NEON: ch 1

The wicked surf crashes on the crystal sand of Marina Beach. The sun is setting on a spring day. The sun flared brightly in the sky; however, the air was still bitingly cold. I had just gotten off from my job at a local fish shop, where I clean and gut fish all day, and when I'm lucky I work the boats, as head of the cleaning crew.

The ocean seems red.

"Looks like the red tide is coming in." I mumble watching the waves, letting out a sigh I continued home, hoping Tracy, my girlfriend, has some dinner made for me . . . but probably not. She studies too much to have time to cook for a lousy guy like me, I think to myself and chuckle. My thoughts are interrupted by the loud squawking of angered seagulls.

I look over to see something washed up on shore which they have collected around. Intrigued, I walk toward the tangle mass. As I approach the seagulls quickly scatter. It’s a woman, dressed in a shredded white dress, as if she had gotten herself into some terrible fight. Her face is for some reason completely covered by a metallic helmet. The lock is broken, dented in. I pull at the near open clasp, releasing the heavy object from the face of an angel.

Her long, slightly curly hair is stiff, and sticky like straw, from the salt water. Her face was seemingly perfect with fine, soft rose lips. Her body shudders and her eyes flash open. Pushing me away with mindboggling strength, I fall to my back, shocked from the suddenness of it all.

Her eyes contradict her other features, glowing a wicked crimson color with a cat like pupils. She stands staring intently at me, her expression is murderous, as if she is threatening me through telepathy, I gasp for air, from my fallen position on the silky beach. Her eyes blink closed, then she reopens them and her expression fades to a peaceful calm. She makes a small bow, and runs up the beach toward the city. She won’t make it. There is no way she will be able to cross the busy freeway that fences her in.

Some time earlyer (her prospective):
The distant sound of an approaching helicopter, the surf on gray cell walls, the chirping of seagulls, compounds the numbness I feel. It’s like a world turning without me, a world that does not require my presence not now, not ever.

A sad life is the one I live occupying the sixty fifth room of an old jail like building that had been built around the turn of the 19th century. The days are increasingly warm. The hot morning rays beat in on me through the small barred windows, heating my secluded home to suffocating inferno, and they won’t give me an air conditioner. But what can I do? Since I can’t see daylight with this horrible thing, this mask, covering my face. I stay up all night because of this intoxicating heat, only comfort in the cool hours of the early morning, when the walls of my cell finally cool to a comfortable temperature. But this is all in vain, for in the morning the hot rays come back only to wake me to the oven my cell becomes. At that point I feel sick having not received the proper amount of sleep, or nutrition for that matter, and it’s too hot for me. I lay in my sweaty bed thinking ever so hard on things someone should not think about. Things that most people probably take for granted . . . although, what do I know of people except how to kill them.

I want out of here. I want to see, see the world. I don't understand why I'm here, why they won’t let me gaze upon the sun.

I roll out of bed. My legs are shaky. My head feels like its going to explode. At about four I can't take the heat any longer. I drag myself to the door. A guard stands close by, seeing my movements he cautiously peers into the small window of the door.

"She’s up!" He calls. I hear footsteps as he runs away to report to the man who governs this facility. Two men then escort me to another room where I am fed and then brought back to my cell. As I sit in my loneliness, I listen ever so closely for my chance to escape this place, escape to freedom.

Chapter 2 coming soon...