Narrative: Wind Flowing through the Cage Who: Aidan Hunter When: Late night Thursday, September 26, 2012 Where: East End, Gotham City What: Aidan finds himself somewhere ‘familiar’ Rating: PG-13 to R for verbal imagery
After purchasing his bike, Aidan had been taking more late night or early morning excursions through Gotham City. He was good about keeping to his job, the grocery store, and home until now. There was little or no reason to venture elsewhere when you hardly knew the city and building up savings for things were higher priority.
But in the last week, Aidan had been through some of Uptown and then to the more seedy places like the East End. Not making eye contact with those looking for an easy mark, he moved about. But there was an apartment building that brought him to a stop – second floor, third window. Something made him stare at that dark red curtained frame and the rusty fire escape. Then Aidan flinched as he closed his eyes. It had been like he was slapped. A rush of jumbled up cacophony of sensory memory flooded his mind.
Cigarettes, yelling, musty carpet, squeaky bed, crying, tears, blood, latex, a petroleum product, pencil graphite, day-old food, names, half-finished math homework, vomit, achy muscles, and the sensation of running along with the flash of light off a hypodermic needle.
Then one screamed a name, many voices layered over another and not very discernible –
“JASON!”
Blinking hard, Aidan remained still as he sat on his bike. “What the Hell?” he breathed as he felt someone was watching him. Then like a bat out of hell, Aidan sped off into the night – hurrying to get to and inside his tiny apartment in the China Basin neighborhood.