Post by Lauryn de Vampyre on Mar 1, 2011 4:44:27 GMT -5
Ticket Event Contest
Characters: Bristol, mention of Lachlan (Deceased).
Word Count: 1150
Reader's Note: Sadness. Poor Bristol.
Is This It?
What had come after the horrible events of the first few hours of his life were even more trying and disparaging. Back then everything had been so horrifying, and so new, and so exciting. Everything had happened so fast and he'd never been alone. Not once. Now that it was all over, he'd had to come to terms with a lot of things. Most important of all, was that he had no place to live.
After separating from the Cards he'd met, he watched as they walked away to go join their families and friends. He looked down an empty alleyway into nothing. He had been born an adult, but there was no one to take care of him and he didn't yet know how to take care of himself.
It took a few days of starving before he'd swallowed his pride and ate his first meal out of a dumpster behind a local cafe. The pastries had been hard and stale, but somehow he managed to keep the food down even when his stomach heaved after being so empty for so long. Not long after that he began looking in dumpsters regularly.
The worst moment of his new life would always be the memory of his birth. How he'd grown so fast on the inside of the Jossigy Tiger that his organs, muscles and bones had ripped, split and cracked. Finally the flesh couldn't stretch any longer and gave way. The memory of watching the life rapidly fade out of Lachlan's eyes would always be his worst, but he was quickly learning life was a harsh mistress.
He'd been dumpster diving one night behind a rebuilt restaurant - in fact the one he and a few others had actually discovered a few bodies in - when the back door had suddenly burst open.
“Aha! I caught ya! I knew someone was diggin' in our scraps!” yelled a Mixed BiPed Rodent. Bristol had cowered, frozen in fear, as the man came closer. He stopped, towering over the Chameleon/Tiger Mix and looked down at him. “You can't be diggin' around in our dumpsters, ya hear? It's bad for business y'know, and-,” but the man stopped mid-sentence.
He looked at Bristol's side, mouth dropping open. “Wha' the Hell?” He followed the man's gaze to his side, where one of his extra eyes look backed at him. Each pair of eyes looked at the worker questioningly.
“What kind of a freak are you?!” he shouted, picking up a large rock and chucking it at him. The rock his Bristol on the cheek. Momentarily dazed, he couldn't move when the man kicked him in the side. The air rushed out from his lungs and Bristol saw white cloud his vision.
“An ugly freak like you doesn't even deserve to eat our trash!” he yelled, giving Bristol another good kick in the ribs. “Get outta here!”
As soon as he could move, the Mix picked himself up and winced in pain. It was so hard to breathe. Had he cracked a rib? A single tear slid down his furred cheek. It wasn't like he had any money to go see a doctor. Slowly making his way down the alley, he wondered how much longer he could survive like this.
No money, no job, no home, no food, no friends, no family. Thing didn't seem like they could get much worse then then.
And then it began to rain.
Soaked to the bone, Bristol wandered the streets for hours until he spied a dilapidated building which seemed abandoned. Hesitantly knocking on the door, he only heard silence in response. With a small sliver of luck on his side, the door was miraculously unlocked. There were no lights inside but that was all for the better. It wouldn't do for someone to see him in here and have him hauled off to jail. Although, there would be food and a dry place to sleep...
Bristol shook his head. But that would just be temporary, and besides... he'd found a dry spot! Sure, the place was leaking all over but he could curl up in the corner where there wasn't a puddle. Sure, there were holes in the walls so the cold wind that blew through chilled him to the bone but at least the walls prevented some of the wind from reaching him. He watched as a regular rat scurried across the floor. It looked at him, chirped, and ran off again.
Realizing he wasn't exactly tired, more like exhausted in every single way possible, he began exploring the building. It looked to have been a small home at one point. There wasn't any furniture anymore, but he could see a fireplace and square patches on the wall that were lighter than the area around it; where pictures had once hung.
Wandering down the hall towards the kitchen, Bristol kept having the nagging feeling that something about this place was familiar. His clawed feet clacked on the tile floor as he made his way towards the sink. Balancing on his hind legs he used his claws to turn the tap. No water, of course. A few drops did cling to the faucet, but he wasn't tall enough in his Animal form to reach them.
Sighing, he flopped back to all fours and let his head hang down, defeated. As he was staring at the tile he noticed an odd stain just below him. Taking a few steps back, he squinted and lowered his head to get a better look. It took a few seconds, but suddenly he had a very bad idea of why this place seemed so familiar.
Whipping his head around, he looked around the kitchen and back down the hallway. No, no, no, no, this couldn't be! But the proof was there on the floor in front of him. The stain. The.... blood stain.
It was Lachlan's blood. This was where he had died, and where Bristol was born.
He stared at the old stain for what seemed like hours, only his side moving as he took in labored breaths. The body was gone. He remembered saying he was going to come back and get his Mother's body when everything had calmed down. But he never had. He'd been too busy scrounging for food to even remember and now... now he was gone.
Bristol's legs had been shaking for some time, though he hadn't noticed, but finally gave out. He collapsed on the floor and fought the tears at the edge of his eyes, but it was a fight he wasn't going to win. Finally giving into it, the Lizard-Cat let himself cry and scream and beat the floor with his claws for everything bad that had ever happened to him since he was born.
Was this all there was ever going to be to life?
