Page 85 of The Dark Stranger
Andthen—
Nothing.
Everything goes black again.
I'm dreaming.
I know I am, because everything feels soft. Warm. Safe.
I'm small again. Maybe six, maybe seven. The park near my building, the one with the rusted swings and the cracked pavement where dandelions pushed through like they refused to give up. I'm running with the neighborhood kids—Marco, Destiny, that kid with the gap in his teeth whose name I can never remember. We're playing tag, and I'm fast. Faster than all of them. My lungs burn in that good way, the way that means I'm alive and free and nothing can catch me.
The scene shifts.
Now I'm at Coney Island. The sand is hot under my feet, gritty and rough, and I'm digging with my hands, building something that doesn't need to make sense. A castle. A fortress. A place where no one can reach me. The ocean roars in the distance, and I can taste salt on my lips. My cousin is next to me, laughing at something I said, and for a moment, everything is perfect.
Then the dream pulls me somewhere else.
The Bronx Zoo.
I'm older now. Maybe ten. Standing in front of the tiger enclosure, my hands pressed against the glass. The tiger paces back and forth, back and forth, its massive paws silent on the concrete. Its eyes are golden and distant, like it's looking at something far beyond the walls that hold it.
I remember thinking:It wants out.
Not in a violent way. Not in a desperate way. Just... out. To run. To hunt. To be what it was meant to be instead of something people stare at through glass.
I understood that.
Even then, I understood.
The dream shifts again, faster now, like I'm being pulled forward through time.
Suddenly I'm older. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. My hair is longer, darker. I'm standing outside a club I have no business being in, fake ID burning a hole in my pocket. My friends are with me—Inez, my cousin, a few others whose faces blur at the edges of the memory. We're laughing, nervous, excited.
The bouncer barely glances at my ID before waving us through.
The door opens.
And the music hits me like a wave.
"Bring Me to Life"by Evanescence pours through the speakers, loud and haunting and perfect. The bass vibrates through my chest, and I feel it in my bones.
The club is dark. Black chandeliers hang from the ceiling like something out of a gothic cathedral. Black sconces line the walls, casting flickering shadows that make everything feel alive. Skulls grin from shelves behind the bar. The whole place looks like it crawled out of a Tim Burton film and decided to throw a party.
And the people.
God, the people.
Fake fangs. Tattoos crawling up arms, necks, disappearing under clothes. Hair dyed every color imaginable—purple, green, blood red. Clothes that look like they came straight out of Dracula's closet. Corsets and leather and lace and chains.
We grab a table in the middle of the floor, and the adults—the ones who are twenty-one—go to the bar. They come back with drinks that look like something out of a horror film. Bloody Marys with celery sticking out like severed fingers. Long Island Iced Teas so dark they could be poison.
I laugh.
Ican't help it.
Because I get it now.
I'm in an emo club.
