Alternate Future - Elijah

Joined: 27 Nov 2007 Posts: 21

The blue-eyed man lifted his head, or at least he thought he did. His neck would not respond to the electric impulses coursing through his nerves. Even the dirty syringe stuck in his arm could not be felt by his numbed body. His vision revealed the clouds above, pressing in on the city and his view like an oppressive blanket of gray. He could hardly feel his emotions, but at least they were there. His body wasn't.

He felt empty. Not happy, not sad. Empty. His serotonin was gone, raped and emptied from his body like the blood of a whore from a vampire. Vampires. Shit. That reminded him of something, a memory of someone important, long ago. As he stared up at the overcast sky, brick walls rising at the sides of his vision, waiting to slide together and crush the life out of him, Elijah Day remembered everything.

The spasms enveloped the man's body, but the memories took hold of his mind. Devon Obertus. A name he had walked away from long ago. And suddenly, he was no longer dying in a moist back alley in Brooklyn. He was holding a thin, effeminate figure, an angelic youth of unspeakable beauty. Just the image of this face made his heart jump and pulse, chords of happiness plucked deep within him, a burning in his gut that was bittersweet. He realized that this was not reality, but a tour. A tour of the most significant time in his life.

Then he was being beaten by the very youth he had fallen in love with. The androgynous figure was angry at him, for failing to put down the alcohol. For lapsing back into bad behavior. Scenarios played out in his skull, images beamed from his dying brain to the back of his eyes, which, in reality, were staring up at the faceless sky. Elijah imagined the route he could have taken. Submission to the man he loved, conditioning to lead a proper, productive existence. Love.

And then he watched as he turned his back on Devon Obertus. He gathered his things and left, back to New York. Dead end jobs, images of people sneering at his drunken face, the past he had lived for the last few months. He told himself he would stay away from the junk, and he did. He left Devon because the youth tried to control him. People aren't allowed to mold his personality. Only chemicals get to do that.

Elijah wondered why he had turned his back on this chance to lead a better life. A more important life. It was almost serene, aside from the incessant convulsing of his muscular structure. He felt his lungs scraping at the air, trying to pull in oxygen for his stale blood. Heart thumping out of time, before falling deathly still. Last night, on the television, he watched the news. He watched the footage of Los Angeles. The jungle city. The soldiers with flame throwers. The leveled buildings. And he went cold, his mind skipping to conclusions, images of his Love bursting into ashes, engulfed in flames, crying precious vitae.

So Elijah Day bought some smack. He numbed himself. He shot up, in the very alley he had bought the stuff. He pumped himself with a lethal dose of his first love, H. But it wasn't as substantial as his love of Devon. And he only realized that at the last moment, reminiscing, his body numb from Heroin, muscles twitching and pulling at his limbs. The pain would rush in all at once, then, his eyes wide, staring up at a sky that didn't care. Nobody cared. Nobody but the man he had abandoned back in Los Angeles.

The first fresh drops of rain sprinkled onto Elijah Day's dead face, pattering against his cold skin as the drum beat in his chest finally ended.