X For Unknown

Prologue Day 1

A blessing or a curse? Something Axel Enden would be asking himself for the rest of his life.

Two days earlier...

'Crap. Cara is going to be pissed, this is the third time this week I've been late to pick her up,' he thought to himself as he climbed the fire escape as fast as his lanky legs would take him. He had climbed this fire escape whenever he was late to see Cara. There was something about jumping from building to building that made him feel alive, and he loved the rush of feeling alive no matter what the circumstance.

As he pulled himself up the last of the fire escape and approached the ledge of the building and saw the open air between him and the building his heart began to race. He looked down at the alleyway below and saw nothing but shadows. He backed far away not daring to risk falling down into that abyss and began to run as fast as he could towards the ledge. He leapt and he was almost across when he felt something, a cold grip on his ankle and then he was yanked down without any warning. He closed his eyes awaiting death below, and then he felt the concrete of the alley on his face.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked up to see a man standing in front of him. He wore and a black suit, a black top hat, and had goggles covering his eyes and was leaning on a black walking stick with white strikes along to handle piece. Axel jumped to his feet backing up expecting to hit the main road soon. He started to accelerate as the man pointed his walking stick at him. He saw a shadowy tendril sprout from the walking stick, Axel turned to run away, but he was already being bound by the shadow. His mind flashed to Cara, his heart began to pound at the thought of Cara being left alone with her abusive father.

'CARA!' he screamed as the shadow wrapped around his face and then everything when black.

When he awoke he found himself sprawled across the ground. The rays of dawn started to flow over his hometown. Dazed and confused he picked himself up and walked slowly towards the street ahead of him. He pulled out his phone to see 18 missed calls; he felt his heart sink to his stomach to see majority of it was from Cara. As he got closer to the street, he heard the sounds of sirens blaring. This didn't bother him all too much, crime was a common thing in Hamilton and the police were powerless to stop it. It seemed no matter how many people they put in jail, more filled their place. He wondered if things around here would ever change.

He turned the corner and his eyes began to burn and he felt immediate fatigue. He walked back slowly to the cool dark alley way. He was exhausted and didn't think he could muster the strenght to walk home. He pulled out his phone and dialed Cara's number.

'Axel where the hell have you been?!' she yelled as he moved the phone from his ear.

'Cara please come help me.' He croaked. Immediatly her tone changed as she heard his voice.

'What's wrong? Where are you?' she asked intently.

'I'm at the old fire escape. Just hurry up and — urk! ' he yelped as he felt a rush of pain in his eyes as the sun got progressively brighter.

'Okay, okay. I'll be there soon,' she said. He closed his eyes and covered them with his hands.

Moments passed when he finally asked himself, 'What's wrong with me? And, who was that man?' Then, he saw Cara's shocked face from around the corner and then let himself pass out.

He awoke to the sound of an ICD "playing" his heartbeats rhythm.

'Will he be okay?' he heard a voice out in the hall say. It sounded like Cara. He was hoping it would be his parents, but he knew that he would never hear those voices again. When he was very young both his parents had left him to survive by himself. 'It would be nice to have someone care for me other than Cara,' he thought. But he didn't care all too much, he loved Cara and that was enough for him. 

'Well to be frank I don't know what is wrong with the boy. His temperature was near 0 degrees when you brought him to us and now its back to normal. Right now only time will tell,' the doctor said, unsurely.

This made Axel feel very uneasy. 'I'm getting out of here.' 

He got to his feet and looked around for his clothes. He saw his clothes on the other side of the room. They were neatly folded and placed on top of each other on a footstool in the corner.

As he walked over to them, he saw the man who attacked him earlier passed out on the bed next to him!