The Flash

Chapter I: Before

Chapter I: Before

"The past is hard to forget... its burdens seem to plague us to our last breath no matter how far we push the past."

I woke up slowly and groggily from the mucked up dream I had been whisked away from by the blaring alarm next to my head. I rolled over, looking at the alarm with eyes of pure hatred for it. Attempting to make the light blue letters that hovered over the table it projected from to shut off. Instead all I got was sore eyes from concentrating too hard. I would have kept staring too if my head wasn't yelling at me that I was late.

"Yeah, yeah, head... I can see I'm late, so could you be nice and shut up for now?" I said to myself as I pushed a hovering button over the table and the alarm stopped. I rolled off the bed and went to walk to my closet to get dressed but my legs decided to give out from under me. So instead I decided to topple onto the ground face first and lie there as the clock over the table slowly ticked from 7:38 to 7:39. "How am I supposed to get to work if my legs won't even work?"

I waited there for another minute, waiting for my legs to become responsive again. I wiggled them now and then, in getting a response I decided to try to walk to my closet again. It wasn't difficult to stand up but for some reason after I was up, my body just refused to respond properly. Making the walk to the closet not but ten feet away one of the most difficult walks I had ever managed.

"Work, damn you! Work!" I yelled as I thumped my leg for every time it refused to move with feeling. Finally, I reached the closet though, opening it to reveal... a single black uniform. "Wha... where did the rest of my clothes go? Did a vagabond come in the night and steal my clothes?!" Then I realized that I had forgotten to perform in the ritual act of laundry day yesterday. Instead, I had spent my day running around town with my friend. Getting slightly drunk and mostly just doing the stupid stuff I always do.

I picked the uniform off the coat hanger and looked at it with a bored expression. I was so tired of wearing the same black uniform for five years in a row. The only thing it had on it that differentiated from the other hundreds of uniforms was that it said 'Officer O'Dearick'. Well, I guess it also said 9th precinct unit on it and my own little Sergeant symbol on the shoulder. Otherwise, though, it was the normal old, bland, black uniform that everybody wore in this rotten city in the departments.

Oh, did I mention the rotten city? The very city that I served six out of seven days of the year as a 'loyal' servant of the law? There isn't much to say besides that being an officer in the city of Chicago is like asking for somebody to just stab you. People think that wearing a uniform in this city will make you an idol that nobody wants to mess with. Sadly, it seems like every gang banger in this damned city wanted to see you bleed and hurt. Which meant that I had a good chance of dying everyday I worked and everyday I didn't.

It was a tough job though, and somebody had to do it. I just wish that it wasn't me who had to do it.

I began to dress in the uniform, going through the motions that I could perform without eyes. Which, is a good trick to learn in this city with the chances that I might just end work with sockets for eyes. Soon enough, I was in the dapper uniform of the common officer of the peace that worked for the Chicago police department. I breathed in, sucking in my gut as much as possible and looked into the mirror in my room. Smiling at the image of a fit 26 year old... a familiar pale white face with a light layer of stubble on my cheeks looked back at me with equally pale blue eyes that had a long jagged scar running on the right side of my face just below my shortly cropped black hair. Then I let my gut fall out and had to admit that I may have been getting just slightly pudgy around the waist.

"Need to stop eating so much junk food... maybe get a membership at the local gym. Ah, hell with it. I know I won't do any of that as long as it's something a smart person does... and I guess a boring person." I told myself, smiling even though to me my life sucked... a lot.