Black Bloodstains
Chapter 1: I've Got a Feeling.

I closed the locker door, sighing. As always school was a boring mess. Leaving the notebooks inside the locker is the most refreshing thing I do on schooldays. I rest my head on the metal frame, trying to put my thoughts back together and trying to find a reason for me to continue. Seeing as it was a bit late, I picked up my backpack and headed out to the main door. Before leaving I decided to go to the bathroom real quick, just to refresh myself a little.

Splashing water on my face always helps to wake me up in days like these. Winter vacations just passed, and the first days of January are always the coldest. I look at my reflection in the mirror; the same cold face greeted me. I moved away the strands of black hair that covered my face, just to take a better look at it. I’ve never been desperate to get a girlfriend or anything, but I sometimes wonder if this pale facial structure has something appealing to the other gender. I even have the most generic brown eyes I’ve seen.

As I left the bathroom, I almost crash with the geek gang of Sam Johnson. The fat guy started rambling about the latest gaming news, while the other one began his conversation on who is the hottest girl at school. I sighed and let them pass. I can’t understand their motives in life, they get the worst grades at school and they rarely do anything else aside from videogames or comic books. Our eyes met, they simply stopped talking for a moment and continued their way. When they got to the corner I could hear Sam say. “Dude, Geoff just gives me the creeps.”

I sighed accustomed to those kinds of comments. The majority of the school began to leave for the day, only the ones with extra curricular classes, or just members of a club. Hating social attention, I walked through the emptiest halls, evading as much contact as I could. The halls clustered up as the results from a previous test were posted on a bulletin board. I waited resting on the nearest locker to see my score on that test.

As students moved away from the board, I finally was able to take a look at my score. As always, I ended up in the first places of the generation, so scamming through the list was unnecessary. As I read my score, a figure the same size as me stood up next to me. “Geoffrey Scott.” He said trying to get my attention. I simply ignored him and continued staring at the board. “Guess I owe you this…” Shawn Matthews, the former school super star told me giving me a twenty bill. I took it without looking at him and left the place.

I saw the group of girls who drooled over Shawn ran past me, practically tackling me. I left with a smile as I had beaten my rival at school grades. “Guess you can’t be the best at everything.” I say to myself placing my skateboard on the ground and leaving the school’s front garden. Living in a suburban style residence made the streets quite empty on Thursday afternoons. Most people live here and work on New York City, which is at a fifteen-minute train ride.

I had no problem heading to my job, the coast was clear and I never bumped into anyone I knew. Even if I knew them they would straight up ignored, so the results would be the same. The windy airs of January hit my face; I put my hoodie on trying to protect myself from getting a cold. I bought this skateboard with my first check, on an average garage sale with a not so normal looking grandpa person.

He needed to get rid of this old thing since he was moving away. No wonder he sold it at such a cheap price, the wood is filled with mold and the wheels keep chirping whenever they move. And the artwork is a bunch of crazy circles with symbols from any generic heavy metal band. Still, this is my main method of transportation, and it is quite practical and very easy to use.

As I approach the nearest mall, the local library distracts me. It isn’t the biggest library nor the prettiest, but is one of the places I visit the most in this small town. I let the skateboard slide to my hand, as I stop in front of its gates. I don’t remember when all of this started, but I’ve always been the lonesome guy at school. I know I have a little bit of fault on that, I’ve always kept my distance from everyone else and I forced myself to be alone.

I’ve never liked hanging out with people; they’d always betray me or simply use me to get better grades. I sighed pushing those thoughts away and continued to the mall. Thursday’s are usually very empty at the malls, so reading a book while working wouldn’t be a big kind of distraction. I drifted between the few persons that were at the door, skated directly to the food court. The door thankfully was opened, so I jumped inside still on the skateboard.

“Evening” I say as I enter, closing the door behind me I toss my backpack to the nearest chair as I quickly put on the yellow apron. I work in a fast food restaurant inside a mall, is not the proudest job ever, but it helps as the only source of income I have. I move to the computer type in my password, and checked the counter for the types of change I have. The guy sitting at the other cash register stands up as his shift ends.

“See you tomorrow, Bob, Geoff, don’t burn the store down while I’m not present.” Nathanael, the owner’s son, says as he leaves the small store. I work here with another guy named Bob Kevins, he’s in charge of the grill and cooking the orders. I just sit at the check register and take care of everything related to money. Either simple transactions or any movement related to the storage. As I take my book out, I feel Bob sitting next to me and putting the restaurant’s cap on my head.

“Study session with Geoff! I love them!” He said pulling out his SAT’s study guide. I just sighed accustomed to this. Bob is trying his best to enter one of the big universities at New York, and since he’s not the brightest bulb of the pack, I constantly help him whenever he needs to study for an exam. As he prepares himself for the small oral exam I’m about to give him, I rest on the chair eyeing the crowd on the food hall.

It isn’t as full as on a Friday, yet there is enough people to make a somewhat loud noise. A small group of people approaches the store, the sounds they are making easily tell me who they are. “If it isn’t my stupid brother, this store truly innovates by making chimps do human labor.” My annoying sister says as she approaches the front of the restaurant. I just cross my arms and rest on the chair, practically ignoring what she says.

After I couldn’t take anymore of her rambling I sighed and interrupted her in a serious tone. “That’s all?” I watch as my sister furiously throws her purse in the ground, angered that her teasing didn’t work at all. Her doggie boyfriend walks behind her, picking up her purse and following her to the next joint. I sighed putting my mind back to the book I was reading.

After a boring afternoon I pick up my share of the tips, remove the apron and head home. The sun began to set, and I could watch it as it hid between the skyscrapers in the distance. I take a different turn and headed towards the docks rather than my house. My mother doesn’t care if I’m there or not, just that I bring food from the mart and leave it in the fridge.

The evening breeze hits me in the face as I approach an abandoned cargo ship. The town I live doesn’t have any industries or big companies. It is just a small suburban place, which used to be a dock to leave old useless ships. Some ships haven’t been removed from the area, making it some kind of ship graveyard. Some are on land and parts of it were used to build other ships, others are simply left floating in the low coast. I leave my stuff near the biggest ship, and I prepare myself for my routine.

Each day I come to this area just to run. It’s something called parkour actually, but I rather just call it running. I like keeping my body healthy, instead of what my family does at home. My mother is a morbidly obese woman, who rarely gets up from the sofa, while the only reason my sister is somewhat slim is because she pukes out most of the food she eats. I pull my hoodie up and braced myself for today’s routine.

I wall jump across the insides of the ship, climb any possible ledge I find, roll down the smallest opening, practically I roam the insides of this abandoned ship. I manage to climb all the way to the bridge. I sat down at the top, resting for a little as I see the last bits of sunshine get lost in New York’s skyscrapers. “What am I doing with my life?” I say out loud to myself.

I’m somewhat tired of the horrible life I have to live everyday. I know there are people in worse situations than mine, yet that doesn’t remove the fact that my life truly sucks. I want to get out of my broken home, from my abusive mother who only has me because of child support, of my annoying sister and the jocks at school. I just want to get out of here. I stand up and throw a nearby piece of metal to the ship itself.

Running removes my stress. I never knew how or why, but it always does. I climb down the ship taking the longest route possible, entering every small room and even passing through cargo boxes. Rather than walking to the exit I jump out one of the holes from the ship, rolling as I hit the floor. I stand up and removed my hoodie, as it was covered with dust and was wet since I landed near the shore. Since I’m wearing all day one of the school’s sport hoodies, they don’t check that I’m actually wearing the uniform underneath it. So I stand up in the shore wearing a simple white shirt.

As I approach my stuff, I see a silhouette bending over picking up my skateboard. I walk a little bit faster trying not to scare away whoever is planning to steal my things. When I get close enough I immediately recognized the school’s female uniform, the person notices me too, yet she jumps and yells in a cute manner. “Geoff! I thought someone stole your things and left them here!” Lizzie Rigs, the school’s social butterfly, she quite literally gets along with everyone.

“Oh… yeah…” I answered her putting my hoodie inside my backpack. “Just doing my daily run around the docks. What exactly brought you here?” I asked her flipping my backpack over my shoulder. She’s one of the few people whom I actually get along with. She’s nice to everyone and doesn’t care who she is talking with. She even hugged of the punk guys just because he needed a hug. I motioned her to follow me as I picked up my skateboard and walked to my home.

She happily jumped beside me and walked right next to me. Her long chestnut hair being pushed by the wind as we walked. I’m thankful I was at least taller than the average women; I’m not the tallest among men and if I was somewhat shorter I’d be bullied even more. Being the bookworm of the generation is prone to a lot of bullying coming from the general jock. I’ve never gotten along with the jocks their leader being my sister’s boyfriend doesn’t help either.

I arrived somewhat late back home. I spend a lot of time listening to Lizzie’s daily problems and it really consumes a lot of time hearing her stories. I’ve never been so much of a talker but more of a listener. I also have to pass through a local fried chicken joint, in order to bring dinner to my family. As soon as I passed the door a shoe hitting my head greeted me. I was used to it so I simply shrug it off and walked towards the living room.

“Ya brought what I asked you?” My mother said as I placed the bucket of chicken on the table. She bends over as much as she could in order to pick it up and began eating it up in a rather disgusting manner. Pieces of chicken cover the already dirty couch, and I could see her greasy fat finger trying to manage the TV remote. I ignore her as I walked downstairs into my room. The tidiest place in the house was actually the basement. The place my mother decided would be a very good place for her only son to sleep.

The placed had carton boxes lying all around, filled with my entire library of books. Since I don’t exactly have a closet, I was forced to put all of my belongings on these boxes. Removing my shirt shows the many reasons why I always wear a hoodie to school. My body was covered with the many scars my mother and sister produced me as punishments for not doing what they say.

Being the surprise child from a broken condom just gives more reasons for my family to hate me. My father left the house because of me, leaving my mother in charge. She didn’t take the news so well, and since I can remember she had always dislike anything related to me. I would be in the streets if it weren’t because of the money given by the government in order to maintain us.

I place all of my money inside a pickle jar, which I use to store all of the tips and my salary. Working on the fast food joint for three years gave me a well amount of money. My current plan is to get a good tuition so I can enter a good university, leaving this hideous town behind, and then work as some sort of librarian or university teacher. I practically fall into the mattress I call bed, and fall asleep almost immediately.

Running, from what? I’m not sure. I can feel it slowly shortening the distance between us. My body feels odd, as usual in my dreams. For some reason I keep picturing myself as some sort of teenage girl. And the dreams are always the same, running, moving, walking, always in motion trying to get away from something or someone. I take a brief look at the thing that’s chasing me, I can’t see anything yet I feel it is there.

Some sort of reptilian purple eye appears from the cloud of shadows that chases me. The rest of the clouds dissipate letting me see where exactly I am. Some sort of forest covered entirely by snow. As I keep running, I notice slowly that the trees began to pile up in front of me. I arrive into a dead end, hitting my face into a stack of wood.

I turn myself around, the creature is mysteriously gone, I can only see the path in which I was running. Snowflakes fall down from the sky, peace and tranquility float in the air. Suddenly I see a shadow moving between the trees, running and moving in all directions. I slowly stand up, trying to guess where the creature would appear.

I feel a huge pain coming from my chest area. Looking down I see three sets of claws impaling my chest. I feel my consciousness slowly fading away, all of my energy slowly disappearing from my body. “Tenebris…” I hear in a horrendous voice. “I’ve finally found you…”

I wake up sweating and breathing heavily. That dream felt disturbingly real, and I’m slowly catching my breath and checking my chest as if I wasn’t actually impaled by a set of claws. This dream haunts me constantly, not that I believe in superstitions, but having the same dream all the time must mean something. The only thing that changes are the locations I’m running.

This one was different however. I never get killed at the end; I usually wake up just when the monster disappears. I shrug it off as a nightmare and walked upstairs towards the bathroom. As usual, my mother fell asleep on the couch with the TV still on. I turn off the TV before going to the toilet. I almost puked at the sight of the bloody thing. My sister once more didn’t flush the toilet after she did her “dieting plans”. She eats the exact same amount my mother eats; however she flushes it down the toilet seconds after eating it.

I take a quick shower, since the smell of uneaten cheap fry chicken is killing my nostrils. I wash my teeth and get the hell out of my house before anyone else wakes up. I grab my stuff and head out the door wearing the school’s hoodie and pants. The sun wasn’t out, yet dawn just arrived and I was casually skating towards school. I lived several streets away from my school; it usually takes a ten or twenty minute walk to get there. It would be less if the car we have wasn’t torn down and practically useless.

On my journey I spot the blue BMW that belongs of my sister’s other boyfriend. He dates Jackson because of the fame and popularity, yet the guy is so stupid he hasn’t realized he’s been cheated on this whole time. I pass through the plaza students my age use as a hangout point. This town isn’t the biggest thing ever; you either take the bus or have a car in order to get to the nearest mall. I got somewhat distracted which caused me to crash against somebody.

The mass in front of me turns around angrily. “If it isn’t Geoffrey, I didn’t expect you so early in the morning.” Jackson, the school bully says as I’m recovering from the fall. “Look, yesterday you ruined me the evening with my girlfriend. She got so mad of the things you say that she wouldn’t make out with me before leaving her home.” He cracked his knuckles an prepare himself for the beating he wants to give me. “You know the drill.”

When he walked towards me I simply kicked his legs making him fall to the ground. “You have to catch me first Jacky.” I told the nickname he truly hates people calling him. I grabbed my skateboard and began my escape through the park. Messing with Jackson is something that happens almost daily. Even if he towers me by a feet or so, I always manage to ruin his plans. I can easily outrun him, making him get even angrier and just giving up afterwards.

I run directly to the park, since he lost some time standing up, I had some advantage and managed to climb a tree before he saw me. I could hear him grunting and mumbling curses between his teeth as he passed right under me. I laugh it off and waited a while to come down. He was already gone when I jumped down the tree. Everything was quiet and peaceful and I was ready to go back to school. However, something strange filled the air, an odd sensation passed through my body.

I heard some odd mumbling in the distance, and I saw how the leafs of the tree suddenly stop mid air. Five shadows appeared out of nowhere, I couldn’t exactly see their faces, but I could guess they were carrying some kind of weaponry. I felt a huge pain coming from my shoulder, an arrow now stood impaled in my shoulder. The pain began to worsen, as one of the shadows pulled with a string the arrow, tying me into the tree. The smallest shadow walked in front of me, I could see its purple eyes shining through the silhouette. Claws appeared on its hands and they easily ripped my clothes apart.

“I’ll get you out of there.” The weird shadow said as it impaled its claws right in my chest. Blood came out of my mouth, and my vision began to get very blurry. I noticed the rest of the shadows walking towards me before I finally pass out.

To be continued...