TH1RT3EN CANDLES

PROLOGUE

 

A/N: This is the first story that I have posted on Wattpad so please be nice. Although it is not the first story I have ever written and technically I have almost finished it. If you guys enjoy it I will post the next chapter soon. Please Comment. :)

PROLOGUE

People stare as I walk through Grand Central Station. It is not unusual. I should be used to it by now. Still, the feeling of a trillion wary eyes brushes every inch of my body and I feel cold and stiff as I walk down the marble steps.

Under my feet the once lustrous stone entryway is caked with mud and grime but the people that fill the station are even grimier. Homeless men, women and children cling to the shadows as if they cannot be seen. Clothes hang off their bodies in tatters. Birds fly through the rafters. The high, sharp sound of the train entering the station isn't unordinary but it pierces the heavy air like a knife cuts through melted butter.

It is dark in the station. Darker than outside at least. The windows high above my head are cracked and dirty so that the sunlight can barely reach the ground before my feet. There are some panes of glass that are missing and the clear sunlight that streams through these oddities is warm and bright.

I am the only one to cross the floor to the ticket booth. The man behind the wired glass is old and gaunt. His skin practically melts from his bones. His glasses hang so far off his nose that I want to reach forward to prevent their imminent fall.

"Can I help you?" he asks. He looks me up and down and I know I must look suspicious. The warm sunlight, although rare, makes the station stifling hot. The man behind the counter sports a shirt half unbuttoned and it allows me to see halfway down his chest. The hairs that dot his liver spotted skin are rarer than the sunlight.

I look away, ashamed of my crude thoughts.

"I would like a one-way ticket to Savannah, please," I respond, my gaze affixed to the counter and my hands shaking underneath my mittens.

"Savannah's pretty hot this time of year, are you sure about that darlin'?" the man asks, shifting in his position behind the thick glass wall. He nods to my attire and I know what he must be thinking.

He is thinking that I am crazy. I am a nut bagger. I am just as loony as every other homeless person clinging to the walls of the station. Only I am a nutter with cash.

"I am sure," I nod, passing the man a twenty dollar bill across the counter. He swipes it back and checks it in the stark sunlight. After staring for a moment he grunts something inaudible and slips my money in to the register. The ticket stub rolls out of the printer and in to my hand so quickly that I hardly know what to do with it but the man behind the counter only gives me a swift nod before a voice booms over the audio system.

"All passengers to Savannah board on Platform 5. All passengers to Savannah please board on Platform 5 at this time."

There was no need for a big commotion, I think warily as I walk toward the platform.

There is only one passenger and only one train. Now the homeless watch from the shadows and I feel like the walls themselves follow my every move. I waddle halfway down the platform and step in to the second to last car. Per tradition the last car of the train is saved for luggage and I would be willing to bet all five jackets I have wrapped around my bony arms that the luggage from two years ago is still tucked away in that last car.

Two years ago when the first bomb hit New York. Two years ago when nuclear warfare ravaged the most advanced countries and eventually engulfed the entire world. Two years ago when the internet collapsed, when people stopped paying taxes and mortgages and bills, when people stopped going to work and buying food and taking care of children, when people stopped living. Two years ago New York City became a grimy, grungy cesspit and I was finally leaving-I was making my way home.