Wolf Iron

Chapter 18 / Life, Before His Eyes

The night was dark and it was darker still as Rodney neared the Edinburgh flats. 

He had sprinted, leaping over fast-fading obstacles in the dark, unabated by blindness in the dark. Blindness to the pain of leaving a girl who really could use professional help, or any help really. Blindness to the fact that someone had done him a true kindness and that he was turning his back on her. And so he ran. And in the dark, his eyes adjusted to the reality of the situation. 

First, he had heard her cry out for him. And then nothing afterwards. He found himself for the first time, in a long time, praying for someone's safety. And he did so, because of the same reason everybody else prayed: they felt helpless. 

As he neared the edge of the thicket, he wondered about what exactly he would say to his mum about where he had been, and about whom he had been with. He had dropped his bag right in front of the cliff rock where they had been standing at, like a ballast that was weighing a ship down. It had been a crazy, unforgettable day but Rodney felt, albeit a bit selfishly, that it was a shame that Quinn had turned out to be such a raging radge. 

Before long, he saw the top of the residential building pop out above the trees and knew he was nearly there. He was taking a look behind to make sure that Quinn wasn't secretly behind him when he stubbed his toe very hard against something as hard as rock and felt himself nearly topple over. 

Reaching out, he felt rough bark on a tree as large as two of himself and realized that the English Oak had fallen. The large tree, old and majestic, yet modestly self-contained and upright, had somehow felled right at the onset of the thicket's entrance. 

Strange, he thought while massaging a scraped elbow, it was fine when I left this morning. Then again, if ever there was a day for strange happenings...

He picked himself up and walked onto the well-lit courtyard and went straight for Flat #107, the floor level unit he and his mother had been living in for near 2 years. And while it was large enough for two, it left ample room for many old and sad memories. 

His turned his key in the lock and was greeted by an open and all too friendly door, a precursor to the darkness inside. He poked his head inside slowly. 

"...Mum? Are you there?" 

A feeling of dread saturated his every nerve as he pulled his phone out to dial his mother. 

Damn it. Battery dead. 

Maybe Mum left the door open somehow...? Or the landlord had sent someone to fix the faulty sink? 

Rodney slowly put his phone and keys down on the door-side table and flicked on the light switch. 

"Hello...?"

He felt his stomach growl with hunger and forgot his apprehension. He walked briskly to the kitchen when the sound of a chair scraping against the floor tile jolted every ounce of his collective being. 

"There you a-"

Rodney screamed and jumped back as far as he could from the sound of the voice in the darkness. A large hand grabbed for him and Rodney could feel the cold and impersonal steel of a blade pressed up against his arm. He thrashed against the figure, scratching with his nails and kicking off of him with his legs, launching Rodney's body against the wall.

Tables plates shattered and papers flew about. The room shook before him.

It grabbed for him again and Rodney could not hear what he was saying over the sound of his own hyperventilation. He felt a hardy and scaly hand seize his ankle and Rodney cried bloody murder.