1. Bats don’t stalk
The theater was a gloomy red, interspersed with bobbing heads of people making the sparsely filled seats a matte pattern of braille, spelling some arcane knowledge of the time that has passed. The walls were dark covered in a hue of a void that could consume whatever sets foot through it. A feature was playing, from the time when features were still made, a distant memory that betrayed only its trauma, because that’s all there was to it. The screen jived and moved with flashy images of dread as the creature moved closer to its prey. The vampire has stalked the girl for hours until he finally found the cobbled pathway of a deserted street where he can finally lay his claim on her soul.
Nazir chuckled at the image, and sensed some overbearing eyes giving him a nod of disapproval at his mirth. But the dead girl wasn’t what he found amusing, it was the vampire. Bats don’t stalk their prey, but somehow the cinematic version of a vampire does. That’s not the only thing he found amusing; no prey is ever entranced by the mystic of a bat, but somehow a vampire’s victim is drawn towards its bloodshot eyes despite every fiber of their being warning the victim against it. He lost himself in the thought for a minute, which was broken by the collective screams of the spectators. The vampire had sunk his teeth in the neck of the virgin girl, white as they come, and had turned her red. That was it for him, he got off his seat and followed another couple who were also on their way out.
The gallery of the once-thriving mall was desolate; it was hard to tell the difference between the halls and the streets outside. A newspaper from long past flew at him which he grabbed with the reflex of an athlete. The front page talked of apocalypse and the end of the world; it must be an old one he thought. He remembered the year when the world came to the brink of collapse from a disease that ravaged through masses and cut down the thriving number of the virus that is humanity by billions. Humanity had driven the planet to the brink of collapse and the planet fought back. Except, it wasn’t the planet, it was humanity itself. He still remembers how every human in their utmost arrogance seemed to have been saving for the future, neglecting the present, forgetting that present is the only thing they had any real say in. Wolves went extinct that year too, which was more unsettling to Nazir than the deaths of billions. It was maybe because he was an environmentalist or maybe he was a misanthrope; it was difficult to tell the difference.
He was on the streets now but nothing had changed from when he was inside the mall. He could see the moon, which was thriving, almost smirking at him as he walked past graffiti on some abandoned lot. It was hard to tell if it was abandoned, people don’t come out of their houses a lot anymore and he understands why. There is nothing out here anymore but fossils of a better time and melancholy of the now. It is almost like, only the loners survived, and all the schemers died. No great invention in this age, no entrepreneurs, just scavengers and survivors. The human spirit is broken and what is left of it hides itself in books trying to grasp onto nostalgia or into psychedelics to leap into a higher dimension. But frankly, he gets it. He is a loner himself, not part of a pack anymore, and he wouldn’t change it for anything. He likes it alone, waking up early in the morning or staying up late, sleep at odd hours, feed only when hungry, drink only when sad, and once in a while he’ll go hunting. Today he is out to hunt and the couple in front of him are right where he wanted them, in a deserted street on a cobbled pathway. He doesn’t know for sure if bats stalk their prey, but wolves definitely do.
