‘Life is a great adventure, but death is only the beginning.’
Wanna feel this hatred
Its what I need to drag me through this
I survive through nothing less
It tears me up as you calmly use it
Love abuse is just a test
Then sad old love songs
Stick the knife in deeper everyday
Twisting as you play-Deborah Ann Dyer, (Flesh wounds)
Why live when no one loves you…
It was her only thought as she prowled the streets and back allays of New York City. The moon shone high, casting dark eerie shadows belonging to the buildings themselves. You had to be careful when prowling these alleyways, just as she was, always cautious and always on her toes, as she never knew what might jump out from around the corner. Drug dealers and crack heads were almost always violent, and each one of them had ‘territory’ and leaving your own could sometimes get you killed, she knew, she had seen it happen countless times.
As she past the night policemen she hung her head low. Many of them had been taken away, even if it was only for a night locked up in a cell. She knew, she had been their, and sometimes they went too far when bringing them ‘comfort’, if you could call it that. Her breath came out in short uneven gasps, as the cold air entered her lungs. She pulled her tattered coat closer around her, even though it didn’t do much to fight the cold. Her legs carried her weightlessly as the winter breeze whipped through her hair.
“Hey you, stop!!” She heard one of the policemen shout, their footsteps quicken in pace as they turned and ran after her up the street. Everyone knew her face, it was unforgettable. She was a thief and pickpocket, had been all her life, ever since she smuggled herself from Cairo on a vacation plane, in the luggage compartment.
Not once did she turn back, she glided effortlessly along the tarmac, almost as if she was floating. “Turn left…” a voice said. She obeyed, skidding slightly on the icy pavement. She turned sharply finding her eyes locked onto the officers chasing her. She took hold of a garbage can, her arms twisting awkwardly as she threw it towards the floor. “Yes“ the voice hissed, “That’s it”. She smiled when one of the men fell, cursing as he hit the floor.
“Right, then sharp left, and over the roof tops, no one will see you…” the voice urged on. She followed, turning right into a thin alleyway, she ran, her footsteps echoing of the walls. Left… She turned again, losing her grip and crashed into the wall smacking her head on the corner. She picked her self up hearing the coppers making their way towards her, closing, fast, the gap that lay between them.
She came to a sudden halt then, her hands flat out on a brick wall. Dead end. Trapped. Can’t breathe. Help. she thought her claustrophobia creeping into her consciousness. “Do it, nobody’s watching.” she nodded hastily trying to escape the fit of panic that erupted in her brain, closing in on her lungs. She closed her eyes and listened to the noises around her, hearing the wind twist and turn around her. Her coat flapped open and was left ruffled by the strengthening wind. She snapped her eyes open, both glowing white, just like clouds and her hair. She relaxed as her fragile body lifted from the floor, her form rose above the cities rooftops, as she glided through the nights sky.
The two officers ran fast trying to catch up with her, this was the second time they’d had in trying to catch her, and as they reach the brick wall they realised the hunt was now over. Where and how she went was unknown to them, as to all the other officers who had been given night shifts. She always managed to disappear as if she was never there to being with. One of their female officers Betsy had sworn that she had seen her fly, denying the laws of gravity, they had brushed her off, but now maybe Betsy was somehow right.
---
She sat on a random apartment rooftop, looking out into the night sky, fiddling with the ring on her ring finger. She was not alone. Why live when nobody loves you? She thought looking down at her companion with blankness in her mind. Emotion was one of those things she had given up on, it had helped her especially in a world of pain and hurt.
“Because” her voice and companion said, “out there we our bound to find someone who cares. You should know that by now, Ororo.” The woman who spoke, was no person at all, she was not human at all, it seemed strange at first, but Ororo’s voice and friend was a simple black cat. A gift from the Goddess: along with her weather manipulation. Ororo drag her peaceful cat onto her lap and scratched it behind its ears. It purred. The animal looked up and saw how Ororo’s eyes were cast out onto the moon, she spoke again, “Come, we have work to do.”.
The thief stood and looked at her friend and pet. And I’m hearing this from a cat? She thought. “No Shinobu we don’t, I don't!" She said using her voice instead of her mind. She stood, and held Shinobu close. She named the cat, but the Goddess created the animal. The name meant ‘to endure’ and it was exactly what Ororo had to do in her company. Endure it.
She gathered the winds around her. The winds grew strong and lifted both the weight of the girl commanding them and her ‘pet’. Once in the air, Ororo rode the winds above Manhattan, landing on Bow Bridge in Central Park. She stood there hugging herself as Shinobu wrapped herself around Ororo’s legs.
Shinobu jumped out of the way as Ororo’s old stolen Russian coat fell to the floor around her feet. “Ororo…” Shinobu jumped up on to the wall of the bridge next to where Ororo was now standing. The teenager was once again looking up towards the moon.
And finally she spoke, “How long will it take until my new life starts?”
“Not long.” Shinobu answered stretching her cat like form and opening her jaw to yawn. Ororo smiled up towards the moon.
“They’ll help me, wont they?” she asked in a near whisper, her head turning downwards towards the water.
“They will try, though; they shall not be like you.”
“Will you be there?” She asked with a smile.
“I will guide you, but you shall not know it.” Shinobu jumped from her perch on the bridge and landed as all cats do on all fours. “One more thing…” she said before turning around, “You will remember nothing of this life.”
Ororo jumped as the cat disappeared into the shadows of the night, That’s all I needed to know. she thought before the water consumed her, and entered into her lungs. She didn’t struggle, she couldn’t, she already felt dead inside, though not empty, never. The water took her then, her world slowly blurring out and going black, lifeless…still.
