A Reason For Being

It's so damn cold. I sit on the icy alley floor as millions of snowflakes fall like asteroids plummeting to the ground. Next to me are three empty wine bottles. My head is throbbing. I'm hungover and have a headache. My body shivers, and any bare skin that's showing is as pale as the moon. It serves me right to wear only a black dress, tights, and a stranger's coat on the coldest day of the year so far. I can't feel my fingers. I'm numb. Physically and mentally numb. My mind is blank. I stare at nothing. I zone out into a trance and forget about my surroundings.

I feel empty. I hate the feeling of nothingness, but at the same time, it's addictive, like a cigarette. I can hear the wind and my wristwatch ticking. It's almost relaxing to listen to, and the sound never gets annoying. I know that, at the end of every second, I will hear my watch tick over and over again without delay. It's almost the only thing I could rely on. Time is a strange thing. It helps to organize a universe full of infinitives and randomness. The universe would laugh at our attempts to tame it like a beast.

The alley is as dark as a cave. Every so often, I hear something moving and look to see rats in silhouettes scurrying down the street. The walls are slimy and covered in graffiti. In the corner of my eye, I can make out the figure of a homeless man around a small fire, rubbing his hands together in an attempt to stay warm. Once or twice, he violently coughs.

Icicles hang like knives from the light that flickers above me. As I hid my face between my knees, I could smell urine and faeces. I can taste my alcoholic breath. I breathe and vapour escapes my mouth, fading into the atmosphere. I look like a dragon breathing fire. I can't remember much of last night, but I'm pretty sure it involved a large amount of alcohol. I like going to clubs and getting completely wasted. Drinking. Dancing. Having sex. It helps me forget.

I listen carefully to the sound of snow crunching under someone's boot. Someone is coming, and it isn't the homeless man. I hear some kind of animal panting. I look up to see two figures approaching me. It's my friend Ted with his dog.

I've known Ted my whole life. He's my best friend. Ted is tall, so tall that I reach only to his shoulders when we stand side by side. His hair is brown and his eyes are chestnut. He wears a long coat, a cotton jumper, gloves, a scarf and smart leather shoes. His dog is an Akita, a large and heavy dog with silver brindle markings. He wears a brown collar and has a few scars on his ribcage which he received from a scrap with a bear. The dog is named Ginga.

"Did you have another argument with your parents?" Ted asks as he looks at the empty bottles and then back towards me.

"Something like that," I say.

Ted sighs. He holds out his hand until I reach for it, and he helps me stand. As I stand, I feel like a newborn calf taking its first wobbly steps. I feel dizzy, and for a moment, my vision goes black. Then the blackness goes. My eyesight returns. We walk side by side until we reach a café named Nakama.

As we enter the café, we're greeted by a collection of decorations and the scent of coffee beans. It's Halloween in a few days. Sector Five is one of the few places that still celebrates the tradition. The kids dress up in scary costumes or masks and collect sweets and chocolate from house to house. It's a tradition slowly dying like everything else on this earth.

We sit down at a table opposite each other near the front window where we can watch the snow falling and people passing by. Ginga lies under the table and begins to doze off. A radiator is under the window, so I slip my shoes off and compress my feet against the heater. Once or twice, the heat from the radiator burns my feet, and I pull them away. In the process, I accidentally kicked Ginga. He ignores me and goes back to sleep.

I can feel my body thawing. Ted removes his coat and gloves and puts them on the seat next to him. I feel too self-conscious to take the stranger's coat off, so I keep it on. I'm barely wearing anything underneath. A small pumpkin with a carved smile and candles are laid out in the middle of the table. Fairy lights are hanging from the ceiling. Paper lanterns are hanging from the walls. Paper bats and ghosts are stuck to the walls. Zombies, witches, cauldrons, cobwebs, and skeletons also decorate the room. We can hear Halloween music playing. We can even hear the coffee machines. Once we're sitting down, a waitress approaches us. Her name is Cho. She used to attend school with us. Ted and I took her under our wing after the popular kids began to bully her.

"Hi, what can I get you two?" Cho says. Since we all finished school, she's swapped her uniform for an apron. Ted and I work at the gates, where we're known as Peace Keepers. We're like the police. Our job is to protect Sector Five and monitor the movement of the citizens.

"Hi, Cho, I'll have a black americano. What do you want, Sora? I'll pay," Ted says with a smile.

"I'll have whatever alcohol you have." I scan through the menu, but it's too blurry to read.

"I think you've had enough alcohol. Why don't you have something non-alcoholic? How about a matcha tea latte? You used to be addicted to those."

Cho leaves to make the drinks. She returns a few moments later and places the drinks on the table. She leaves again to greet other customers who enter the café and take their orders.

"What's wrong?" Ted asks as I rub my temple and look down at the drink. It is lukewarm and looks the same colour as seaweed. I take a sip of the matcha tea latte, and the taste quickly reminds me of why I used to be so addicted to them.

"Nothing's wrong," I say, though I feel a knot in my stomach and my leg tremble under the table.

"Really? Because it doesn't look that way. I know you're keeping something from me, and I don't understand why you won't tell me. We used to tell each other everything, and now you don't anymore—and you're drinking. Maybe I can talk to your parents or something," Ted adds, taking a sip of his coffee.

"I've just got some stuff going on at home," I lie.

"Stuff? What stuff? If it's that bad, you know you can come and stay with me and my dad."

"There's no need for that. Your dad is very busy with his job as chancellor of Sector Five. He doesn't need to worry about me. No one does."

"But—"

"Drop it, Ted! It's none of your business, and I can handle it!" I snap. I slam my hand against the table and spill his coffee. We get a few odd glances from other customers.

"Oh, OK. Sorry, Sora."

I groan inside for yelling at him, but I can't tell him the truth. It's too dangerous. Ted gets up. He picks up some tissues. Then returns and mops up the coffee that floods the table. There's a long pause, till one of us decides to speak.

"So what were you doing outside?" I try to move the conversation forward.

"Wolves. I was doing a final premonitory check." His words make me feel a chill down my spine.

"So what news do you bring about the wolves?" I say sardonically.

"The hunting party and I haven't seen any wolves in Sector Five since the Okami attacks. I think it's safe to say they're extinct," Ted says, almost proud. I hum in agreement.

"What about the rumours of the white wolf in the woods?"

"Like you said, they're just rumours."

"They'll never be gone or extinct," I say, causing Ted to frown.

"Someone once told me that the reason they're so hard to find is that they have another form, a human form, and they hide within it so they're never found. Is that true? I think ALFA knows more about the wolves than they care to admit."

I finish my drink and get up from the table. "I don't know, but I learned something a long time ago which was that you can't trust anyone anymore. I've got to go, but I'll see you around." I leave the warm café.

Once outside, I put the hood over my head and begin to walk down the path with my hands hidden in my pockets. The wind is so strong that at one point I think I might lose my balance and slip into the snow. I'm just glad that at least I had some common sense and hadn't worn my heels to the club. Instead, I wear a pair of black boots. I feel a constellation of blisters on my heel. I long to get home and put on some appropriate clothes. A group of people passed me. It's weird to think that every person is unique. Everyone has their own complex and vivid story. Everyone has a reason for being whether it was a mission, passion, profession, or vocation. Everyone except me.

I can barely see anything. It's all a blur. I wait for a bus to drive by, then cross the gritted road. Only the wealthy have cars in Sector Five. Everyone else relies on walking, bikes, and public transportation. Besides, there's nowhere to drive cars outside the fences other than desolate wastelands or convoys to the next Sector. Travelling to different sectors by car is considered extremely dangerous.

I look down the alley I was sitting in earlier and see the homeless man still trying to warm up around the fire. I keep walking until I reach the edge of the sector and a fence. The fence is used for security to keep citizens in and the wild animals out, or at least that's what they say. There's also a large invisible force field bubble around the fence to keep the large amounts of radiation from outside from getting inside and making everyone sick. The force field and fence don't stop people from leaving and entering the sector, though.

I squeeze my body through a gap where the fence is weak and has been cut open. I keep walking until I reach Howler's Cliff and a small cabin. It's made of wood and looks more like a shed. It was once used by hunters but has since become abandoned. When I was a kid, it became a fort for my friends and me. Now it's my home. It's slightly lifted off the ground with decking and has two small windows. In the front of the hut is a plain bench. A ripped flag hangs from the roof. A sign painted by children's hands hangs on the door. A scarecrow made of metal guards the fort. He's called Fred. Inside is a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. It's basic accommodation, nothing fancy.

There's a reason I couldn't tell Ted the truth. It was because I was one of them. I was a wolf. I have a secret life which Ted and none of the other humans know anything about because I lie to them daily. I lie to keep my real identification hidden. If they knew what I was, then they wouldn't be so accepting, and they'd kill me in a heartbeat. I pick up an empty bottle of wine and smash it on the floor, the glass shatters into a million pieces. It cut my wrist, and I began to bleed. I ignore the wound as I march to the cliff, shifting into my wolf form. My head flies up toward the moon, and I howl for as loud and as long as I can, letting the people of Sector Five know that the wolves are still amongst them.