Night Life

Chapter 3: Redgate

Bars and nightclubs lined the street, each one more crowded than the last. It was an odd sight. All the drinking, dancing and partying seemed completely at odds with the corpse back in the park. Vic had only recently been witness to a grisly visage of violent death and now he was surrounded by so much energy and life. The juxtaposition was almost whiplash inducing. The neon signs cast a bright light over the constant murmuring mass of people as they shuffled by. Each tired, drunk or purposeful face in the crowd was momentarily illuminated by a wave of purple light, before they continued on and disappeared into the night. The few shafts of light that missed the wandering faces were reflected beautifully in the puddles that Vic suddenly found himself splashing through. He stopped, his feet now soaking wet, and allowed himself to let out a quiet, irritated sigh. The man, who's way he'd stepped out of, hadn't even noticed him. Vic was pretty sure that if he hadn't dodged to the side, he would have walked straight into him without a second thought.

Ahead of him, Steph confidently barged past a couple who had decided that the middle of a busy street was the best place to have an in-depth argument about the finer details of their marriage and home life. She was clearly more adept when it came to surviving on the streets of Redgate. It wasn't that surprising, since Vic had grown up in a small village to the north. He'd been into the city a few times as a child, usually when his parents needed something from one of the more specialist shops. When he turned eighteen, Vic enrolled in Redgate University and moved into the nearby student accommodation. Nearly four years later Vic was still living in Redgate, though he'd swapped his cheap and shabby student housing for a somehow even cheaper and shabbier flat. Despite all the time he'd spent here, he had never really felt like he knew the city. He was all too familiar with the Uni and the surrounding areas, but streets like the ones he'd been following Steph down for the last hour were almost completely alien to him. She, however, was in her element. Steph knew every shortcut to take and every road to avoid. She navigated the alleyways with an almost nonchalant level of ease. This was her home, much more than it was Vic's. She prowled the streets like a tiger padding along the jungle floor, content in the knowledge that here she was the apex predator.

The streets felt different now. Vic had never been fond of large crowds. All that noise and energy tended to give him something of a sensory overload. When walking through the busy parts of town, he would put his earphones in and stare at his feet, forcing himself through the swarm of bodies. Now though, it was as if he was seeing everything in a new light. Each snippet of overheard conversation was a fragment in a story. And he wanted to hear them all. The people around him, who had once been faceless entities, were now brimming with unique personalities. Everyone looked so different from each other. It was like sprinting through an art gallery, yet still somehow being able to focus on each individual painting and appreciate every single brush stroke, so delicately applied by the artist. Colours and sounds were woven into a tapestry so impossibly big and complex that it would take an eternity to view it in its entirety. But Vic wanted to. He wanted to follow each thread to its conclusion, then step back and allow the beautiful masterpiece to wash over him. What had once been a blurry, confusing image had been sharpened into the highest definition.

The pain in Vic's stomach returned, hitting him like a freight train. His head pounded in brutal rhythm with the pulsing red cloud creeping into the corners of his vision. The ringing in his ears was deafening, as if someone had just fired a gun next to his head. It felt like invisible nails were scratching down the inside of his throat as his stomach twisted into knots. Vic shut his eyes and clenched his fists, trying to force the feeling into submission. When he opened his eyes again, colour had drained from reality. Everything was grey and time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. Then he saw the red. The glowing, pulsating red that flowed through the veins of every creature he could see. Their bodies were all webs of delicious crimson nectar, just waiting to be drained. Vic felt himself salivating. The ringing in his ears grew louder and louder as his eyes darted between every warm, blood-filled body that surrounded him. All of them were just standing around like cattle, waiting for him to sink his teeth into their necks and gorge himself on their scarlet ambrosia. They were prey. Each worthless human who shuffled by was nothing but prey. They existed entirely to satisfy his eternal, gnawing hunger and slake his ever-present thirst. Vic ran his tongue over his teeth. They felt sharper than before. He had a mouth full of tiny blades, ready to rend even the toughest flesh with ease.