Keys of Life

Prologue: Faye

Hi, everyone.

   I wanted to make ordinary people something to write about in this story, with all their flaws. Yes, at times you want to slap them. That happens in real life too. I hope you like it. 

   I had to go to the trouble of writing all of this, spending most of last summer, so please don't copy the idea or distribute the story - tell people instead. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED for me.

   The more people who read it, the more I'll upload. You know what to do - read lots.  

Thanks.

Prologue: Faye  

   The smoke clung heavily to the tarnished black of the streets, contorting the familiar shapes of ordinary people into flickering ghosts, woven of shadows and secrets. I shivered. The smell of burning was thick in the air, the stench of sadness and ruin. I hurried around a sudden corner, peering through the mist of grey to find a familiar sight. The streets of Belfast held an eerie silence, even though at six o'clock in the evening, they should have been filled with bustling bureaucrats longing to be home and away from the crowd. A brick wall loomed into view, appearing out of the ether as if by magic.

   I stopped dead. The wall was in no way an omen, but shaking off the sense of foreboding that had permeated the barriers of my mind was impossible. I didn't understand how I could be lost in a city that I knew every inch of, that I had thought I could find my way around blindfolded. The reek that surrounded me grew stronger, and so did the smoke. Cringing away from a shapeless form lying on the ground, I half-ran through the deserted concrete labyrinth, desperate with a sense of unfounded urgency. Adrenaline coursed through my being.

   The air cleared briefly, allowing me a glimpse of a grimy bar, the lights shining a sickly green through the murk. I slowed, hopeful of a small kindness that the fates would show me, a reprieve for whatever I had done. I noticed with a detached sense of horror that the sun was disappearing quickly over the horizon, moving the day from a dim twilight towards a more sinister darkness. Biting my lip to keep myself from crying out, I sank onto a well-placed bench. 

   I fumbled in my pocket, looking for the small slip of paper that was my only lifeline. My brother's address. I couldn't go home. I couldn't get in. My key was in two halves in my pocket, broken by some merciless twist of fate. My parents were supposedly away on 'business' trips, but the number of hours that didn't contain cocktails and nightclubs could be counted on one hand. They had important meetings and couldn't possibly drive for an hour to give their daughter a key. I had to find the elusive Jason's bachelor pad, and soon, or I would be wandering the streets for the rest of the night. 

   Jason was mysterious, to say the least. He showed up whenever he needed a favour, and left again without a word of thanks. He was eight years older than me, and had moved out when I was ten. How he maintained his lifestyle of parties and new cars, I had no idea, except that he had reached a high position in his law firm. My parents never seemed happy with him, even as he fulfilled all of their highest hopes and wildest dreams of ambition. He was my brother, but he was axe hanging over my head, the half-remembered murmurings in my nightmares, and the cause of voices that whispered in the hall outside my door. The sense of unease whenever his name was mentioned left me with a bitter taste in the back of my throat, and the worry on my parents' faces was something I could never forgive him for.      

   The smell was still thick and clutching the city with a tight embrace. Sighing, I dragged myself up from the bench, feeling the after-effects of my burst of adrenaline. I stumbled towards the pub, and with a quickening heart, I shoved through the beer-stained door.

   The room was practically deserted, despite the proximity to the next World Cup game. Grime encrusted sofas sagged awkwardly and the high stools seemed to breathe a sigh of contempt at whoever had the misfortune to enter. The bartender glanced over, frowning. His face was not unkind, just unhappy, and as he turned towards me, a scar running the length of his cheek was revealed. The air was filled with the distinguished smell of tobacco, despite the no-smoking regulations, but it was a welcome relief from the burned reek outside.  

   "Hi, I was wondering if you knew how to get to this address from here..."  I trailed off uneasily. Without saying a word, the man put down the glass he was drying and held out his hand. I hesitantly gave him the scrunched up ball of paper, vulnerable without its comforting, crumpled feel.

   "Ah, Jase!" He exclaimed delightedly as a grin broke across his face. "Yeah, yeah, I know where that is. You ain't far away. Just take the next right, and the second left after that. Walk straight for about twenty meters, and it'll be the house on your right with a blue door." I was startled, and I wasn't even sure whether I had caught the directions. With my luck, I could miss by a mile, ending up on the other side of Belfast. One thing was for sure, I hadn't expected such a positive reaction from the sullen looking man. Thanking the bartender, I hurried out of the pub.

   The stench was choking, the smoke making my eyes water and tears to course down my face. Following my instructions with a precision I had never known before, I ran through the gloomy streets, an occasional streetlight breaking through the murk. My earlier frantic wanderings endured no comparison to the blackening sense of panic that gripped me. A siren blared close-by. As I sprinted the last stage of my journey, I saw, up ahead, people crowding around the charred remains of a house. Police, fire fighters, reporters, and the ordinary passer-by milled around the footpath, the grey blurring them all into one shapeless entity. As I came closer, one man stood out of the crowd, talking to a camera. The swarm jostled to get a better view, and to listen to the unfortunate turn in someone else's life.

    "The home of a twenty-two year old man has been burnt down due to unidentifiable causes, although the police are considering the blaze intentional. The fire started at five-thirty p.m. this evening. The owner, Jason John Higgins, died of smoke inhalation later in hospital..." 

   I froze. The smoke, the smell, they were the meagre remnants of my brother's life, the only noticeable difference he would make to the world from now on. The ash swirled in the air, turning the remains of the grass a deeper, dusty black. The axe had swung, but it had been brought down on Jason's head, the consequence of the truth I had never found out. Whether through fate or man's fickle hands, he was gone.

   The haze around me seeped into my mind, clouding my reason and skewing my judgement. My hand closed around the key in my pocket, its jagged edges biting into my palm, spilling a drop of the scarlet liquid enclosed in my veins. I started walking, and the feelings of loss and destruction, of hurt and pain that had raged in my heart turned to ice, trapped in a cage of snow. I had worried about being locked out in the blackness, lost and aimlessly drifting.

                It didn't seem like a bad idea.