My life wasn’t always as weird as it is now. I remember a time when the only strange thing about me was been my name, Alytos Wilkins (Aly for short). Up until now I guess, and that’s why I started this journal of mine to help me understand everything that the crazy world throws at me. I wanted to record the things that have happened to me ever since my life took a rather strange turn to the darker side of the world.
Not that long ago I thought that I was too boring a person to have my own journal but this is more than just a mere journal. This is a record just in case I come through all this without my humanity intact. I never thought my life would come out the way it has. I guess for you to fully understand what I’m talking about I have to start right back at the very beginning, back to when I was only a little girl.
When I was a little girl I was told I could be anything I wanted to be so I chose to be a tree, until my teacher despaired of me and made me choose something else. So from then on I wanted to be a ballerina until I got to high school when I wanted to be a lawyer. Then I left school and wanted to become a social worker. So I had to take day classes three times a week and work nights at a bar so I could afford to pay the university bill and hell I’m still paying for it now. But it was one of those nights just after I finished work that my life suddenly changed…
It was October and less then a week away from Hallowe’enand I had just finished my last shift for the next few days at the bar where I work, The Bleeding Corpse. I don’t know the story behind the name and I’m not particularly eager to find out either. The bar isn’t for the upscale people but rather for the lower class and more odd people of the city, I didn’t really care I payed good money and I needed it to pay for my university course.
My shift had finally ended and I yelled a good bye to the rest of the staff and I swung my satchel bag across my shoulders and made my way out the front door. I ignored the stares I got from what my boss calls ‘the patrons’, more like ‘the perverts’, I thought as I weaved my way around them resisting the urge to punch some of ‘the patrons’ for groping my ass as I walked past. They were always the same creepy people, something was odd about them but you could never put your finger on it. It wasn’t their greasy hair or sneering, lust ridden smiles, it was something else. But then again I couldn’t blame them for the lust-ridden smiles. I mean look at the uniforms we had to wear, high heels, black mini skirts and tight, white, low cut blouses. I pushed my out of the crowd waiting out the front, why you’d want to come here to this dump was beyond me but hey if they didn’t come I wouldn’t be payed, thanking Bill, the bouncer on my out for clearing a small path way for me amongst the patrons. I skated around the young try hards trying to score booze of someone dumb enough to buy them some.
I never liked to walk home after work but it was only a few blocks and there wasn’t the usual taxi waiting out the front, so walking it was. Yay for me. As I was walking down the street I saw a dilapidated building and stopped outside. It used to be an ice cream parlour when I was a little girl. Dad used to take me there all the time before he’d run off with his secretary, mum never recovered from the shock and died a few years later when I was 15. This building housed one of the few memories of my dad that I had left, now it just housed people too poor, drunk or drugged to find anywhere better to stay. Shaking my head sadly I walked on not noticing who or what I passed. Suddenly I snapped out of memory lane when I realised that shuffling footsteps had been following me for some time. I was half a block away from my apartment and I knew that I should have run for it but something made me stop and turn. The shuffling came from a person who was hunched over clutching their stomach, their face hidden from view by a curtain of long tangled black hair and their body covered by a dirty trench coat.
“Are you ok?” I chocked out. The figures only response was a low moan before it leapt upon me knocking me to the ground. Its jaw latched itself tightly to my wrist breaking my skin and sending my blood pouring into its mouth before I’d even had a chance to move. My brain took a few seconds to catch up with the absurdity of what was happening but when it did I fought hard, kicking, punching and doing whatever I could to escape from its grip. Finally with a small twist I learned during defence classes a few years ago, I kicked myself free, the skin from my wrist tearing further. I staggered away a few steps and fearfully looked back at who had attacked me and what I saw surprised me. It was a woman about my age who lay sprawled on the ground before me her fingernails digging into the concrete with my blood staining her teeth and dripping down her chin. Her coat had torn open and her red top and black leather pants were rumpled and spotted with blood, but it was her eyes that scared me the most. They were filled with anger, pain and hunger but the colour of her yes was a strange blue that held a startling similarity to my own.
A car hurtled past on the road with blaring music that startled us both, breaking our eye contact for just a moment. That moment was all it took though, when I looked back to where she had been she was gone and the only thing left to suggest she had ever been there was the wound on my wrist slowly leaking blood to the concrete floor.
I reached my apartment safely and locked all the doors behind me. I dropped my bag to the floor and began to tend to my arm. Once the blood had been cleaned up I found that the wound wasn’t as bad I thought it should have been. I put on some disinfectant that hurt on even the tiniest of cuts but was complete agony on my bite mark. I found myself mulling over the events of the night with a glass of whiskey. Still her blue eyes appeared in my mind dispelling any thoughts of sleep. Finally I took some low-grade sleeping pills and collapsed on my bed sparing a brief glance at the alarm clock on my bedside table. It glared red at me in the gloom, groaning I rolled over and fell gracelessly into the arms of sleep. It was 4:18am.
Despite the sleeping pills my dreams were still filled with mysterious figures exulting in pools of spilled blood and dark shadows. She was still there, the blue-eyed girl, dancing in the middle of a circle of shadow people, her eyes beckoning me to join them in their praise. I woke with sweat pouring over me, blood thumping through my veins and a headache pounding behind my eyes as if it was trying to smash its way through my head. Swearing quietly I rolled over, the sunlight stinging my eyes and stood up and blundered around until I found the bathroom where I gratefully walked into the darkness and warmth of the shower.