by Elizabeth Reeves

Created on: August 11, 2008

Twilight filtered through the one window of the dark apartment, briefly glinting against a picture frame on the wall, then settling into contrast on the angular, chiseled visage of the twenty-something man sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor. Hazel eyes wore a deep, quiet, expression, as if the person inside the body was some where very far away at the moment. The lights glistened against his bare chest and the old, faded jeans he wore. The room was silent, all save for the soft whirring of the overhead ceiling fan, which was fighting against the insistent heat that filled the room.

There was no sign that the young man felt the heat at all, despite the light sheen of sweat on his forehead and across the bare chest. He sat quietly, his arms resting on his knees, palms up, as if he were in deep mediation.

Sudden tension crossed his face, turning the hazel eyes almost green in their intensity. His relaxed form became taut and he leapt to his feet in one smooth motion. As if in response, twilight deepened and left the room in darkness.

Kaden Carson inhaled slowly through his nose, calming the quickening of his heart in his chest. He moved quietly, almost stealthily, to the table in the center of the small room. There was a grating sound, and a soft hiss as he struck a match and lit a lopsided candle, which slumped untidily in the middle of what looked to be a dinner plate. The flame lit up his bare chest in crimson light, briefly highlighting the snarling feline tattoo on his chest, before setting to dancing, as flame will, and sending odd, comforting shadows around the dark room.

Kaden stared at the flames for a brief moment, as if the light could shake off whatever trance he had been in. He crossed the kitchen, barefoot, and opened the fridge door, sending a line of light across the wood floor. He settled on a soda and let the door close itself while he crossed back into the other room of the small apartment and settled himself onto the couch.
Something is in the air, he thought to himself, as the caffeine reached his blood stream and he felt his taut muscles begin to relax, one by one. Whatever it is, I don't like it.

Kaden had always felt something of an outcast, as if fate had placed on him some mark that he was her own, which other humans somehow felt and shunned him. He had grown up shy and isolated, raised by a single father who worked and drank in a constant cycle. Kaden's mother was gone, dead or left, he was never quite sure. Kaden's father never

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