth, "What the fuck?" He grunted, rummaging through the cabinet, looking for a disinfectant of some kind. Nothing. No cure. No help.

"Oh god," Claus cried, clawing at his eyes, clawing, scratching, "LET ME SEE LET ME SEE LET ME SEE!" He screamed, screeched, and coughed up blood, his voice cracking as he pleaded for sight. Not only was his reflection invisible, so was everything else, everything had vanished from his sight. "WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?" He cried, tears running down the claw marks he'd left in his face. The tears burnt him, turning his skin into bubbling, red, lumps. All the more he cried, the pain overwhelmed him, spreading from his teeth, to his eyes, to the rest of his face, and down his neck, pausing his breathing. Through the rest of his body the drug pulsed, until eventually, his heart stopped. Taking his last breath, Claus fell to the floor, collapsing in a bloody, broken heap.

The neighbours heard nothing. And those who might've heard didn't bother to check if the young man was okay. It was best not to get muddled up in other people's business, they thought, and that was just the way things went. Get caught up in other people's mess, you'll end up dead. No one cared, and perhaps it was better that way, because when Claus did rise, it wasn't a sight anyone wanted to see, nor would they live to tell the tale of what they had seen.

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