ZACK
Dammit Zack, stop spooking the shit out of yourself. The leather sling bag drops from my shoulder as I jolt.
It's just a cat. I try hard to convince myself, but the shadow that just leapt past the moonlight from one building top to another couldn't be a cat.
It's been two years since I came to Menic city to pursue my studies in medicine, and I'm still shit scared of every bump and creaky noise. Honestly, I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Growing up on a farm you get used to the farm sounds at night. The city is very different. It's a very scary place for a first timer. I bend and pick up my sling bag, fling it over my shoulder and press forward into the night.
Nerves fry my senses and the uneasiness of fear crawls along my spine and jet rocks my mind when a car horn honks from the street.
Scaredy cat, scaredy cat! That little voice in my head mocks.
Well, anyone would be scared if they live in a city known for hosting one of the darkest villains in the world. In my universe, hero's and villain's are real. The kind that have angelic features or completely made of stone. Burn brighter than the sun, or the power to strike fear into you with a single look.
Don’t let the movies sugar coat it for you. They die; here today, gone next week. Superheroes and villains die every other week. It's old news. As one hero stated, “Why punish and lock them away? They’re gonna get free one way or the other. It’s a fight to death!” He ended up dying rather an ironic death when a bus hit him and smacked him like a fly into a concrete wall. The wall lived to tell the tale.
There are however those individual superheroes and villains that never want to die. There’s this one. He’s like what, fifty-something might be prehistoric I don’t know, but lord I beat off to the image of him when I was younger, still do some nights. Even if he is the most dangerous villain of all time, still hot for a fossil. A guy can fantasize, can't he?
You ask then; why study in Menic city? Mum and Dad asked that exact question. Which was funny, because they were cool when they found out me and my twin brother were different from other kids, and even when I came out, Dad was a chirping canary;
“When are you bringing me a son-in-law?”
“Why haven’t you found a boyfriend yet? You’re an attractive young man.”
“Shouldn’t it be simpler to find a man for you, son? I mean, men think alike, don’t they, so what’s the problem, Zack?”
It was almost as if Dad was overjoyed by the fact that one day he would have another son. Hence my confusion to their question. Menic is also known for harboring one of the largest and most powerful corporations in the field of cosmetics and drug development, and their medical research is outstanding. The scientists, bio engineers and doctors working for Lema industries teach at the University of Menic. You knew, when you saw a diploma on a medical practitioner'swall stating they graduated from Menic, you were in the best care our medical world could provide, and you'd walk out with a major hole burned in your wallet. Oh, and another tidbit that I didn't mention to my parents, the men here are not just fucking hot, but drool worthy, makes-your-blood-boil hot.
I round the corner one block away from my cheap tiny apartment and I feel it. Someone is watching me. Again. My ears feel like they grow a couple of inches and a tingle itches at the back of my neck. My senses boom to somehow, miraculously, be able to pick up more than is humanly possible. Of course it never works and even though I look around me, I don’t see anyone. I first got the sting two weeks after I started at Menic University. Ever since then, I feel the shadows watching me. I guess that would also explain my paranoia, jumping at every sound.
