"Hayden Mackay, you are being a jerk!"

I chided myself, again and again. I stared down the half filled glass of beer still lingering in my hands. My mind dared to gulp down another sip. I knew I already had enough and I should put a full stop right now. But if I stopped drinking and tried to be more myself, all the pain, all the memories would come back to me which I didn't think I had the energy to even think of.

The pain beneath my chest was to much to endure. Tears that I was holding for a longer time now, finally crawled down my cheeks. Only if I was in right condition, I would have described my depression as a total absence of color. My whole life changed within a blink of an eye, everything in the world seemed different now. The laughter that came from the group of biker's men sitting across the counter top, enjoying the basketball game, seemed so distant and was making me feel more lost and vulnerable.

It was the match between Dallas Cowboys versus New York Giants. Both the teams immensely admired by my dad. I tried hard not to let my mind ponder towards the times me and my dad spent together watching all the games of the season, debating one another about which team was the better one, that was the topic I and my dad used to spend a lot on. I sighed aloud. I blinked and wiped my tears. He had been world's best father and a friend an eighteen year old guy like me could cherish. I gritted my teeth chiding my fate of losing him and gulped down the glass of beer in a single take. I just couldn't afford to think of anymore. It would cause more pain which I was already having.

A waitress passed by to wait the table across me. She handed the glass of double chocolaty chip ice cream to the couple sitting there. I quickly averted my eyes. My mom made the best chocolate ice cream in the world . She even promised to make one this weekend just for me. I remembered how her eyes used to dance with happiness whenever she watched me enjoying her special recipe made ice cream. I needed to see her beautiful eyes again. I needed to forget everything around the world, put my head on her lap and drift off to a dreamless sleep. God! I miss her.

"Can I get you another glass of that beer?"

Thankfully, the waitress brought my senses back to the present. I looked down and noticed I finished the whole jug of beer.

"Sure, why not?" I said nodding at her.

"Will get that right away," she said and gave me a king smile before walking away. I tried smiling back at her but in vain. All I could feel was the wetness on my cheeks.

In reality, I should be celebrating today. Only two days ago was my graduation. I just got through my high school. I remember my parents waving at me bursting with happiness as I stepped up to collect my degree. I promised a full rock on celebration with them but instead I chose to party with my friends first.

Only if I had listened to my mom and stayed back with her, they would have not gone to the temple and I might have never received this phone call, the call that turned my whole life upside down. The police officer, who called me, informed me that my parents unfortunately met with a horrible car crash on their way back home. I could not believe him until I saw their lifeless bodies in the mortuary. That was the moment I experience all the variety of emotion-shock, disbelief, numbness everything at a same time. In my whole eighteen year life, I never ever felt the emotion of being sad, my parents made sure I was taken care of everything all the time.

The waitress came back with another jug of beer. She said something to me but I didn't even look at not to mention I cared anything she said. I hated my self for drinking so much today. If my mom was here, she would have given me one heck of nag that my dad always had from her.

There was this one incidence a few months ago, when me and my team won a baseball match at my school. I was just about the age to drink and my mom caught me dad encouraging me to taste beer.

"You are an alcoholic. And now are you trying to make my son one too?" said my mom, fuming over my dad.

"My son is an amazing goalie and we were just celebrating his saves in the today's game. And by the way I am not an alcoholic."

Compared to my friend's fathers,  my dad was not that alcoholic for my mother to worry so much about. I remembered my dad once telling me that my mom came from an orthodox Indian family where drinking was so not allowed in their community, not that I actually met anyone from her side of the family. But that's different case.

"There are other ways to celebrate," She argued, "How many times have I told you I don't like you guys drinking?"

"Oh come on Sara! You and your silly rules. We are okay and you know that."

She couldn't answer and I interfered just to make the conversation more fun.

"Mom, you remember my friend Cory?"

"Yeah," said my mom, "What about him?"

"He is one of the team member. He invited us to his house to celebrate even better. And yeah I forgot to mention, his father works as a bar tender."

"You are not going," said my mom aghast.

"I said the same mom, but you should talk to dad. He thinks otherwise."

My dad's mouth fell when my mom looked like she was going to attack him. "You are one mean little kid!" He scolded me.

A hot tear fell on my palm, as I laughed remembering my dad's sorry expression. Remembering the incident lightened my mood and I finally decided not to have anymore booze... for today. And so I flung down few dollars and started walking towards the exit of the bar.

Suddenly I forced to walk slowly when I noticed a newly born commotion outside. I watched few people running and I heard few girls screaming followed by a howl. I stopped in my tracks when I perceived another blood hurling howl coming from outside. The hostess came running towards the exit and locked it immediately asking everyone to hide behind the counters. The Biker's Bar and Restaurant wasn't a huge one and I thought that the mere counters won't be protecting much from whatever that was howling from the outside.

But following everyone, I too hid behind a counter that was close to me. I could hear my heart pounding and other people who hid next to me starting speaking in hushed voices which I was barely overhearing. The television that was broadcasting a match previously quickly flicked and changed to a local news station. I put all my attention to the reporter talking about a huge grey hound  on loose in the city attacking and was in killing spree. I never knew that hounds could kill people. Growing up with the neighbor who used to have a grey hound, I remember playing with it. This seemed so ridiculous.

There was loud crash right in front of the bar. The mirrored window broke into thousand pieces and scattered on the floor. The thing that made it happened growled aloud making me realize it was not far away from me.

Pulling up a lot of strength I looked over the counter and what I saw was the most the terrifying this in my life.

There was a huge hound standing at the middle of the bar. It had its teeth out and ready to sink them into its prey. It started sniffing the ground as if finding the one person it needed the most. Trailing the scent, with a jolt I realized it was getting closer to me. I didn't want to take the chances. And so I stood up and jumped across the counter to run towards the exit.

But I failed. It got into my way. My heart dropped to my knee when I found it staring and sneering straight at me. A single droplet of drool from its mouth fell on the floor. It seemed to have found me as its next pray. I looked around for help but everyone seemed to hid behind the counters and preferring to save their own life first.

It growled again and before I could do anything, it settled on top of me in one leap. The weight of this animal seemed unnatural. I could see a faint glow around it as well or may be the fear in me was playing tricks in my mind. I wanted to push the beast and run but I couldn't budge. Maybe the despair in me due to the loss of my parents was making me to give up. I was not fighting the animal. I just wanted it to be over.

Out of no where, like a guardian angel, I heard a voice telling me not to give up. I was clearly able to hear the hollow voice saying...

"Hayden, you are stronger than that. Fight back! Use it!"

I didn't know how but the voice kept encouraging me. First I thought may be it was my dad, but that can never ever happen. He was dead and I was the one who buried him. All the unhappy moment came back, filling me with frustration and surprisingly helping me to pile up a lot of strength. I pushed the hound with all my might and threw it aside. I quickly stood to run away. But then I heard a girly cry again which made me to stop and look back a the hound. My mouth dropped when I found the hound covered with flames. It growled with pain and shrieked. I couldn't realize how I did it. I studied my hands and I was positive that only thing I did was touching it. I didn't know how I set the beast on fire. Unable to take the apprehension, I ran towards the exit trying to escape before someone noticed me performing weird acts.

Filled with terror, I put my keys in the ignition of my car. I could feel my heart pounding and felt it might explode any moment. Before I was about to sped up, I caught someone's eye. He was standing there, looking so at ease in spite of all the commotion around. He was young, around my age. He was leaning slightly on the wall of a shop; with one hand in the pocket of his baggy pants- his cap matching his maroon shirt. As soon as he realized that I was staring back, he smiled and winked. I didn't even had time to frown, I didn't want anymore weird things to happen. Without caring much, I quickly hit the accelerator and drove towards the East.