Poet/Predator

7 years

A lot can change in 7 years.  Countries can fall, revolutions can rise, technology advances.  People change… I know I have.  It’s been almost 7 years to the day since the sound was heard across the city.  Most people have forgotten about it, whether because they wanted to or needed to, is up for debate.  I haven’t tho.  As much as I would like to.  It hard to forget something that makes a lasting physical and psychological impact on you.  No matter how drastic or slight.  Everyone said I was changed after that day. They where right.  Everything I felt or did or created was so much more, intense, I guess would be the proper word choice.  My traits that stood just slightly above others like my writing skill or intelligence, got jacked up to near upper echelon levels.  Physical attributes grew much quicker as well, or more they responded to exercise and stimuli much faster and with greater adaption.  My emotions grew very intense as well.  When I got angry, I got punch a hole in the nearest object furious.  When I got sad or disappointed, it was like I was stricken with clinical depression.   The word “unstable” was used a lot to describe in the months following that day.  I manage to get everything under control for the most part after a couple months, to the relief of my friends and family.  My explanation was I was just having a rough patch in my life.  They just said there condolences and left it at that.  I was thankful for that at least.  I still have an outburst from time to time.  

Now most of these changes were easy to dismiss, cover up, whatever.  They’re where a two that weren’t however.  They both appeared one night   when I was at a black light party at a friends frat house.  I had just stepped onto the dance floor.

“Dude, you arms are sick looking! What you do?”

I paused, dumbfounded.  I didn’t do anything.  I looked down at my arms to what the fuss was about.  All over my arms, top of the hand all the way up to my shoulders, were markings.  They looked like a cross between those shitty tribal tattoos you see many a doucher having and computer circuit diagrams.  I looked back up and made a comment about glow in the dark invisible marker.  The guy was drunk enough to believe it.  I left the party shorty after that, too weirded out to talk, let alone dance.  That same night I was staring at my arms, trying to figure out what the fuck happened to them.  I had a lamp on and the window open.  A cool breeze was wafting in from outside, bring the scent of rain on it.  I breathed deep and try to relax.  The lamp flickers dark.  Power must of gone out.  I look up expecting the room to be darkness.  It wasn’t.  I could still see perfectly fine.  I looked around the room, everything was washed in a greenish glow, just like night vision images.  So in a handful of hours, I had discovered I glowed in the dark and can see in the dark.  Cool I guess.

The rest of college went on uneventfully enough.  I avoided black light parties for the most part, and I was saving on energy because of never needed light when it got dark.  I graduate with a degree in engineering and went on to work in the industry right away.  Got a job working as a process engineer at some plant.  Climbed the rankings fairly quickly and paid off my student debt in 3 years.  After getting out from the shadow of my debt I felt free enough to move around jobs.  The next 3 years where spent trying out things.  Engineer, research, writer, journalist, even a stint as a personal trainer.  Still have my certification.  I got a little bit of everything published, articles, reports, poems and prose.  A couple short stories too.  I invested in some aspiring companies, and those paid dividends luckily. 

Tonight, on the eve of that day 7 years ago, I was lounging on my couch, browsing the news channel on my tablet.  Tablets had evolved to be pretty much hand size pieces of glass, their processing power better than most laptops in my college days and were really just damn useful now.  Typical bullshit going on.  Wars, corrupt government, super viruses, crazy people getting all the attention.  I grunt in disgust and start searching up anything worthy to write about.  I had settle into a position as a freelance writer and report.  I dabbled in a little bit of everything. It kept me interested and money was a non issue.  I didn’t live in luxury, but I did live more comfortably than a lot of my friends.  I glance at the time on my tablet.  The seconds were adding up quickly to 12:01.  At 12:01, a familiar dread filled me. At 12:02 the power went out.  At 12:03 I heard that damn sound for the second time in my life.