Kit distantly remembered a time when he had tried to kill himself, and the police had found him covered in chocolate from the doughnuts he had as a last supper, and they thought it was blood. His words were slurring as he said no, it wasn't goddamn blood, and to leave him alone. They pointed out the door they had busted down with the key all good policeman carry, and that '"people were worried about him."' People. Blow it out of your ass, he tried to say, but he was suddenly so very tired.
There was little argument when the police made him go to the hospital (he couldn't really argue, they threatened him with being sectioned) and the overworked junior doctor confirmed the pills weren't going to kill him, this time, and he discharged himself under the watchful glare of the police, the nurse removing his IV port, and faintly he remembered being tackled by four big fuckers when he had tried to leave with it still in his veins. The nurse had lectured him about how, of course, they couldn't let anyone out on the streets with such easy access to their veins. Such an idea was madness. So, scowling, he waited for that to be removed, signed a sheet that said the hospital wasn't responsible if he keeled over, wondered how long they meant that to be for. Forever? Probably not forever. The police had disappeared by then, and he was left to make his own way home, at nearly 4am on a grim Winter morning.
He dragged his ass home, and only to find there was a big board over his doorway - the battering ram had left the door broken and wide open, tempting to robbers, even if he had nothing. The police held responsibility, but would do nothing about it, Kit knew that much. He had to phone a locksmith and fumble his way through that conversation, fudging payment using a credit card he lifted from his last grift, and then wait for the guy, sitting slumped outside his own flat.
His eyes hurt, and he struggled to rip the hospital wristband from around his wrist. He wondered if his upstairs neighbours would allow him to come in, then decided that the rude awakening from the cops had probably turned them off from him. But when he moved in, they had left him cookies, and a note. He wanted a piss, and he wanted a smoke, and most of all, he wanted to sleep - he ached for it, his entire self bled for it.
That was why, when it came to the locksmith arriving, Kit was mostly asleep on the floor next to his doorway, curled in the foetal position, his bag held protectively close - and a folding knife held even tighter. The locksmith worked around him - Kit assumed - and only dared to wake him when he was done with his work. The poor man was greeted with angry eyes and nearly had a knife at his wrist when Kit snapped into drowsy, but intense, action. He was quick to withdraw, but safe to say, he had left his mark on the man - nearly literally.
He apologised profusely, of course - Kit is never Knowingly Violent. But his eyes also never left the man as he stumbled down the stairs, and he didn't dare to try the door and expose his back until the locksmith was long gone. Finally. Kit slipped into his flat, and started his day like he did all others, like nothing had happened at all the night before.
That, Kit thought, lying on a mattress on the floor in a different flat miles away, was a long time ago. He watched cigarette smoke float up, even though he was sucking on a lollipop. Things could become other things, if you wanted them enough. That was before he had made his peace with the things he saw, and the things that happened to him. That was after his first time, but before Bloom. That was in a dark place, and butterflies, alleyways, flashlights, tongues, brotherhood - they had all been a light, of sorts. He now saw more of the world than most people could ever want to see, apart from the fact he did want it.
Yes, purposeful death was far away in Kit's world now, but still - he missed the weird abstract humour of chocolate being mistaken for blood, of trying to escape the hospital as if it were a stealth mission, of managing to sleep in a threadbare hallway with a stranger working a mere arm-length away from him. Where it was funny may be lost on other people, but over a year later, looking back - Kit found it painfully, painfully funny. And the next day, that was the day that opened his eyes to everything beyond what he normally saw.
He remembered that, once he had slept off the majority of the opiates, he was twitchy with nervousness as they seeped out of his veins. He tried to sit and stare at the abstract painting he had gotten from the local craft fair, tried to write a handful of crappy poems, but found it taxing to stay still too long. So, with a groan of frustration and a hand running through greasy locks, he had decided to leave the flat and take a walk.
It was fair to say, he had mused as he wandered, that he knew the area quite well, having lived here for a year and taken various paths to and from the local city centre. So, when he stumbled across an alleyway he didn't know, Kit found himself pausing. It felt like the world paused with him, and flickered at the edges. He didn't know what drew him to the entrance – at the time, he blamed the taxing start of drug withdrawal, but now he felt like it was some sort of destiny. Problem was, destiny wasn't always a good thing.
Intrigued, maybe even enchanted, Kit edged down this alleyway, into a world he had never seen before – his Narnia, his Hogwarts, his own world whose craziness he didn't yet know but he anticipated with every twitching fibre in his being. A couple of twists and turns down from the mouth of the magically appearing structure, there was graffiti everywhere, for the first time on the otherwise bare bricks. But this wasn't the desperate graffiti of someone wanting to be the next Banksy, nor the tags of local gangs that he had seen on other buildings. Instead, there were messages chalked on the wall, with responses occasionally scribbled beneath. Kit paused to examine some of them, hand resting gently on the brick, feeling the cold, intensely grazing material beneath his hand, as if to ground himself.
'Emery: plz check lampost sect 43 iyc? Only purple lite. Thx. Maria.'
'Boy-ya lookin for boss. Dixon sect 550.'
'Dont be loser and pix D. Mocker and thief of hearts!'
'Human male, 1.7m, flat face, spare meat. Saw heading sect 27. Any1 own him?'
'Jurren Vaagevuur. New visitor. No boss no stunker no lock.'
'No hope.'
'CHANGE FUCKING BRICK PATTERN SECT 260!!!'
'Y dont u?'
'FYI: Aliyeva (Izabella) Larionovna died in sect 472 on 5/11/17. RIP.'
'Knew her. Good mocker.'
'Friend of mine. Miss her.'
'god rest'
'There is no god! SOB with stunker wot got her!!!'
'Got approx 1.7kg meat 4 swap. Fingers/toes or no lock – Sect 56 by puddle (looks like dinosaur).'
'U hav no futur'
'*You *have no spellcheck.'
'fuk off boy-ya.'
'Live now. Tomorrow we die.'
He had stumbled across the local corkboard. They'd been chalked or spray-painted on quite neatly, in various colours, some which faded and some which glittered. They spoke of a living, breathing community. The last one sounded distinctly Slavic. The names too, from earlier – Polish, English, maybe Dutch among them. A world Kit had found, and, unknowingly to him at the time, one he had disturbed – one that he would end up returning to again and again. He paused only to scan the wall again as if it could answer his questions, but nothing changed, so he followed twists and turns from memory that led him out of the alleyway.
As soon as his back was to the wall, something appeared unbeknownst to him that would change his entire future.
'New loskon. Kitlet near perfect. One prev boss. Takers?'
'Bloom 4 loskon lozer!'
'agreed.'
'Mine to take.'

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