City of Demons

The 19 year old journalist with short, light orange hair and a small dusting of freckles o her face looks around the small apartment that is filled with cardboard boxes. She shudders at the memory of a year ago where the place had looked just like this, only it was a much different story. That night had changed her life and still haunts her dreams. That night shaped her into who she was, a journalist who was moving up in the world.
She closes her eyes, going back to that night. Her first night in Los Angeles.

Ashlyn Kaiser spat the dark blood from her mouth and looked up at the tall man who was just a silhouette against the bright lights of the city. He was laughing a cold, twisted laugh as he looked down at her, a girl with hair that was covered only about half of her ear and was styled so it looked messy in a good way.
Ash fought the anger rising up inside of her, trying to resist the urge to punch him back. She was going against her instincts, but she knew deep down that if she tried to fight back that she wouldn’t walk out of this alley. She had to be careful with what she did right now, this man could stay and continue with his brutal beating, or he could leave her to go back home in pain. She decided not to move, to sit there and hold her tongue.
He twirled Ash’s key ring around his index finger and gave her a toothy grin. “Welcome to the city of angels. Have fun.” He spun on a heel and walked away, whistling a cheery tune to himself as he went.
When the sound of his echoing footsteps finally was gone and he had disappeared into a crowd of oblivious people, she finally moved. She fell to her knees, too afraid to have done it before she was sure he was gone. Her hand was holding her stomach in pain and she grimaced as she took a deep breath.
After a few moments, Ash struggled to her feet. She leant against one of the brick walls in the alley for a moment before she limped out into the streets filled with freaks and geeks. They acted like she wasn’t there, like monstrous things like this didn’t happen in their city. They didn’t want to believe that she was bruised and broken and dirtying their city. And so they ignored her, finding it the best way to make their city better. Ignore the problem and it’s like it never happened.
Ash made her way, limping to her rundown apartment building. She felt a small sense of relief as she realized that she still had money up in her small couple of rooms. She looked at the building, the white paint that covered its bricks was chipping away and the windows were dirty and hard to see through. A small sign with worn letters told people that it was an apartment building. Why Ash had chosen this place to live was simple. She wanted out of her small hometown where you knew your future. She wanted to venture into the wild and dangerous unknown. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much money to afford somewhere nicer, especially in a place that was very expensive.
She opened the door and heard a bell go off somewhere in the lobby. She held her hand up in a half wave to the large balding man behind the counter as she walked up to him. Ash felt a sharp stab of pain and lowered her arm because of it, regretting her idea of being friendly. She licked her cracked lips before speaking. “Got another key to 415?” Her voice was hoarse and sounded like she hadn’t spoken in weeks.
The man nodded so his double chins wobbled. He spun around in his wheeled chair and let his fingers brush across the numbers that had been written in peeling gold letters until he found 415. He grabbed one of the two keys from the hook below it and dropped it into the pale girl’s hand, almost like he was afraid to touch her. His small, watery blue eyes followed Ash as she pulled herself up the flights of stairs.
When she reached her room and finally got the door open after fumbling with the key for a few moments, she lurched through the doorway. Walking down the small, cramped hallway and taking a right turn into the tiny bathroom to see how bad she looked.
In the grimy mirror she saw that a large bruise was blossoming from under her eye, a red stain was spreading across her plain white t-shirt, and her lip was split. She could feel the deep scrape in her knee from when the man had taken her by surprise, punching her in the face as she turned a corner. She was sure that she had bit her tongue or cheek or something, and she could taste the blood from her lip.
She cleaned her wounds as best she could before turning away from her reflection, not wanting to see the damage done by a dark man.
She limped into the main room and looked around the apartment. Boxes were stacked on top of boxes, each one with something written in black Sharpie, stating where the objects belonged in her new home. Ash tried taking her mind off of the events of the night, trying to imagine her apartment when it was finished being unpacked. But she couldn’t focus; all she wanted was to sleep, thinking she was safe from this crazy world. She shuffled back to the door, making sure it was locked and set the bronze key on one of the boxes before she grabbed a dark blue sleeping bag from another box. She spread it out in a small room that was supposed to be a bedroom.
She fell into a restless sleep that was filled with nightmares of giant, shadowy men with twisted laughs and people who wouldn’t acknowledge her pain. She finally tore herself from the darkness of her nightmares. She was breathing hard and had broken out into a cold sweat. She sat there for a minute or two, trying to calm herself before she let herself think about the world.
There were three types of people. Those who were power hungry and would risk it all for just one more taste of that addictive feeling. There were people who fought against that want of power all people had within them and fought even harder against the people who would risk everything for it. And there were people who were indifferent out of fear, but would eventually choose a side, most of the time they chose the power addicts, hoping for a small piece of that power.
In the dark of the night, Ash decided that she couldn’t sit back and let this happen to the world. She wanted to show the world the darkness of the city, make them realize what was going on beneath their nose. Grabbing a pen and paper, she wrote her story for the world. When a newspaper asked her to write for them, she agreed eagerly. She needed to find the truth for herself, and wanted to educate people on it. It was that love of the unknown that started her on the path of journalism, a love she carried with her for her whole life.

Ash now looks around the apartment once more, having relived that night. She decides that she can’t fear Chicago, only be wary of it. Because that is the curse of people who can see the world for what it truly is. They cannot fear what they see; they can only be on their guard. And as Ash grabs her key for one last walk around the city, she knows that she will never regret moving here, to this city or this building. She waves to the man with multiple chins, remembering how that had once been a painful action and now it’s a habit. She finds it strange that life can change so much in only a year. Hell, she finds it strange that it can change so much in only a day.