#existentialfantasy

Trigger Warnings Ahead: Gore, Graphic Bloody Violence

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Detective James Garudo still felt the ripping of his flesh from the knife, but he simply couldn't run anymore. He collapsed against the pile of filled trash bags, the humid plastic sticking to his dark suit like some external skin. The detective would have certainly been amused at the irony if he wasn't so afraid of dying. 'Afterall, wasn't that why he was in this mess?' he thought, struggling to haul himself up using the sturdy aluminum trash cans that braced all the garbage. It all seemed to gleam harshly in the garish neon and dirty colored sky perpetually marked by clouds. James tried to keep pressure on the wound on his stomach, but everything was starting to feel hazy. Sweat beaded on his brow and he looked at the wound. The blood pouring from it soaked his nice black suit, making it look more like oil than blood. Lightning flashed across the sky, a peal of thunder that made the city's aura go from watchful to wrathful as a silhouetted figure sauntered his way into the alley, stepping over mounds of garbage as their glasses glinted in pursuit of their target.

The sillhouette's voice was steady and controlled, muffled beneath the bundle of dark clothing and thick scarf that enshrouded them, when they next addressed James. "Damn beast. You had to run, didn't you? Pity."

James looked frantically for a way out, but a heavy padlocked gate was the only other exit and it was chained shut. James wasn't afraid of the watchful gaze of the city. He wasn't afraid of the underlying anger that it always seemed to have. He had done everything for this city. He had given up just as much. Certainly, he'd made some mistakes but who hadn't? James had a second chance to make the world better and James was afraid not only of dying.

James was afraid of dying without having done enough to save the city. The silhouette strode closer, methodically striding and indulging in the fear that they instilled in James. He had felt it and he couldn't take it anymore.

'Afterall what else was the point of mortality but attempting to achieve something, anything, before one's fear of dying is realized?'

"P-please. I h-have a family…" James said, spluttering from fear and shock as he looked past the barrel of a sleek black gun that had been pointed almost casually in his face and into the eyeglasses that glinted with the light of neon and lightning.

The sillhouette's voice was laced with the coldest amusement and James was certain they were smiling beneath the dark scarf.

"So did I, detective."

James never saw the sillhouette pull the trigger, but he knew. It felt like an eternity between his last heartbeats when finally everything went white and then everything was gone.

"...Not long enough. What did you do?"

"Oh, just the usual. A bit of this and that. Although, I must admit I'm a tad bit offended. No hello? After all this time? And I only just walked into your office. Why do you assume it was something I did? It is possible that I only wanted to say hello."

"Nu uh. You don't say 'just say hello'. And not walk. It wasn't a walk. You sauntered in here, no you traipsed! Lately you only deign to traipse into my office if you do something untowards or you need my help."

*Chuckles* "Fair enough. Although, if memory serves me correct- and it usually does- you used to be fun once. Never had qualms for what was 'Untowards'...."

"That was back when I was still young and naive..."

"Is that what they're calling it these days? Although I suppose you'll want to get down to brass tacks. I need your help..."

"And there it is..."

"Shush, darling, don't be rude. Just because I need your help doesn't mean I don't miss you." *Smiles wanly* "Besides, with the tea I am about to spill to you, you'll earn your silly little paycheck for this silly little organization. Yet as always, we could run away together again, Darling. Just like the good old days. You and me against the world, and neither of us will have to work a day in our lives."

*Scowls* "...I do important work here."

*Chuckles* "Sure you do." *Shakes head* "I had to offer. I always have to offer, Alanna. You're the only I'd consider giving it all up for..."

*sighs* "...What's going on, Bee? What do you want?"

"I'll tell you over a drink. I'll pick you up at eight? We'll catch up then at my nightclub." *Grin widens, winks.* "Girls night, and I have three bachelorette parties to play host to...."

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I've never met an adult who understands children, which I find particularly ironic given the fact they used to be one. Perhaps they forget as they grow old. Either way they don't ever seem to get that we have a depth of understanding that eludes them. Like tonight, for instance, where I sit and stare at the night sky entranced by these collections of stars called constellations. 

I hear my mother calling me, telling me I should come to bed, but I'm certain she doesn't see the cracks like I do. She doesn't see the things that look down at us through the transparent globe that is the sky. But I do. 

I see the mannish thing, with vast tentacles and dragon-like wings. I see the amorphous darkness laughing at the chaos of its darkening stars. I stare at the sky, and into the depths of space and I'm met with the sensation of futility of man's search for meaning. 

They'll say I'm too young, too naive to truly understand this world. But I don't really want to understand this world. I want to understand all of the worlds beyond this one. 

So I stare at the stars, just beyond the mausoleum of my ancestors so that I can stand out of reach from all of the adults who'll try to hold me down. My father had gone mad to get me this book, but I'm glad he had. It whispers such promises to me. It sings to me of travels to starry places, lands beyond tomorrow. It recites to me poetry of unnameable deities and unfathomable wars beyond the stars, like some fair faceless Achilles. I struggle to make out all of its words, but to me it only needs one. It connects me to my father and to the stars beyond. I have so many ideas, some of them more terrifying than the last, and to some I may be but a child but to this book I'm Abdul Alhazred, the mad translator of its wonders. My purpose across all of my life will be to tell of all the secrets it has whispered to me.

But even as I do so, no matter how old I grow or how much I forget, I recognize that they will only ever see me as a child, a teller of tall tales. And compared to the many shapeless things the book has shown me, I cannot disagree. I may be but a storyteller, but I believe with all my heart that they will remember me when they look at the stars. I hear the songs supposedly that exist only in the spheres of heaven and when that fades I hear my mother calling me back inside to go back to bed.

"Howard Phillip Lovecraft! You get back in here this instance, young man! You're going to catch a cold!"