stringersburner
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2017
- Posts
- 168
The Darkness
A few drinks and a couple of hours later Sean Archer made his way home. With headphones in his ears and the brim of his cap low he made his way home. It was crazy how quickly the neighborhood had changed since he had quit. Sure it was no utopia but things now felt darker, a bit more hopeless. When he was patrolling the streets there were more people coming out at night. Parents worrying less about where their kids were. Children playing outside long after the street lights came on. Instead it was the gangsters and pushers looking over their shoulders.
Not anymore. Any buzz he had was gone as soon as he heard the police sirens. Distant at first the siren's wail got louder with each step he took. The flashing lights of emergency vehicles becoming brighter the closer he got to his apartment complex. At the front door a still body, covered by a bloodstained sheet, was being loaded into the back of an ambulence. Next to this, a young man in his late teens being pushed into the back of a police car. As neighbors and passersby looked on Sean couldn't help but shake his head.
Entering his apartment Sean immediately went to his room. Opening a trunk at the foot of his bed he pushed past random mementos and knick knacks and pulled out a mask. Suddenly memories flooded him, good and bad. The tireless nights, the brutal beatings and bruises that covered his body. All of it being worth it to see his friends and neighbors with hope in their eyes. With the cloth in his hand he asked himself the same question he had been asking for the past five years, 'Did I make a mistake quitting?'
A few drinks and a couple of hours later Sean Archer made his way home. With headphones in his ears and the brim of his cap low he made his way home. It was crazy how quickly the neighborhood had changed since he had quit. Sure it was no utopia but things now felt darker, a bit more hopeless. When he was patrolling the streets there were more people coming out at night. Parents worrying less about where their kids were. Children playing outside long after the street lights came on. Instead it was the gangsters and pushers looking over their shoulders.
Not anymore. Any buzz he had was gone as soon as he heard the police sirens. Distant at first the siren's wail got louder with each step he took. The flashing lights of emergency vehicles becoming brighter the closer he got to his apartment complex. At the front door a still body, covered by a bloodstained sheet, was being loaded into the back of an ambulence. Next to this, a young man in his late teens being pushed into the back of a police car. As neighbors and passersby looked on Sean couldn't help but shake his head.
Entering his apartment Sean immediately went to his room. Opening a trunk at the foot of his bed he pushed past random mementos and knick knacks and pulled out a mask. Suddenly memories flooded him, good and bad. The tireless nights, the brutal beatings and bruises that covered his body. All of it being worth it to see his friends and neighbors with hope in their eyes. With the cloth in his hand he asked himself the same question he had been asking for the past five years, 'Did I make a mistake quitting?'