As
I stare out the window, I try not to think too much about the past
I’ve
left behind, the ‘family’ I’ve forfeited. The trees and
buildings move by in a blur, much like the memories that my
still-errant mind keeps glossing over. And, of course, the terribly
dark night at the end of the road.
The
train stops, jerking everyone in the room softly to one side as it
finally halts. I walk through the crowd of strangers while awkwardly
holding my swords by their scabbards—it’s not like they’d rest
easy in my belt on such a long ride, or in a crowd like this. Walking
across the concrete, I manage to press my way to a bathroom where
nobody else was inside. Passing by a mirror above the sinks—where I
caught a glimpse of my own eyes, slightly to the darker side of
gray—I enter the largest stall and pause, realizing there’s
nowhere I can put the swords without it feeling wrong.
I
prop up the katana hilt-up against the wall and hold the wakizashi’s
scabbard in my mouth as I slide my rather large sling bag around to
the other side of myself, extracting a sanitizer wipe and my belt
from the bag before sliding it back to its normal position. I then
put on the belt, a custom-made style with three layers and a
prominent buckle, temporarily leaving the wipe in my pocket to free
my hands. I let the wakizashi out of my mouth and slide it into my
belt between the inner and middle layers before opening the wipe’s
packet and pulling it out, discarding the wrapper neatly. I wipe my
katana where it touched the bathroom—the tsuba and the tip of the
saya—and throw the wipe away, stuffing my katana into my belt and
adjusting it against my wakizashi.
God,
that just felt downright vain and frivolous, but they’re
one of the few inches of good that I could take from my past… As
ironic as that is. An insult to them somehow feels like an insult to
me.
I readjust their positions in my scabbard one last time and look them
over. The familiarity of a daisho’s
weight at my waist is simply what I need right now. If
it makes me look like a freak, so be it.
I
step out, my katana awkwardly bumping against the stall walls before
my hands go to my scabbards, pulling them out of place temporarily as
I exit the bathroom and walk down to the streets below the train
platform. I stare in wonder in how…
urban,
this place is. It’s
not just that I can’t see an inch of unpaved dirt or grass in
sight, but how drawn in everything is, between the width of the brick
roads and all the buildings shoved up against each other. First
things first, I should get my bearings.
I grab a pamphlet from the nearby kiosk, opening it to find a map and
some pictures of buildings that don’t
look like they’d be far out of place 50 years ago.
Alright, I’m
at Easton Street right now, which means that if I just go
straight…
As
I advance down the streets, the architecture feels like it starts to
take on a life of its own, the buildings slowly developing both color
and character until it starts to feel like this place shouldn’t
exist in this era. Someone in a strange ruffled shirt walks past,
looking more like a Shakespeare actor than a normal pedestrian.
Reaching a pair of strange metal lines in the street, I pause and
look around. Strangely enough, there’s barely any cars here, but
those metal lines stretch down the street as far as I can see.
The
pedestrians, on the other hand, are plentiful here, almost crowding
the sidewalk as they enter and exit buildings in a way that made the
city feel alive,
so much more alive than the places I’m
used to. It almost feels like too much, to be honest, but maybe that
has something to do with my swords bumping into strangers as I cross
the intersection.
What’s
stranger to me about the people here is the clothes they wear,
ranging all the way from modern and casual to fancy and antiquated;
too many peacoats and ruffled shirts dotted the crowds to be a
coincidence, but I can’t find any indication of some sort of
renaissance fair going on to explain it.
I think some of them are even wearing pocketwatches, but
why?
Looking
across the corner, the architecture matches the dress code; brick
walls and sophisticated, antique windows up high mix with more modern
furnishings and windows down low. Between that and how pretty and
relatively clean and unique everything looked—I
couldn’t
see any of the usual litter that I’d have expected of an urban
city—it feels like a strange, ideal place caught somewhere between
now and the industrial revolution, almost grotesque in its
near-perfection.
So
strange, almost alien, but strangely beautiful all the same, like an
old friend from another planet.
But
I can’t
linger; daylight’s burning, and I still need to find the Haracrein.
[…]
A
ways away from anywhere the tourist’s
brochure would dare advertise, I walk through yet another quiet side
alley while clutching my notebook. Somehow these alleys aren’t
quite as foreboding and decrepit as I’d have imagined them to be,
but small spots of dirt on the stone and bits of litter near the
dumpsters add just enough disrepair to keep me cautious.
Someone
walks down the alley in my direction, wearing a hoodie. I fumble my
pencil to my other hand, holding it alongside the notebook as my free
hand settles over my wakizashi. He doesn’t slow down; for a tense
moment we pass by each other, but nothing else happens.
I
exhale. Nothing
like another stranger passing to work me up. The people walking the
alleyways feel more dangerous somehow, but maybe it’s
just the alleyway making me think that I might discover the wrong
kinds of things here.
A
few more steps, and a set of writing on the wall in yellow catches my
eye. Another
clue.
I scribble it onto one of the pages in my notebook, alongside the
mass of twenty-odd other quips I’ve
been able to scrape from the walls here. Supposedly, the Haracrein
hide their location behind street poetry, but it seems like they do a
lot of cheating with regards to how many of those lines are relevant.
That,
or maybe a mad hobo’s
ramblings got blended in somehow…
It
really doesn’t
help that many of the alleyways seem to have a way of interconnecting
and blending together, almost like some sort of byzantine labyrinth
to go with my equally byzantine clues.
I didn’t
write anything down twice like an idiot, did I?
While
I check, the sunlight slowly peels back and away from my notebook as
well as the alley in general. Oh,
right. It’s
getting dark, and I haven’t made a single plan for it.
I
should get to work thinking, but with my luck I’ll
probably end up sleeping on the stones.
Doing
another pass of the area around me, I stop by a dumpster. It
would be embarrassing as hell, but nobody would think to look into a
dumpster for a helpless victim, right?
I open the dumpster, take one whiff of the contents, and—revolted
and coughing—strike that idea down from my internal list…
And then drop it into a paper-shredder for good measure. So,
that idea was out. What next?
I
turn my sights up to the fire escapes adorning the walls of some of
the apartment buildings. They’re
actually an extremely attractive alternative, as it would put me
firmly out of range of the vast majority of the urban jungle’s
theoretical threats, but only if I can make a way up to them. Which,
of course, is a pretty damn big if, too big for me to surmount in any
way I could think of, even if I tried getting on top of one of the
dumpsters first.
So,
that leaves the stones laid on the floors of the twists and turns of
the alleys. After some cautious searching, I settle for camping in a
dead end at an offshoot of a larger alley. It’s probably a terrible
idea, but given its positioning it would at least not be in a
high-traffic area, so the stones themselves would be the only thing
ruining my sleep.
Looks
like I lucked out when picking which jacket I’d bring with me; it’s
already starting to get cold, and I can feel it in my hands. I stare
down at the cobblestone road, sweeping the area to try and sweep it
clear of any broken bottles or spent syringes that might be there.
Satisfied (as much as I can be sleeping on the streets), I pull my
bag off and use it as my makeshift pillow, throwing my hood up for
extra padding before settling down on my side, pulling my katana from
my belt and cradling it in my arms. I’d consider stuffing my hands
in my pockets to keep them from chilling, but there’s no safety
here. I keep my hands right on my katana as I face the streets and
try to sleep… While keeping my ears open, of course.
Here
and there, I hear faint echoes that manage to lull me slightly but
never fully awaken my conscious mind. Sometimes the footsteps get a
little closer, and something stirs harder, but then they go away.
Another set of footsteps come, but instead of going away they just
keep getting closer and closer…
And
in my mind’s eye, I see something, someone
too familiar for comfort. I can’t
see them clearly, so I can’t tell who but I can feel the dread
pulling me along—
My
eyes snap open and I yank the scabbard off my katana, looking up at a
figure in a hoodie with sweatpants holding a suspicious-looking rag
in one hand. I sweep myself to my feet, my footwork slightly off as
the rest of my mind tries to catch up with my instincts.
“Why
don’t you come quietly now?” His voice rasps as he draws a knife
from his free hand, flicking it open. Another unpleasant memory comes
and goes in a flash. “I’m sure you don’t intend to actually be
using that sword, do you?” He tilts his head, and I realize his
voice, his mannerisms are all… Wrong.
I can’t
figure out just what this man has planned for me, only that it was
something terrible. “It’d be a shame to ruin such a pretty
wall-hanger.”
Something
within screams and claws at the edges of my mind with a singular urge
to cut him down where he stands, to remove him from the cycle. ‘No
mercy, no hesitation, for he is unworthy’;
those are the words it chants between its screams. And I don’t like
this little houseguest in my head. I exhale and force myself to
swallow it. “You wanna bet?” The words come out shaky as I fight
a war on two fronts.
“Now,
I’m sure we can just come to an agreement...” He approaches,
slowly at first, and for a terrifyingly dangerous moment my focus
slackens a little, almost wanting to believe his words. Then he
lunges, and I scramble backwards, avoiding his rag and hitting the
wall behind me as I counter-cut, though my sword moves too late to
tear into his arm with much more than the tip. For what little blade
actually cut him, the amount of blood that splatters is
surprising.
“My,
my.” The voice sounds subtly angered as he looks over his shaking
forearm, shrinking away from the cut. “How naughty
of you. I guess I’ll
have to find you another time.” He slowly backs up and walks away
while the same voice within pleads for me to eviscerate him even with
his back turned to me. With a shaking hand, I brush the blood off my
sword with my blood rag before grabbing my scabbard off the ground,
hesitating to make sure I didn’t cut myself as I saw the blade back
in. I sigh, my spine chills finally relaxing as I stare at my
bloodrag one last time. I can’t tell in this light, but I’m not
sure if I remember blood being this
dark. Pocketing the blood rag, I gently set myself back on the floor,
staring at my katana’s
hilt as I let my own thoughts sweep me up again.
Not
that he wouldn’t have deserved it—I’m sure he would’ve, even
if I didn’t have his exact rap sheet in front of me—but that
urge, that voice
is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to leave behind and forget.
Swallowing down that shard of shame, I inhale, exhale, and try to
sleep the rest of my way through the night, but sleep was elusive and
fleeting.
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