The Ledge

[saltinespike]

Christian

 

Jason was one of those guys who demanded respect through intimidation and force. He'd been in and out of jail after he dropped out senior year. Small crime was his practice; a mugging here, a convenience store robbery there. I couldn't count the crimes I knew of on one hand, but he'd only been convicted twice, once spending six months in jail, the other a year. Now, five years later, he's only deeper in the shit, but he knows how to not get caught.

 

He dresses in dark colors. You only see him when he wants to be seen, to let you know that he may be out of sight, but he is always there and will always be watching. Jason's knuckles are permanently warped, he sometimes walks with a limp, and can often be seen with a black eye. I've heard from some of his victims that he has a taste for violence. "He took my wallet, my phone, my watch," Aaron once told me, half his face swollen from being tossed against a curb. Jason is a low life, I remind him, a creep who can't make anything of himself. But I'd be lying if I said Jason didn't scare the shit out of me.

 

Even now, as I burst through the door of the roof of my apartment building, fear is what fuels my adrenaline. I've angered the man in dark colors and he is chasing me, his eyes filled with rage and violence, teeth bared, fists clenched, his muscles tensed as he sprints after me, now only ten meters away. Unsure of where to run, I hop over a generator, ducking underneath an air duct toward the edge of the building. Fuck, now what? I hide behind the wall that houses the only other door on the roof. I can hear Jason's sloppy footsteps and hindered breathing.

 

As he approaches, I launch myself at him, hands outstretched to his face. Surprisingly, my surprise tactic works; he falls underneath me and my first punch lands beautifully beneath his right eye. My momentum screeches to a halt as he deflects my next jab into the ground and pulls my collar into him, shifting his body weight to roll on top of me. His first hit crashes into my jaw like a train, knocking my into a blurred daze. I don't remember the second hit.

 

---

 

Aaron is looking over the edge when I regain consciousness. I shoot up, nearly blacking out again as I get to my feet. "Aaron," I shout, racing toward toward the edge, praying that Jason had disappeared before Aaron arrived. As I approach, I notice the handgun resting on the ledge of the building. "Where the fuck is Jason?!" Aaron nods down toward the street, eight stories below, confusion written on his face. I peer over. Nothing. The neighborhood, just along the west side of downtown Los Angeles, is normal; no sign of Jason. "Damn it," I scream, loud enough to be heard below. "He's there now."

 

 

Aaron

 

Christian called around two, fervently jabbering on about how Jason was going to kill him. I was drunk, but I've always been loyal to Christian. Here was my chance, after all, to get back at that disgraceful excuse of a man. "I'm at my apartment," he told me, his voice quavering a bit. I stumbled into the bathroom, trying to focus on the shaky reflection in the mirror before giving up on personal appearance. Swiping my keys from the counter, I stopped at the front door to retrieve the Glock from my safe. Smirking as I tucked it into the back of my jeans, I pushed through the front door.

 

I rushed down the stairs and into the parking garage next door. Christian only lived about two miles away, but I sped anyways, unsure of how much time I had. Parking on the curb, I exploded into the empty lobby of the depriciated apartment block. Racing up the stairs, I prayed that I had made it before Jason. Third floor. Room... what was it? They all look the same: white paint scratched off, false chrome numbers often hanging from one screw. The dirty light in the hall was flickering, revealing torn floral wallpaper lining the passage.

 

His door was ajar, the handle punching a hole into the wall behind it. A crash came from the floor above. Christian. I run to the stairwell, a sobering panic making it's way through me. By the time I made it to the roof, Jason was lifting himself off of his unconscious victim. My gun was already trained on him when he noticed my presence. "Freeze right there, motherfucker!" I wasn't even a cop yet and I was doing exactly what I was training for. "Get against the ledge! Put your hands up!"

 

A thought struck me, the image of him swinging a baseball bat against my side, knocking me against the curb. I remembered the six weeks in the hospital, the doctors telling me about the skull fracture and the plates they needed to insert. This reprehensible waste of life may have just done the same to Christian. I had trained for justice, for honor, and I was to serve justice. Tonight. "Climb on the ledge," I demanded. As his apathetic gaze met mine, I knew he was high. His eyes were bloodshot and dilated. "Do it!" Jason complied, lifting himself up, turning around and looking over the skyline. I aligned my sights on him.

 

---

 

Christian climbs onto the ledge, rambling on about how he must 'follow' the man I'd just killed. I am utterly confused, but he promises to explain when he gets the chance. "Right now," he pleads, placing the gun in my hands and aiming it at his heart, "I need you to shoot me." I object, but he snaps, "Damn it, Aaron, fucking do it! This is important!" I hold the Glock steady, unsure if Christian's gone mad or knows why the hell Jason disappeared. For the second time tonight, I kill a man, and watch as he falls over the ledge.

 

 

Jason

 

A long, narrow corridor lies ahead of me. I can't see the end, but I know what's there. Nothing. No matter how slow I walk, I'll get there eventually. The walls are exploding behind me, obscuring the vision of my past. Why not run? There are no more doors, no more smiles and no more laughter. The wallpaper on the walls are shredded past the point of recognition. I look down and see flakes of paint and dried blood scattered over my broken fingernails. I look back. There is a door, but as I reach for it, it too bursts into splinters.

 

I look ahead to the hallway. Darkness is approaching quickly. Blood is seeping through the walls; as I feel the wound on my stomach, I know it's my own. My foot drops onto the floor, sending a dull pain through my side, followed by the next. Struggling to remember names and faces, I continue forward, ignoring the whispers of evil seeping through the vent. It's colder now. My bloodshot eyes strain to see what's coming next, but everything is gone. The walls are reaching for me, wishing to drag me into the depths of hell. I realize I am naked.

 

Claustrophobia fogs my intoxicated mind. All that lies forward are those hands, searing with the intensity of my eternal grave. I turn to the destruction behind me and find I'm on a ledge. Below is nothing. The hallway is gone. A spotlight blinks to life, focused on my platform. I'm standing in front of curtains, wearing a tuxedo. An audience is staring at me. Faces I so desperately recognize, but do not remember. I take a bow, as it seems appropriate. They applaud, but for one beautiful little girl in the front row. The applause subsides and the audience disappears as she climbs onto my platform.

 

I kneel down to greet her, but she stays in place, analyzing me with an apprehensive frown upon her face. As I stand, she combusts into flames. I do not run to help; I stare as she burns without making a noise. She wears that frown until she collapses, a charred corpse that implodes into ashes upon hitting the ground. Among her ashes lies an azalea, perfect in form and color. It was the flower her mother always put in her hair. Elizabeth was the name I'd given her at birth. I sneak the flower into the inside pocket of my coat and turn away from her.

 

The Los Angeles skyline is truly phenomenal, and I don't appreciate it as often as I should. Someone told me this was heroin, but there's something else in there. Something I've never tried, but I don't like it. I don't know how I got on this roof, or why I've just been shot, but I'm falling. These thoughts are taking over, but I have the capacity to realize these are my last moments alive. I feel hollow. Empty. There is no turning back. The walls are exploding behind me, and even though my eyes are closed, I know what's coming next.

 

To Be Continued...

Edited September 5, 2011 by saltinespike

[Eminence]

Firstly, sorry it's taken so long to reply to this! 10 days is far too long.

 

I'm intrigued by this - I was definitely glad to see the to be continued at the end, because otherwise I didn't really know what to think! I'm interested in the links between the three characters, and even more interested in figuring out just what's happened in the gaps between each part, because something in Aaron's section threw me off a little... things didn't seem to add up. So I was left wondering what's happened, which is definitely a good thing.

 

In fact, I found the last part of Aaron's section the most intriguing, I think. The whole thing with Christian and about how he needs to shoot him - that's really cool, and I wanted to know more immediately. Jason's section obviously provided no answers.

 

It's written well, I like it. Only little thing I can point out is a few odd word choices here and there, like "Surprisingly, my surprise tactic works". That, and one point that carries a little more weight - the three characters, at least so far, don't seem to have extremely distinct voices. In something with various points of view from first-person, I'd say that's one of the subtler but tougher things to accomplish, so it's perhaps something to think about?