A friend close by

His suit was literally in tatters. Claimed by either the fire or the rubble falling atop of him. Stan grunted in pain as he felt how ice cold wind spears itself into his skin. Now that the adrenaline and panic left his body, it feels like his whole body is broken. As he stumbles his way forward in the small alley.

He could go to Eliorah in the hospital. She would help him. Stan knew she would. But if he was seen around the hospital, people would know. And he simply doesn’t want to be recognized later on. Because in truth, Stan doesn’t feel like he deserves it.

If Stan would walk to where Lauren lived, it wouldn’t be a long walk. She lived only ten minutes away in a rich housing district. Stan loved the kind of houses there, because they have this modern gleam to them. White concrete walls with tempered glass. And the inside being strictly made for practical use. With walls that could be adjusted to the size of the amount of people coming over. Making it easy to just transform one room into two or four into one. So that the space could be wonderfully used. It was a testament of ingenuity. But it doesn’t seem to fit with Lauren’s own personality. Perhaps if Stan had thought about it before, he would have understood that it was because of him that Lauren decided to live exactly there. Now he couldn’t because he was in too much pain as he decided to go there.

Whilst in the alley, he knows to grab a blanket and cascades it around his shoulders. Both to stop the cold from leaking in and for people to not see his clothes. Stan really didn’t want to draw attention to himself as he thinks back to the buss accident. He survived. Almost nobody else did except him and a woman he had saved. A woman that he had bitten after he knew what it would do to her. He shook his head. Both to dispel the images of the dead people and the freak he had been afterwards. Stan told himself that he was doing the right thing now.

Stan stumbles through the alley to walk on a bigger road. Seeing the little flats disappear rather quickly to be replaced with trees. Every step being a painful one as he focusses his eyes on the end of the road. It wouldn’t be a long walk if his whole body didn’t feel this bad. On some occasions he felt how he almost would go ****. While his longues still felt like they were in a fire. As for the whole walk, his back ached like an old man and his legs felt like they were burned. The trees now slowly turned into tall buildings with long green gardens. To finally, after a walk that should have taken him ten minutes, stand in front of Lauren’s house.

How she had managed it to already buy a place like this was beyond Stan’s understanding. He knew Lauren’s parents not to be poor, but for her to be able to buy a house like that. She didn’t even have a boyfriend to pay with the cost of this large monstrosity…but the thought of her having a boyfriend without telling him, it somehow pained Stan a bit. Though he wasn’t thinking of anything like it when he walked towards the fence gate.

A better description of the house would be three blocks of white concrete with windows in it. One of the blocks being really tall, one of them really big in every direction and then there was another block that was slightly smaller than the huge box. In front of it there was a garden with a pond. Where there stood a few trees that looked like small dogwood trees. Not yet fully blossoming into a white cloud like they would later on. There were also a few rose bushes walking up with a gravel pavement to the garage. In front of that pavement was the fence. A white one with black bars walking up. The electric doors looking like they were made out of mahogany. The intercom hanging just there in front of Stan.

So Stan pressed the bell. Lauren had given him a key, but he hadn’t taken it with him. Now that Stan thought about a key, his hand went into his pocket. Only to feel a hole had burned into it. His keys were probably in that damned building somewhere. He cursed at himself for not paying attention to it before. Not that he could have done anything in the burning flat. He would have probably let it be. But still, he had lost something that could shoot him right in the foot.

“Hi, who are you and why are you here?”

Stan heard the familiar voice of Lauren speak through the voice intercom.

“Hey mouse, I’m sorry to barge in li-“

The fence gate almost immediately opened as he started to speak. Stan stumbled a bit forward but felt incredibly hopeless and filthy now that he could see the entire place.

The door opened as the light from inside told him that it was still night time. The shape of a petite woman standing in the door frame. He took a few steps. And just now that he basked in the warm familiarity of someone. Now that he felt somewhat safe. Stan felt how he finally collapsed. His head hitting the ground. To then feel his thoughts be pulled to black.