I stopped around a corner, just to think. I was beginning to realise that I was in a bad position.

Sure, I was in a five-star hotel with room service, but I had other things on my plate. The most glaring being how I was going to get out.

There were no bars on the window, no guards at the door. My problem was invisible, unseeable.

The Mountain was almost certainly watching this building. Under Clover’s orders.

They would be keeping track of who leaves and when. Especially if Clover had notified them that her group was breaking up a little. She might have even told them to keep an eye on me.

I understood the bare minimum of what I had to do.

I went back to the room, drawing the curtains, it wasn’t too strange a thing to do at this time, it was beginning to get dark.

I had no cover. Usually when I would use my powers as Sam, I’d wait for nobody to be around, for night to fall, but like I've said, the city has eyes. Even if the Mountain doesn’t catch me, somebody might.

I left the room. If the group came back to the room before me, I’d just tell them I went out for food. That got me thinking I should bring something back. Grab a drink or snacks. Anything to make it look like I was doing something other than property destruction.

Guess I forgot. Now I'm hungry.

I ran off, down the stairs, just to see what my options were. There was a single fire exit at the bottom. I thought about having a peak behind the door, but there was a chance that it would set of an alarm, or that somebody would notice my strange behaviour.

That being said, if someone was watching me, it’d be weird if I ran up and down from the room.

The best thing for me to do was to leave through the front. They probably had somebody watching the room from the window, and somebody watching the front entrance, if I had to guess.

It seemed like the best thing to do would be to get out onto the street, and find a secluded place to jump into the sky from.

Bingo, is what I thought when I got outside. Right in front of the hotel was a park, literally the perfect place to leave from.

I scratched at my head, putting on the worst act I possibly could. I took out my phone, checking it, pulling up google maps, before going through the gate with a mock shrug. I might have turned red. I was doing all that and there was a possibility that nobody was watching me. A slim possibility.

I started off leisurely enough, keeping off the paths. I was taking in the twilight, every bump of the terrain, every tree, every passing woman and child.

There were still people, too many. That's why it was important that I found the perfect place. It had to be somewhere in the middle of the park, away from the fence.

Maybe I was putting too much effort into going unseen. Maybe Clover really was relying on her luck to look out for us.

Whatever. It’s not like I hide my identity because I need to.

I do it because I want to. I’m compelled to.

Finally, an opening appeared, the middle-aged woman pushing her pram had crossed into the horizon, and pretty soon, so had I.

I took a leap east, away from the hotel. I was assuming that nobody’d be over there, at least no one of concern. I came crashing down in a shopping centres car park, quickly twisting on my heels, and jumping south.

I basically circled my way out of Dublin, only stopping once I reached the countryside.

Why?

I had landed in cow patty.

Wasn’t the first time, but I was wearing Sam’s clothes, and I only have one pair of shoes.

I groaned out loud, as whatever horrible creature made all this shit was mooing in the distance.

I hate cows. I hate them.

Irrationally, I guess. It’s not like they’ve done anything to me.

They’re just dirty, stupid, disgusting, flatulent animals that are only kept around because they taste good. I guess they remind me of body horror too. The fact they’re pumped with growth hormones and hooked up to machines to have juice pumped out of them, it’s a little creepy.

As I was thinking of reasons why I hated cattle, I eventually started to get the hang of jumping again. I tried to keep low down so I could feel like I had a little control of my flight, and because it’s warmer to stay down low.

It was really beginning to darken when I reached Tralee, half the sky was dark, and in the other half where the sun was setting it was an icy blue. Though I was glad there was still a bit of warmth. I had to walk home from the edge of town, I couldn’t go much quicker, what with their being a risk of people recognising my face now.

I eventually got home, circling around back to where I'd chucked my costume out the window.

I lifted the torso up, giving it a shake.

It was soaking wet. Smelled worse than me, and I had cow shit on me.

Must have been that cat that comes around here.

I hate cats. Specifically, the one that comes around the side of my mum’s house and screeches.

My mood was quickly shifting. Not only did I have to walk through town covered in mud, now I had to blow the town up while covered in piss.

I cracked my neck, preparing myself.

“What a waste of a shower,” I muttered to myself as I got naked in my back garden, a bush barely covering my shins.

I thought about crawling in through the window, but then there’d be piss and shit all over it too.

I made the mistake of breathing through my nose while putting it on, making a mental note to only breath through my mouth for tonight.

Once I was fully dressed, despite the mud I'd had to crawl through to get back here, I had that grin on my face.

I took a step out of the bushes, and rocketed off.

Coming down in the south side of town. Just a street away from the enemy base.

I smiled at how perfectly I had landed. It was impossibly perfect, there was no way of planning things to end up like that.

I’d landed in front of the van with the correct the license plate.

I walked up to the slightly tinted windows, and waited.

The driver rolled down the window, smoke trailing out as he did so.

“Nice suit,” he said without any real emotion.

I couldn’t quite make out his face, “You sure you should be keeping a light that close to that gasoline?”

I could see his face now, it was one of the three men from the quarter, the slimmer one, the oldest of them.

“You don’t really understand covert, do you.”

It was more of a statement than a question.

“When you’re stronger than your enemy, being loud is best.”

“Not if you want this to be a clean job. Thought that you were a hero-”

He’d said something along those lines back when I last saw him, “Right, sure, there’s a chance that some asshole over hears, and what, they get away with a couple bags of blow. That’s it. I can’t get it perfect, but I can do the best I can. That’s more than you people can say.”

He kept smoking, not really caring about what I had to say.

“You wanna check the back? Make sure we’re good for our part?”

I backed off, “No. Clover’s good for it.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you.”

His eyes stared out at me as I scoffed at him.

I skipped back, twisting towards the right street.

It was pretty much a normal building, like any other on the street. Thing about this property was that it was a building like any other, except it was three attached houses each painted a different colour. One of the doors had been barred. Clover’s guys made the assumption that the inside was renovated, that they’d knocked down a couple walls so that it was one big happy crack house. It was three stories tall, counting the attic, so I'd have a lot of ground to cover.

I walked to the side of the house. Felt around the side of the wall.

The corner beside the window. Was I really going into this loud?

Yes.

The wall crashed down.

“Welcome to my world, ye’ scum from country wide!”

Bricks had fallen down on the sofa against the wall, dust was flying about the room, there must’ve been about twenty figures propped up in the mist.

For once I was glad to have my eyes behind a mask, the dust couldn’t get to me.

I took one last deep breathe of the clean air before going in.

“I’ll give every single one of sewer crawling rats one chance. Just one chance to leave here, empty handed. With nothing. Without any of this shit, or your guns, or even a twisted wrist. I’m giving every one of you a choice. Think of this as your baptism, like your being cleansed of sin.”

Some of them were edging around.

“I’m not playing games,” I climbed over half the wall and sofa, “If any of you try to make a run for it, I can’t guarantee that the guys surrounding this place won’t open fire.”

They stopped moving, but footsteps began to race down the stairs, louder than me.

“MIND YOUR MANNERS,” I screamed, a weird pleasure from the simplicity of the phrase, “Or else the you’ll have to be the demonstration. You're all smart enough, right? You can figure out that I'm not lying, right?”

I was lying. About the building being surrounded- it wasn’t. There was just the one van.

And me.

“Now, I'm sorry we’ve got to handle things like this, but you’re the cocky bastards that strode into my town, this is on you. Don’t forget that.”

I brought things back a step, “Baptism. Think I like the sound of that actually. I was going to just take your jackets and bags, but I’m starting to feel... thorough. Best word I can think of, even if it implies too much.”

I was smiling despite how horrible the things I was saying were.

“Be thankful I don’t check inside you, ok? We’ll keep things tame, just exit through this hole, naked, and all will be forgiven.”

When I said hole, one of the men on the stairs made a break for it, heading for the door.

I stepped over the couch, and got to the other side of the door quicker than he could. He had been two feet away from it, I had been two metres, maybe more.

I let him open the door, or rather, he booted it wide open and ended up running into my fist.

It would serve as an example for the guys on the stair case at least.

His screams would be enough for the others.

“Careful,” I advised, “you’re running the risk of choking, cradle your head forward, let it flow out.”

As he lay on the stone path beneath me, I grabbed him by the hood of his coat, ripping it away from him, then came everything else.

When he quieted down to a sob, I kicked him over to the grass.

“One down,”

I noted.

I shut the door, “Come out naked through the hole in the left wing of your little chateau. Hands empty of course.” I worried that the other side of the house hadn’t heard me.

That’s when three or four people tried to sneak out of there, the far right.

I gave my neck another good crack.

Most of the people chose the same option, running rather than facing their reality.

The hardest part was actually trying to not hit the ones who came out as I had asked. It was like whack-a-mole, you hit the bad ones, but be careful not to hit the other moles.

Eventually the commotion inside the house had quieted down, the neighbours had stopped peeking out their windows, probably because they were phoning the police.

It was taking longer than I thought it would. Shame on me I guess, for expecting criminals to have some sort of rationale.

Once I'd checked the premises, finding a few people passed-out upstairs, carrying them out to the side walk, I ran back to the thin man in the van.

“Drive on round. That’s everything.”

He started up the engine.

As I followed him around, I wondered how long he’d been sitting there waiting for me to show.

I opened the back of the van, “Is this for all three bases?”

“No, you’ll find other vans there, their license plates will end with the same numbers as mine. Did the little lady not tell you anything?”

“She told me enough.”

I grabbed two canisters bringing them into the house.

This was my first time doing this. Well, I'd blown things up before, lit drugs on fire, but I was trying to use restraint when pouring it over their stock pile of weapons and product.

My goal was to burn down the entire building, just to make sure, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I found out that an innocent family had lost their house in a fire, or worse.

I made a trail out to the front step of the door in the middle, setting the canister down in the van.

I pulled a proper lighter out of the back, walking over to the door.

I kept at arms distance. I leapt back, and the trail of fire mimicked me.

I stared for a second as the flame rose higher inside.

The van had already left. I wanted to stick around just a little longer to see if there’d be any troub-

The air shook, as fire erupted from the door with a blast.

I decided to just get the hell out of there, the civilians would have notified the police, or the hopefully the fire department.

I must have spent around two hours on the cleansing, a little longer than I thought it would take me, but like I said, I couldn’t have everything go perfectly.

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I definitely succeeded in causing a lasting impression on Belfast. I wonder how their boss will react when he finds out. I wonder what he’s like.

It’s a strange world, and there are far stranger people living in it. It’ll bring me some comfort, when I meet him, that he be some kind of eccentric. If his personalities hot or cold, if his eyes are alive or dead, it doesn’t matter as long as he falls in some extreme. As long as I can look him in the eye and say, “you’re psychotic”.

I kept my costume on as I made my way back to Dublin. I had numerous reasons for doing this: to hide my identity, because there wasn’t a chance of me damaging it in my flight east, and chiefly, it wasn’t covered in mud.

Just blood and gasoline and cat piss.

And there was still shite on my shoes. I had to take them- it's not like I can walk around the country barefoot.

It wouldn’t be strange for Clover’s people to see me coming, if anything it could serve to put them at ease, like a sign that things were moving along well.

It was only when I got to Dublin that I realised I had screwed myself.

Was I really planning on walking in to the hotel dressed like this? Not through the front door, and not thought the balcony if I'm following my own logic, what with the possibility that it’s being watched.

For a just a second, I was seriously considering running all those miles back to get a change of clothes.

Then, I finally got an idea!

I went around the back where the balcony over looked, and jumped up to it. It would be alright if Clover’s men saw me at the window, it would make sense if I was trying to give her a proper mission report.

I forgot that I could have just climbed up there, guess I developed a tick for jumping after doing it for two hours. I toppled over the furniture; it went crashing into the guard rail.

Could have been worse. I could have ended up on someone else's balcony.

Wait, was I on the right one?

Yeah, almost certain I was on the right one.

Despite that stuff about architecture, I said earlier being bull, I’d made a point of remembering which room was ours.

…

I checked around the wall, counting. Just to be sure...

One, two...

Three, four...

Shit.

I scrambled over the wall on my left, before the light in that room could turn on.

I fell flat on my face, breathing a sigh of relief. This one had to be the right room.

I wondered about how I'd get in, then I realised that the balcony wouldn’t be made in a way that would allow for someone to lock themselves out.

I stood up and squinted into my room for the first time.

Oh.

Oh crap.

Guess it isn’t just my room.

Mullet was lying on the bed watching tv.

He hadn’t noticed me yet. I could still leave, find a different way in.

Hmm.

I just needed a green t-shirt and jeans, he wouldn’t kick up too much of a fuss, right?

I knocked on the door before inviting myself in.

He didn’t jump at the knocking, he jumped when he saw it was me.

“SON OF A-” I put a finger to my mouth shushing. That didn’t stop him from shouting nonsense.

I didn’t have any patience for his usual mindless jabbering, “Are you looking to get kicked out of here? Are you going to ruin this trip for all those people down there?”

He quieted down, biting his tongue, before the pressure built past his limit, “Like I'm the one who’s going to ruin things! You’re a walking storm of- of-”

He lost his steam, “I knew you’d show up. What do you have against me, huh? Why do you keep screwing with me?”

I walked about the room, pulling out a pen and pan the hotel had left in the room.

“I’m just here for some paper.”

It was going to be difficult to find a change of clothes with him watching me.

“No,” he sighed, “you’re not. Wherever you go, people get hurt.”

My throat sickened, “Cause and correlation.”

He rolled onto his side, “You think I know what that means? Do you know what that means? Are you not even a little bit sorry for everything you’ve put me through?”

I checked that he was looking away, grabbing a t shirt, “If you knew what I'd been through, you wouldn’t complain so much. I’ve saved you before.”

Mullet’s voice was distant, “Spoken like someone who doesn’t have a shred of empathy. I got arrested because you were being chased or chasing those gun men a couple months back. Then there was that one time- a couple hours after I saw you at Saoirse’s party, thirty people died.”

I was going to defend myself, but there was no point. He made up his mind about me.

His final dagger against me was, “you beat the crap out of people- behind that mask- and you have the audacity to laugh about it.”

“Scum,” I corrected, “I beat the fuck out of scum that dirtying my streets.”

“They aren’t your streets-”

As he was getting up, I stuffed the t-shirt under my torso piece.

Mullet turned a glare to me, his hands clenched, just not in fists. It was meagre show of defiance.

“-I don’t care who the hell you are mate, nothing gives you the right to tell people how to live their lives.”

I squared up to him, his height difference meant nothing.

“How ignorant of you. Who gives the police the right to make arrests? Who gives the government the right to tax? Who gives heating and electrical companies the authority to raise their prices above what’s affordable? It offends me how little evil you can see in the world around you. I’ll change things the only way I know how. I’m tearing this weed-like system up from the roots-”

“Man, just get a fucking life,” he scratched at his head till dandruff started falling, “so what, you want us poor people to be good an’ righteous, so we can work hard to make the world a better place. What, you think wee Podrig O’Hare from the south side of town is going to go, ‘huh, maybe I should think about my education’, because you lifted him by the scruff of his neck and said, ‘stop smoking’?”

I didn’t have anything to say to that.

He saw as much. He took a couple steps back, turning his back to me and fiddling in his coat pocket, “you don’t want people to live decent lives. You want them to live in a way you're comfortable with, like you said ‘your streets’, you own them.”

I shook my head as I took the opportunity to pinch a pair of jeans, “You just don’t get it do you? Between a world where a teenager lives in fear of a man dressed in bright green, or a world were a child worries about whether or not whatever’s banging on the door will get in- which is the better world? You couldn’t possibly understand what that’s like.”

“‘course not,” he lifted that cassette out alongside an ancient player, “that’s because I was brave enough to open that door. To face the music.”

He got it playing, “I prepared a mixtape for the road, a song specifically for every part of this trip that would come up. Hell, I even got one ready for you.”

The song started to play, the quality was scratchy at best, “I knew you’d come. I got a bad feeling.”

I didn’t recognise the song at first, but as the words came in, I knew what it was.

‘Everybody wants to rule the world’.

If only he knew. About the organisations vying for control. About the schemes of gods.

But no. He thought that was me.

I kept my things hidden from sight as I approached the balcony’s rail and fell over it.

He turned up the volume, left the screen door open. He couldn’t harm me. He couldn’t stop me. He could protest me as much as he’d like.

But it would amount to nothing I took a detour to get back to the park, getting changed there. It was at that point that I realised there was nowhere for me to keep my costume, nowhere safe.

For the last time that night, I solved a problem that I’d made.

I emptied my hands of all my belongings and started to dig.

With my fists, because I didn’t want to get my nails dirty.

The soil was soft enough for me to punch right through it, it was like a powder.

After punching both fists in, I heaved a large piece of turf out of the ground with little effort.

I got my costume, folded it up neatly, and tucked it away under the soil.

I laughed to myself. I wondered if by burying my costume, another me might grow from it.

I wiped my hands before leaving through the front gate. It was lucky that they hadn’t closed yet.

I had succeeded with being inconspicuous, if a little strange.

Who in their right mind would go off to a park for nearly three hours while there’s a perfectly fine five star hotel across the road?

Me. I would.

It’s something you could easily belief, even f you glanced over me. Infact, I was betting on the fact that nobody would realise that I was wearing a different shaded shirt.

I yawned, efore covering my mouth.

Had I really tired myself out that much? Well, I guess it was possible. It might not have been physical exhaustion, though I hadn’t been sleeping well this week; it was probably psychological. It really had been a busy day.

So many people to talk to, so much pressure, so many fronts to maintain. Guess that’s just how living is.

Still, I was happy with how things were going so far.

I walked back into the hotel, whistling to myself.

Really there was nothing that could kill my mood now.

Except that the elevator needed a card to work.

And that card was still in my trouser pocket, the pair I'd left my mum’s back garden.

I let out a squeak. My face had gone red.

After breaking down a couple walls, fighting nearly a hundred semi armed men, and burning down three buildings, my voice was cracking over the fact I couldn’t get into my hotel room anymore.

No, I still had options. I could phone Saoirse.

I checked my pocket.

I let out a squeal.

I didn’t leave it in Tralee too, did I?

No, I was certain it was still in the room.

The room I couldn’t get to.

There was no point going to the stairs, to get above the second floor you’d need a card, even on the stairwell. They open fine from the other side, just not when you're trying to go up.

I walked around the lobby, thinking about whether or not I could ask the lady at the desk for help or if she’d turn me away.

“Uh? Sam?”

I didn’t recognise the voice at first, but when I turned to see that it was Adonis, I was over joyed.

He was a little rough around the edges, his tie undone, a blue bag with vodka and red bull in it.

“Adonis,” I rushed to his side, “thank goodness you’re here. I’ve lost my card, so it’s a miracle that you’ve shown up!”

“Oh, is that so,” he seemed a little out of it. The bottle was closed, but he’d been drinking. I assumed it was at dinner.

I thumbed towards the elevator, “let's go to the room, yeah? Seems like we’ve both had a rough day.”

His laugh was delayed, and not at all warm, “I know I have. Least the end was...” he broke eye contact, looking over the lobby.

He lifted his bag, “come on.”

We quietly got into the box, and the cable pulled us into the sky.

“Did anything,” I approached the subject with caution, “happen while I was away?”

Whatever happened to Adonis, it didn’t concern the whole group. Mullet seemed pretty happy laying on his backside.

Adonis looked down, “the usual. Me and my girl got into an argument about money. About work. We kept it tame at the table, but if we’d been alone, I know she’d have had a lot more to say.”

“I guess I know what that’s like...” with a flush over my face, I clarified, “I mean, you’ve got a lot on your plate, and it’s not exactly the same- but...”

I looked down at the floor with him, “Saoirse and I argue about that sort of thing all the time. I tell her she spends too much on me.”

“Then you don’t understand our problem.”

It was a harsher tone than what I'd come to expect from him.

He shook himself, “sorry. You're trying to... understand. But it isn’t the same. She takes. And I didn’t have an issue with giving at first- I don’t have an issue with it- it's just... It’s always more. More things. Things I don’t think we need to just- be happy.”

I was getting a feeling I couldn’t quite place, a familiarity. Like I'd had someone confess something like this to me a long, long time ago.

“She’s still her, I'm not saying she’s a gold digger, that’d be frigging stupid. It’s just the more I tell her about work, about how much money I'm really dealing with, she fixates more on it, she values it more, and I think she’s valuing us less.”

I nodded idlily as I tried to place that mysterious feeling.

The elevator came to a stop.

We got off.

“Yeah, I'm sorry for thinking I understood anything about you guys, I’ve only really known you and her for a day.”

“You are in her art class.”

I reached for the door knob, “I don’t talk much. I justliked her paintings.”

He smiled at last, “They are beautiful.”

It waned as he said, “I preferred her older ones though.”

I was about to ask how they differed when Mullet screamed, “-for freedom and for pleasure, nothin’ every lasts forever-”

Adonis managed to pull himself back together, or maybe Mullet was the one pulling his spirits up.

“Everybody wants to rule the world,” they both laughed.

Again, I was starting to feel like I was going to be left out. It wasn’t that scary a prospect, because I've gone my whole life like that.

“This a part of that ‘theme-ing’ thing you were talking about at dinner?”

Mullet shrugged changing how he was sitting, “I’d rather not say. Talking to you two about it would be pointless.”

I shivered a little, “Why do you have the balcony open? It’s freezing in here.”

“To ward off monsters,” he answered, not looking at me.

They ignored me as I walked across the room to close the door, “Come on man, I've known you long enough to know you don’t listen to stuff like this. You listen to drill raps-”

Mullet scoffed, “drill raps he says. Did you get some cheap drink or what?”

Adonis put the bottle on the dresser.

Mullet rushed to get out some drinking glasses.

When he went to pour the drink, Adonis grabbed the bottle by the neck.

“Alright, tell me this much- what song do you have for me?”

Though Mullet laughed, he clearly wasn’t amused, “Come on, we can talk about that after we get a few good drinks into us.”

Adonis’ low mood seemed to return, “Who do you think I am Mull?”

Mullet slipped his grip on the bottle, “You still hung up on that? Man, who knew you guys’d be having this much trouble.”

He ran his finger around the edge of the glass, “Guess I don’t know you as well as I think, huh?”

The shutting of the sliding door was the only thing that sounded through the room. The music had died away too.

I edged forward.

“Hey, this might seem- stupid. Off topic, but do you have a photo of one of TGFMAC’s recent paintings?”

Mullet looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the room. Adonis choked, “yeah, sure.”

He forgot about the bottle, and got out his phone. Mullet got to work fixing himself a drink.

Adonis took a moment to scroll through his camera roll, before showing me his phone.

“Here,” he pointed, “you’re an artist, what d’you think?”

I inspected it for a moment, “yeah... it’s totally different.”

She’s always been a great painter, but the one he’d showed me bordered photo realism. It was like she’d actually captured a moment in time. The artistic quality had greatly improved, it spoke to her dedication, to her strengths- but it wasn’t the same.

The feeling it invoked wasn’t the same.

Where the sky had been shrouded by storm clouds, there was now a golden expanse that was reflected off the water- the ocean that should have been dark and deep. The sun hadn't been painted in her previous works; it had only ever been implied. That beyond the struggle there was a chance hope. That far away in the distance, through the killer tide, there was still a chance for the future.

This was like... being on the doorstep. Like she already had everything she wanted, like she was living the dream.

It reminded me of Irminsul.

“Guess I don’t like it as much. Were on the same boat I guess.”

He took the phone back looking at it, “I don’t know what I expect but- can you- tell anything from this? Like- like what type of head space she’s in?”

Mullet laughed before throwing his drink back, “You can’t tell something like that from a painting.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I told him, “If I had to summarise her work, I'd say it’s hopeful. Her earlier stuff is a little more subdued, this is just a little brasher, a little more in your face. If anything, I think that should tell you that she’s... comfortable. Not exactly that she’s taking things for granted. She’s still the same. It’s just that she’s deeper in her dream.”

His mouth was agape, Mullet looked at me with some serious scepticism.

Adonis tightened himself up, complemented me, and went for the door.

Mullet called after him as he left.

After the door slammed, he turned to me slowly.

“Adonis asked me who I thought he was. I think he should be more concerned with who you are.”

I was quiet.

“You’re both the type of people to get caught up in lies, other peoples, and for you, your own.”

I backed myself up, sitting on the sofa. My knees felt like they were about to give out. “Get to the point,” I was choosing my words carefully just in case I was wrong. “Tell me in three words what your problem is Mullet.”

“What’s my problem,” he repeated, “What’s my problem?”

“You’re the one who’s done nothing but lie this entire time, unless I pressured you out of it. When Adonis was asking you about football, you were going to make something up rather than say, ‘no fam, not for me’.”

He poured himself another drink, “So tell me who you reeealy are,” it was clear he’d been drinking before now too.

“I’m just Sam. Just me.”

“Who’s that,” he shot, “do you even know yourself?”

I was no longer taking him seriously, “Right, I think you’ve had enough. Don’t want a repeat of valentine's day.”

He kept the bottle to himself, “Why is it that your only friend is someone who didn’t know back in the day? Have you told her thatabout all those fights?”

“She knows enough-”

He cut me off, “That you started all those fights as a kid? That you were the most unbearable bastard some people ever met.”

“I don’t think I like your tone,” I knew he was going to bring up something he shouldn’t.

“This whole, weak little mouse schtick you’ve got going on, where you hang your head, make your face go all red- it's just another lie isn’t it? Like that you can read a person from a painting, that you have some kind of understanding of people, or that you have a degree in architecture and whatever else you said to get us into the restaurant.”

He took a shot before continuing.

“It looks like your changing yourself, you probably believe you have, but you’ve just changed the face you wear. Hide all you want, behind lies, behind your walls, eventually, someone’s going to find you out, and when she does-”

I took the bottle from him with a swipe.

“There’s nothing for her to find out. Because I’m not lying. I am afraid of all this, but I'm brave enough to not turn tail and run. That’s more than you can say. People like you have to drink themselves under the table to be tolerable.”

“Whatever man, I saw you down that keg first chance you got, there’s no difference between you and the kids you hate so much-”

“I’m not scum!”

If he hadn’t realised already, I thought that would have been enough. I let my temper and my exhaustion get the better of me.

“And the rest of us are? I’m scum because I'm honest about what I want? You really don’t care about the fact that Saoirse’s rich and has a great rack? That doesn’t make you want to get closer to her?”

I’d have gotten mad at that question, had I not caught myself earlier.

I just kept quiet.

“Do you think you’re being honest with yourself?” He spoke with a softer tone; one I didn’t think he was capable of.

My eyes fell down.

I raised the bottle.

Once I'd given it back to him, he poured himself a drink.

“She knows me,” I finally said, “better than you could. Better than you ever will. To me, you are just some guy.” I paused, waiting for nothing, “Isn't this the part where you put on a song? Izzy said you knew I'd be coming.”

He handed me back the bottle, and I went to get a glass.

“I tried to. Thing is, I don’t want to pretend like I actually know you. I heard a couple stories about how you used to hang out with that one beefy girl back in the day. The one with the good ass.”

“Shut the fuck up.” I smiled, despite my hatred for Mullet’s memory. I smiled despite my guilt at the memories he’d stirred up in me.

I took a drink; it was strong but not strong enough for me.

“Don’t string Saoirse on. As you two are, you’re not good for each other. Too reliant.”

He seemed like he was falling asleep as he got into bed.

He drifted away slowly, “You should both just... accept she’s too good for you...”

I sat back on the sofa, getting out my phone. It was about time I got to work on typing everything up. I didn’t see me getting any more free time over the week. There’s always the chance that I don’t make it out of the fight with Belfast in one piece.

And even if I do, I'm sure I'll come across some kind of tragedy that will overshadow these memories.

This isn’t just a record of the supernatural anymore. It’s not even about my life. If only for a couple paragraphs, I'd like for there to exist a part of this world where my interactions with these people are remembered.

If only for a sentence.

A word.

.

.

.

Update: It’s around four in the morning. Adonis got back, and made an effort not to wake us up.

I was already awake, still typing.

Mullet rolled over on his side, avoiding the light from the hall.

It was pretty soon after that when a sound erupted from his stomach.

He rushed to the bathroom, threw up, then went back to sleep.

Don’t know why, maybe it’s because my brains been rattled without any sleep, but that seemed funny enough to include.

Haha.