Days of Darkness

Flesh and Flames

                  "So Joe you got a date for today?" Questioned Matt in his usual manner, as he did every year. Matt was my best friend; and he was 17, 5'7" with bushy blonde hair that flowed part way down his head, with dark chestnut eyes. He was, in few words, quite lazy and he always had been. Although he preferred to title himself as being 'laid back'; when at primary school Matt's teacher had said that he was so laid back that he could never even catch a cold. Even though it hadn't always been, his personality was now really calm; as a matter of fact he rarely got angry. Concerning hobbies Matt did enjoy various video games and the odd basketball game, as well as being quite athletic when it came to short distances. As for me; I was 18, 5'9" with bright (fairly long) blonde hair, eyes a glowing turquoise. Although I enjoyed gaming just as much as Matt I wasn't lazy at all and enjoyed multiple sports; including football, basketball, hockey, rugby and cycling. We'd known each other since we were 5; this meant that we shared practically everything with each other; secrets, relationship problems and our various troubles in life. In answer to Matt's question I replied:

"Yes I have actually," I Boasted, punching him on the shoulder. I was quite happy with myself, as for the first time in 4 years I actually had a girlfriend on Valentine's Day. It was only last year that I was in a relationship with a girl called Abbie, it was all going well as we had been together for 11 months but as it was nearing to January some cracks started to show. It started off as not talking as much as we used to but it was just ignored by both of us, we pretended as if nothing had changed. I don't know why. The two of us went on with or normal lives as if we expected the problem to fix itself, I have often wondered where we would be now if I had done something about it. Maybe if we had tried to sort it out we would still be together, but we didn't. So finally one Friday afternoon in late February as school was ending Abbie asked to speak to me, I could tell something was wrong before she even opened her mouth.

                            When the lesson was over I walked out into the corridor to wait for Abbie who was finishing some work. My mind then decided it was the adequate time to go into overdrive, inside my mind memories were whizzing past. Hundreds of memories. Of her. Flooding my mind with everything we had done, everything that we were and it was just too much. Luckily there was no-one around to see me because I looked like crap, now I too could usually deal with things quite well. After a while I could feel the familiar prick of tears reverberating behind my eyes; that was it! I couldn't take this anymore so I decided that I needed to go back into the classroom, but just as I stood up Abbie came out of the room and spotted me.  She walked me down the corridor away from everyone by which point I could already feel my eyes becoming moist. Her exact words were "So Joe I just think we err... We need to take a break." After that she rushed away with tears flowing down her cheeks leaving me there. On my own, but anyway that was a long time before the incident. So back to that.

                                         Matt and I were heading home from school just as we usually would; we took our favourite route that leads us through the Clifford Estate and past the local park. You see it was as if we had a routine; we would meet in the same place, walk the same way, at the same time. Sometimes life needs a routine to keep it simple.

"Hey, I watched that video you gave me-" Matt's speech was cut off by a loud bang in the distance.

"What the hell was that?!" I was shouting at Matt in confusion as if he could give me an answer. At first I thought it was some sort of large vehicle crash that had occurred nearby. I froze and just stood there on the footpath sporting the old 'dear in the headlights' façade which had overcome me. Tick tock, gears whirring round and round in my head. Keep going or turn around and avoid the noise? Tick tock. Fear and curiosity fought for superiority inside my head, I wasn't sure what to do but my instincts told me to run. To leave. Yet before I could make my mind up my thoughts were disturbed by a second noise which rung out through the air, this caused some even worse ideas to creep into the back of my mind, this was not normal. It was too...suspicious.