The Unforgettable Night

the first chapter, of the book.

The sun was just setting, casting its bright orange glow across the buildings of the once busy town. As 6 o’clock was approaching, many figures could be seen filling the streets to celebrate the end of the week, varying in ages, and all scattering like ants down various alleyways heading towards their individual destinations. As the darkness of the night loomed, a figure could be seen making his way down a narrow cul-de-sac: his face was obscured by a hooded jacket pulled tightly over his head; a distinctive white wire was hanging from the pocket of his tight black skinny jeans; his slow walk was made even more obvious by the crystal white trainers gripping to his feet. This solitary figure was oblivious to everything around him, including the black cat crossing his path just several paces ahead, continuing in his journey like many other young people.

 

As the darkly dressed figure crossed the deserted road from between two blood red parked cars he noticed a looming shadow over his shoulder. Without trying to draw attention to himself he quickened his pace and hunched his shoulder slightly more. He tried to gain on the group of school friends just a couple of paces ahead just as he went to step into sink with them they disappeared into the local recreation ground. The unknown figure seemed to decide that he would carry on his journey following his original path quicken his pace even more to try and outrun the shadow closing in on him. As the darkly dressed figure rounded the corner of the road, a shiny object flashed across in his view held by a gloved hand that had appeared from the body that owned the shadow.

 

The dark, deserted cul-de-sac was flooded with flashing lights, screaming sirens mixed with the cries and screams of the young people crowded alongside the wailing ambulance. More people were being attracted to the commotion of the brightly lit scene trying to get a better view to find out what was going on, many where whispering trying to piece together a story to find out what was happening in the centre of the crowd of darkly dressed people. The same questions could be heard echoing through the crowd, ‘who was it?’, ‘what was happening?’, and ‘why had the ambulance been called?’

 

With what seemed like hours later the crowd started to part slowly, emerging through the crowd was a surgical trolley with a body covered by a crystal white sheet, a deep red patch was seeping through it and slowly it became apparent to the crowd present what had happened that night. The whole crowd that had gathered, turned and watched in silence as the trolley passed through the crowd and entered the screaming ambulance. For several minutes after the ambulance had disappeared into the night the crowd remained silent, the shock had taken all of them, one of them had gone and would never come back, and this thought was being played over and over by everyone it could almost be read through their eyes fixed to the place where they were standing. Slowly people started to walk away from the scene in groups of two or three all still remaining silent trying to digest what they had just witnessed, trying to unwind that nights events.

 

 

 ***

 

The next morning as the sun was rising the new day hadn’t wiped the night’s events from the town; a glowing sun wasn’t able to erase the previous night’s events from the grieving community. Where the silent crowd had stood only a few hours ago: a solitary uniformed police officer stood guard of the scene; flowers now lined the road and the pavement blocking any way through; a few people all standing reading the messages people had written, tears running down the tracks on the cheeks of the strangers united in grieving for the loss of a member of their community.

Reviews

[Global Norskie]

An interesting write. Wonderful use of words and description.

Constructive criticism: You seem to start many sentences with "As", and there appears to be a lot of distance from what happened here. I would have enjoyed to be closer to the action. But this is just a personal preference.

A great start though! Keep writing! :)