by Shelly Pratt
Intuition gave her pause to think that these were just empty vessels of a person, perhaps a shadow of their former selves. It was kind of like the lights were on, but nobody was home. People had just stopped caring and seemed to have succumbed to the darkness that surrounded them.
Her clothes were soaking wet and clung to her skin like glue, making it hard to get comfortable on the bike’s seat. She purposefully missed her exit and decided to take the next one as she knew at this time of day it would be less busy. She wasn’t in the mood for traffic and wanted to get home as soon as possible to her loft.
Aiyana was a creative person by nature and worked as a freelance artist and graphic designer for a company in Germany. It gave her the freedom to draw and paint whenever she liked, do whatever she liked and still get paid to do the one thing she loved the most. She lived in a high-rise building in Miami called the Sunny Seas. More like Sullen Seas she thought to herself as she pulled on to her street.
Once upon a time it was millionaire playboys, party girls and high class socialites who occupied all the expensive real estate that dominated the coastal promenade – but not anymore. They had packed up their box of tricks long ago and either fled the country or moved to Victoria, which was the one state left that was thought not to have the new race of people walking amongst them. Aiyana just thought it was a matter of time before that happened though.
Her building was a drab grey colour whose paint was peeling faster than a sunburn victim, with rusting balcony rails that occupied each level. The “Sunny” sign had been half ripped from its anchors at the entry way so that it swung dangerously whenever the wind caught it.
There wasn’t a single soul in sight as she climbed off the bike. The rain acted like a prison and people remained indoors for fear it would emanate something catching. As Aiyana headed up the steps for the front door, she caught sight of the crazy old woman who occupied the ground floor apartment on the left hand side of the building. Her curtains were drawn, but the hooked nose and beady eyes peered through the material, spying on whoever would walk her way. She really did seem kind of crazy and even had the stereotypical ten plus cats, but Aiyana thought she seemed harmless enough, and compared to the rest of the psychos that walked the streets she seemed like a complete saint. Aiyana nodded in her direction and the curtains hastily closed as she entered the building.
She pressed the elevator button and waited for the carriage to come down. There was a musty-ness in the air and the lingering smell of stale tobacco, not completely unpleasant – but certainly it wasn’t roses. The lift chimed to indicate it had arrived at its destination and she stepped in unobstructed and pressed the button for the top floor.
It wasn’t actually meant to be an apartment, although the owner of the building was tighter than a fishes arse and wanted to maximise every square inch of real estate he owned. So he had the loft that was designed for storage converted into an open plan bedsit. It suited her fine; she didn’t have any visitors come to her home – not ever. On the way up the lift’s cables whined mercilessly and the light that lit the small cubicle flickered in protest. Once on her floor she took her keys from her satchel and went to open the lock.
What disturbed her most were the fact that the lock was already open and the door ajar. She hesitated a moment, her ear strained at the door listening for any movement from within. Five minutes past, to which she was certain if anybody had been still in there than surely they would have moved by now. The old door creaked open as she pushed it with the toe of her boot and came to rest in the door stop on the wall behind it.
She took a moment to survey the room, methodically working her eyes over each object to ascertain if it had been moved from its previous position or not. Happy with the way things were, she moved towards the only other door in the apartment which led to the bathroom – nothing suspicious in there either, so she went back and shut the front door and dead bolted it.
It was only as she moved towards the kitchenette that she noticed the sliding door to the balcony had been forced open. The lock clasp was now broken and the remnants of it lay on the floor where it had come to rest. Someone had been in her apartment, and from the looks of things, that someone had come in through the balcony door. She stepped out and took a careful look around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She glanced up and checked the roof and then peered around the sides of the balcony.
Being the only resident on the top floor meant it was almost impossible that another tenant were the culprit of her home invasion. Well whoever it was had gone to great lengths not to walk in the front door. Aiyana wondered why this was considering the same person seemed to have left that way.
The distant wail of a siren brought her back to the present and she glanced in the direction of the central business district which now seemed to house the low-life population of coastal society - the murderers, wheelers of drugs and armed weapons traders. The ever present dark clouds hung like a blanket over the dilapidated buildings, threatening to spill more rain at a moment’s notice and only further enhancing the doom and gloom of the once vibrant city. Steam and fog also seemed to cling to the skyscraper buildings that dotted the skyline making it impossible to determine where the city actually started and finished.
Her mother had once told her of such a place called Gotham City that had screened in a Batman movie her grandmother had seen over eighty years ago. You could still download it on AAD – which was the All Access Device that people view cinema on these days. Gone were the large and cumbersome DVD and Blue Ray players – those things were old news. Times had changed and what mattered a hundred years ago couldn’t be further from the minds of the inhabitants of the coastal city nowadays. Honestly, it was a feat just to walk down the street without getting mugged or killed. Aiyana sighed, completely deflated that her private sanctuary had been invaded by strangers. She took one last look around before heading back inside.
She went and fetched a long off cut of wood from under her bed that she used to frame the paintings she did and brought it back to the living area and wedged it into the track frame of the balcony sliding door so that it couldn’t be pried open from the outside. Satisfied that it would keep her secure for the time being, she pulled closed the drapes and went and made a cup of tea and something to eat.
Ten minutes later she had a grilled cheese sandwich next to her as she placed a fresh blank canvas on her easel and got busy mixing black and white paints. The city was dark, her mood was dark and this was going to be reflected in the painting she was about to do.
The images of the raven she had seen today danced across her mind as she stroked the canvass with her brush. At first she executed big sweeping gestures of black paint that outlined its massive wings and body, before being quickly replaced by darker shades of grey that accentuated the breast bone of the bird and its claws. Distractedly she shoved a mouthful of sandwich into her mouth and the gooey cheese squirted out the sides of the buttery toasted bread. She cursed as it burnt the roof of her mouth and then went back to her painting.
The feathers were what made the raven so beautifully unforgettable. In a rare glimpse of the sun’s rays, she had caught the blue green tones that mingled with the black feathers on his body. She used the tip of her brush now to replicate the colour on her canvas.
The painting wasn’t perfection by anyone’s standards; it was raw and visually confronting, even a little scary. But she liked it. The eyes of the bird told a thousand stories that she was yet to listen to and the wings told of power and strength. She somehow had stumbled across what everyone it the city was looking for – the mysterious creatures that now walked amongst them.
She could see now how they made it possible to avoid detection when it was obvious they could morph at will. Only one ‘man’ had ever been caught by the APP, which was the Armed Patrol of the People. He had been in his human form at the time and they had whisked him off to some laboratory to run all manner of tests. According to media leaks the scientists had ended up killing him without
him ever having revealed his alter form.
Of course the results of all the samples they had taken were a closely guarded secret, one certainly not to be shared with the general public. The only thing citizens had been made aware of was the imprint of a symbol that was located at the base of their spine when in their human form. It was a symbol of double infinity – a branding of a curse that would stay with them for all of eternity, the same one she had seen on the raven today.
Aiyana was intrigued by the species and her curiosity had peaked several months back when she was walking through town and had caught a glimpse of the symbol on the back of a man as he had bent over. He had turned and saw her and made a hurried attempt to get out of the city. She’d followed him on her bike as far as the mountain, but the trail had run cold.
He had abandoned a car at the petrol station at the bottom of Springbrook and then completely vanished into thin air - until now. She’d felt like she had combed every inch of the bushland in order to find him again, and now that she had, she wondered just what to do about it.
She certainly wasn’t about to tell anybody about it, but at the same time she wondered if she were a fool to think she could trust him. Was she in danger? Was it better for her to forget about seeing him and go back to the mundane existence she had been living?
She sighed and tucked a strand of her dark locks behind her ear, and in so doing smeared paint across her cheek. Giving one last appreciative look at the painting she moved over to the kitchen sink to wash the paint off her face. There was a tiny mirror mounted over the tap and she peered into it as she scrubbed at her cheek. As she gazed at her reflection she realised with a sudden shriek that there was someone standing behind her. Well, not actually behind her, but close enough.
She whirled around, her heart catching in her throat at the mysterious stranger that was standing on her balcony. It was him. He stood patiently, calmly. He wore a moody expression and looked perplexed, like something was bothering him.
For a split second she wondered whether she should run out of her apartment right now, but that thought was quickly replace by another - curiosity. It was something she had never been able to control and now more than ever she wanted answers. The day’s sky was barely visible behind him now; although not yet even five o’clock, the remnants of the day were fading fast and a light rain fall had started yet again. He stood completely in his human form, naked but for a pair of black jeans which seemed to have been hastily pulled on. His short dark hair was flat against his scalp and he had rain drops dripping down his face to his hard muscled chest. He looked like he could easily crush her, yet she wasn’t afraid.
She slowly walked over to the door and stopped. He observed her behaviour for a moment before taking another step towards the glass door to meet her, stopping just shy of bumping his nose. He was a lot taller than she, but not older and he looked down at her with sorrow burdened across his brow. Whilst she wondered what caused this, she couldn’t help translate features of his human self over to that of the raven she had seen him transform from earlier in the day.
His nose was long and pointed, similar to that of the raven and his features were dark in every way. His eyes hadn’t changed. Even from the distance she had seen him earlier she could still see the same attentive stare; liquid pools of coal burning into hers. Slowly she reached down and removed the wood from the door’s track, her eyes never leaving his as she did so. He didn’t physically change his stance at all, but his eyes followed like a hawk, every move she made was met with a flicker of his eyes.
Aiyana reached for the door handle and let the door slowly open into its recess. She was met by a northerly blowing wind that seemed a little fiercer twenty three floors up and a smattering of rain that dampened her clothes instantly. She sucked in her breath, feeling a little like she was in a parallel universe. All this while, he said nothing. He just the same intent stare coming from those eyes.
She noticed then that he was holding something. He caught her looking at it and suddenly thrust it towards her. His sudden movement forced her to stifle a yelp as she grabbed onto the material sack he had given her. She frowned, not quite understanding.
“I…” it was the first word, the first letter that he had even spoken, but it immediately conveyed everything she had been wondering about this young man. It was a warm and deeply husky sound, as though the call he would sing as a raven had left his human voice raspy and spent. To her, it said you can trust me. She fumbled with the cloth, taking care to open it as she had no clue as to what was inside. What was there had her completely stumped.
“Fruit? You brought me food?” she asked, still not understanding what this was all about. Forget her reaction; he seemed just as surprised as he did.
He ran a hand through his wet hair, looking just as confused.
“Yeah, I guess I did,” he said, stoicism written all over his features.
“Why?” she asked, eyeing the assortment of berries suspiciously.
“I…” he trailed off, but she recognised something had clicked in his brain, like a sudden light had been switched and he had just been enlightened with the answer she was looking for.
“I have no idea,” he said, a slight smile twigging at the corner of his lips.
Before she could say anything else his arms rose out at his sides and he morphed instantly into the raven she had seen earlier. The flap of his wings lifted his body off her balcony and he rose into the air as the night sky descended. The updraft of wind from his wings made her long tresses fly all about her face and she caught the smell of the woods as it filled her nostrils.
She watched on in amazement as the raven flew about the sky, almost as if he were performing for her. With a final swoop along the balcony he was gone, leaving her to believe she had imagined it all. If it weren’t for the fruit that had been left with her she might very well have thought that she had.
Something told her she was going to be seeing a lot more of this dark and mysterious stranger.
Chapter Two
The few days since Aiyana had seen him, she found she couldn’t concentrate on anything at all. She had paced a well-worn path across the floor boards of her tiny apartment to the point she was sure she would fall through any minute. Her mind seemed filled with all sorts of questions that she knew was going to take time to answer, and not just time, but trust as well.
She had tried to continue her work with her paintings for the art exhibition that she was involved in this evening, but had come up short a piece for her collection. As her eyes swept across the room on yet another trek across the floor boards they came to rest on the painting she had done of the raven. I wonder… she pondered.
In that instant she decided that the painting of the Raven would be the fifth and final piece of her Eternal Collection. A friend of hers was doing an underground showing tonight in his gallery located in the heart of the city. He had gotten her on board early to put forth a collection of her works to auction off to raise money for the charity MNM, which stood for Mess No More – a charity that was trying to clean up the deplorable state their city had been reduced to.
Homelessness, violence and vandalism had left its very tainted mark on the city and those who still gave a damn were trying to do something about it. The fact that the city’s resources were stretched to the limit didn’t help things either, and the APP had zero tolerance for people who seemed to be delving into the dark side of the city.
The new race had certainly had a detrimental effect on people’s perception of their safety when out an about and this brought Aiyana back full circle to thinking about the mysterious dark stranger.
Who was he? Where was he now? Should she go and find him again?
All these questions, and yet her obligation to the showing tonight pressed her to tuck all her thoughts to the back of her mind whilst she showered and got ready for the taxi that was to collect her in less than an hour.
Aiyana wasn’t a girly, girl. She had never bought a dress and wasn�
�t about to start now, instead selecting a pair of tight fitting pants that accentuated her rear end. She knew she was attractive, but her disdainful look towards willing suitors generally sent them packing. She had always rather disliked the thought of having a mate, but that was until three days ago and she shook her head to clear the image of his tight torso from her mind.
What was she thinking?? More to the point – was it even possible?
She scolded herself for letting her mind slip to such lewd thoughts and buttoned up her shirt. She added a handful of bangles to her wrists and slapped a thin layer of lipstick on her lips. She sighed outwardly at the bird’s nest that was her hair and gave up trying to style it, instead braiding it loosely and securing it with a tie.
She took a glance out of the glass doors on her balcony, half hoping to see the raven nestled on her deck, but was only met with the familiar drizzle of rain as it drenched the outside world. Just as well she had tied up her hair with this weather going on – it would have amassed to a mountainous frizz in no time had she stepped out with it hanging down around her face.
She grabbed the canvass paintings and secured them in a waterproof cache that would make sure they didn’t get ruined before they even made it to the gallery. Aiyana checked her watch and made her way to the elevator - show time.