Shadows in Light

It was still pouring with rain as I stepped outside, and wrapped my coat around me, pulling the collar up tightly. There’s nothing worse than cold water down the back of your neck. Looking up at the sky above me, I could see darkness from the clouds rolling across my vision and rain pouring down. Occasional lightning arced across the sky, and down to the ground, showing off the mass of rain flooding down.

Rain was running down the rooftops and down the gutters into drains. The center of the alleyway had a small river running down it, with dirt, rubbish and God knows what else floating along. Most of that was now working to soak up my sneakers and jeans.

The alley stunk as usual. Even with all the rain, the garbage in the Dumpsters, and trash cans were giving off enough scent to be smelt through it all. The garbage men never collected it often enough for my liking.

Normally at night this alley was dark and caused me trouble seeing, so I always carried a torch to help me see. I locked up my door and looked around the alley. Unsurprisingly with the rain and lack of light, this alley was still dark, but before I went to get my torch the world changed for me.

The world changed for me, as if someone had turned on a light. It was a strange light however, as everything had either a blue of purple tinge to it, but everything was clearly visible to me now. I could see the dumpsters, garbage on the floor, hell I could even the water droplets in the air.

A dumb thing to say really, but this wasn’t normal, and it made me feel a little nervous as I looked around at everything. But at the same time, it was somehow... strangely natural. Something that was always there within me that I was only just figuring out how to do. Like when you finally figure out to ride a bike, it was always there. I just had to put the pieces together.

I look a look up and down the alleyway for a moment, considering and trying to find some trail to follow even in the darkness and rain. It’s not easy to follow something when you’ve no idea where to go or what happened out here. I knew I wanted to follow where Sally had been, or the Light, but I didn’t think there was anything that would make it obvious which way I should go.

I was about to give up this pointless quest, and head back inside when I looked down and checked out the floor.

It didn’t take me more than a second to spot it, in fact I’ve had more trouble finding my cell phone even when it’s right next to me. I pretty much looked straight at it.

On the floor of the alley in the rainwater, was a glowing spot. That made it easier to spot in the darkness of the alley. Unlike everything else, it was also white, no purple or blue tinge to it, making it like glow in the dark paint dripped on the floor.

I crouched down to take a good look, and it looked like some weird kind of liquid drop on the floor, but with all this rain that made no sense. I waved my hand over it, and got back a sense of heat, again despite the rainwater that was running over it, and as I moved my hand closer, a faint sense of repulsion. Not like it made me sick, but as if it were pushing me away, like two magnets of the same polarity being pushed together. It was easy a middling feeling, however interesting it was to feel from something that was just there on the floor like this.

The rain hadn’t had any effect on it, there was no runoff that I could notice. It seemed to have held form like wax that had cooled down and solidified.

With no real idea what do to, and nothing else to do, I broke a cardinal rule in life, especially when dealing with stuff on the floor in an alley.

I stuck my finger onto the drop.

In return what I got was what felt like a mild electric shock causing me to give a surprised hiss as I jerked my finger back. For a moment I could smell almost a burning odor, so I looked at my finger trying to work out how bad the burn was, but looking at the tip, I couldn’t see anything different. My finger wasn’t burnt, nor was the drop. The drop hadn’t changed, nor had any come off on my finger.

I looked up and saw that now this wasn’t the only drop of this stuff. There was another one up the alley, just at the edge of where I could see in the darkness, even with the blue and purple vision added in. I was sure it hadn’t been there before, but now it was there now.

Whatever this stuff was, could it be a potential trail for something?

You should never be one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I started following it along the alley. Each time I reached a drop, there was another one in the distance to follow, proving that yes, this a clear trail that could be followed. However, who or what had caused it I had no clue.

The trail of dots led me down the alley, crossing some less than desirable streets that were, thankfully due to the rain, empty of people. At this time of night these streets can be empty, quiet, or full of people that I have inclination to be seen, and this place has no streetlights. And exceptionally long response times by police.

The drops kept going until I was in yet another alley between warehouses when they stopped, and I had no more ahead of me. Grumbling to myself I walked a little further along until an odd sensation ran up my spine and caused me to pause. I know some people call that feeling jokingly as ‘someone dancing on your grave.’ Despite not knowing what else to call it, it felt like there was something there, or at least had been and now it had left a sensation that caused me to shiver violently.

The air around here was strangely thicker, and not from the nearby garbage. Weirdly it didn’t feel like it was raining quite so much in this part of the alley either, despite being as open to the sky as the rest. And I was getting the feeling I didn’t want to spend a lot of time here.

So, I rummaged through my handy bag that I carry everything in. It was one of those over the shoulder messenger bags in a stylish black, essentially my man-purse if you will. It wasn’t expensive, but I found it more useful than anything else I owned. And I never knew when I might need it. I pulled out a torch and flicked it on, using it to peer around. The world lost the blue/purple tinge as I did, letting me see normally. It didn’t make me feel any better about where I was, but it did make me feel more normal as I looked around.

Sometimes the little things matter.

Standing on the spot that had caused me to shiver, I started to look around slowly and carefully, shining my torch over everything. I wasn’t sure what exactly I was looking for, but I was sure there was something there to look for. Maybe.

And after a minute or two of pretending to be a police helicopter, I finally found a purse hiding under a Dumpster. While it was a bit damp, but it matched Sally’s outfit in color, so I figured it might belong to her. I also felt it was a bit rude to go through it, so it got stuffed it into my bag while I began another look around.

I was about to give up when something glinted at my feet from a pile of wet sludge. Pulling it out, I found myself holding a very shiny silver-looking coin that didn’t have a trace of dirt stuck to it. It looked as if it had been freshly minted, and not just pulled out of the wet sludge on the floor. It wasn’t any currency I was familiar with and didn’t have any markings I’d associate with a coin. Maybe something specially pressed one for one-off event? On both sides it just had a downward pointing triangle with a water drop at the bottom, bisecting the bottom point of the triangle.

I looked at it, confused. Sometimes you can recognize something is important even if you don’t know why that is. And to me, this fell into that category. I knew things about it too. I knew it wasn’t Sally’s. I knew it was either here just beforehand or was left by the thing that caused the Light. And I knew I should keep it.

I stared at the coin for a more moments, trying to see if it gave me any other ideas and thoughts, but nothing else came to me. I slipped the coin into one of my messenger bag’s pockets to keep it safe.

A final check brought up nothing else, so my torch went away bringing back the blue and purple tinge to the world, and I back to my place. Heading along, I noted that the weird glowing drops were no were to be seen anymore, which was potentially interesting if I understood where the hell, they’d come from in the first place.

It was annoying that I wasn’t understanding this fully. I felt like someone flailing around trying to catch a plastic bag in the wind. I didn’t like not knowing things on any real level.

Well at least I had another day I could add to the top ten weirdest nights in my life. That was a plus that made me feel oh so much better as I unlocked my door and went inside.

I entered my place quietly, and saw that Sally was curled up in a chair wearing the spare clothes I’d laid out for her. She was fast asleep, and the massive dose of sarcasm I was feeling didn’t seem to wake her up.

Part of me wanted to go through her bag and find out her real name, more about her, but that nice guy side of me that had survived everything I’d gone through won over. I put the bag next to her while she slept and got myself a fresh coffee, thinking things over.

With my death and resurrection, this was in my weirdest night list.

In the several years that have passed I’ve learned that I am not a vampire, nor a zombie.

I have a pulse, breath, bleed and all that kind of stuff. I do not drink blood, nor do I eat brains. I get by on food and caffeine-based products.

Mostly the caffeine.

Okay, maybe a whole lot of it.

But in the end, I have absolutely no idea what I am, and over the last few years I have tried researching it carefully online and in libraries.

I am dead though, legally at least. My birth name, which is not Ryan Vaughan, has a death certificate attached to it and everything, along with that gravestone I saw.

I’ve not been able to work out how I got out of my coffin. I tried to figure it out at first, but after the first few months of nightmares, I gave up. I know I’m missing something important there, but I just couldn’t keep dealing with them.

After that, ignoring my occasional nightmares, I’ve barely given it a moment’s thought. If I feel it coming up, I find something to keep my mind busy. I’ve gotten rather good at crosswords and puzzles as a result. I do a lot of reading too.

I did try to stay in my home city, but... frankly I realized that it was impossible to do. How? Well, that’s mine for now. Some stories aren’t ready to be told, and others hurt far too much to be thought about. But suffice it to say it ended up with me leaving my hometown, journeying thousands of miles across the country and coming to live here in Seattle.

Escaping my past and creating a new future, I guess?

Things have not been easy, and life hasn’t always been fun. But it’s my life, and I’ve done the best I can with the hand I’ve been dealt, and I guess on some small level I am satisfied with all I’ve accomplished.

But today? Today I can look at one person and honestly say I’ve helped someone who was desperately in need at a time when no one else could help. And that feels good. It makes me feel some pride within myself once again.

I haven’t felt that for a long, long time now.

I got myself a fresh coffee, and settled onto my couch, getting out a book to read. My intention was to read while Sally slept. Keep an eye on her and make sure the Light didn’t come back.

Sadly, it didn’t work out like that. The book got a few pages in and the coffee ended up going cold as I went to sleep.

I do remember this dream, and it was the first dream I remembered in years that wasn’t the same torrid mess as they had been in the past few years; nightmares of waking up in that box. In fact, by my standards they were dare I say it... nice?

I dreamt of a calm night in Seattle, watching from a rooftop nearby as the moon rose and fell. Looking over my shoulder, I could see that same Darkness that had come to push away the Light there, rolling around right behind me. Almost like it was protecting me. It wasn’t an interesting dream.

But it was nice to not have one about that box.

When I woke up, something wasn’t quite right. It took me longer than it really should have to put my finger on it. In that time, I had gone to the bathroom, washed up in there and come out before my brain finally twigged onto what was wrong.

Sally was gone and so was her bag.

The clothes that had been lent to her were still here, drying on a rack. Checking out the door, I could see the bolt was open even though I had locked it when I came in. A faint sense of depression at the fact left without saying goodbye or leaving a note of thanks. I guess last night was just too weird for her in the end.

I tried searching around to make sure she hadn’t put something for me, but I found almost nothing in the end. Except the drying clothes, all that I found was a half-used book of matches that had some of its front ripped off, leaving just “Club E”. There was some pretty design work around it, but the important part, the rest of the name was missing. It wasn’t a club I was familiar with, mostly because I didn’t go out. I spent most of my time here.

I tossed the match book into my table scowling a little trying to think. I didn’t really have a lot I could do in this situation though, so I decided to do a walk around the nearby area to see if anything would give away where she’d gone or show up something new in the daylight.

Once I’d gotten dressed and my stuff together, my phone started buzzing.