The Streets of Baltimore

Intro

        Harsh rain beat down on the windshield, thick raindrops racing upwards, the wind pushing it onward. Despite it being early morning, the dark atmosphere still had an unnaturally cold feeling about it. This could easily enough be blamed on the dark storm clouds that had taken over the sky and blocked the sun's rays from entry, or it could be blamed on the sour and twisting mood that had overtaken Dewi.

        Dewi sat in the driver's seat of his small, almost rundown, 1970 Plymouth roadrunner. His back was hunched as if the stress and the overwhelmingly painful mixture of feelings that danced around his head were weighing down on him. And maybe they were. The sadness, fear, and anger bubbled and brooded in the confusing mixture of his brain.

        His hands clenched at the wheel tightly. Too tightly, his knuckles had turned white. It seemed as though he might be afraid of it leaving him. A strange, unnecessary, and far-fetched fear. 

        A dried stream of blood ran down the right side of his face. It had matted a small amount of hair that was just above his right temple and reached just below one side of his lip. Though it had dripped over his eye at one point, he had paid it no mind then and continued to do so.

        He also paid attention to neither his bad posture nor his death grip on the unfortunate steering wheel. His mind was focused on the road ahead of him, the road that raced by between the Plymouth's two headlights. The only thing he wanted now was to get away. From what? He didn't know, he didn't understand. His mind had not quite grasped exactly what it was he had seen far behind him and maybe it never would.

        However, what he did know was that he felt a small piece of it lurking somewhere in the back of his mind. Tugging. Tugging at his brain. Trying to convince him to come back. Come back to the false warmth that it held up for him. The false warmth that it offered for him to take, seemingly for free. The false warmth that was deadly dangerous, and yet, comforting and soothing. It seemed so convincing though, despite the obvious danger. He wanted to get away from it. He wanted to escape. He knew what fate waited for him if he stayed and that was what kept him running. Leaving behind its warmth. Leaving behind the only one he had ever loved. Leaving behind the sole person who had once, truly, been his. His own little Pumpkin. Now gone. Gone forever. Taken by that false warmth. He had once thought he could bring them back but now he knew what had been done to them could never be undone. Not by him, not by anyone or anything. The knowledge of that pained him, just as it had pained him to see their love for him leave their eyes. Those beautiful eyes which had once been captivated by him, there had been a time when they seemed to glow at the sight of him. But now that was gone. 

        Now he drove away. Hoping to never return to the mysterious creature, or force, that had taken his Pumpkin from him, that had taken his love. Though that monster crept in the back of his mind, waiting for him to grow weak, he would not allow it to win, would not allow it to draw him back like a moth to the flame. He refused to be a part of its dangerous game of love. So now he drove. Drove through that thick rain, the clouds sharing his tears with him, sharing his pain as he drove away from the only love he had known.