In a way, Matthew had always expected this. The FOE would finally need him for something, somehow find out just how much about his condition he was hiding from them. One day he'd just ride out on a delivery, the door would open up, he get pulled into a black bag, and no one would ever see him again. Just like everybody else.

He'd just never expected to get advanced notice. He was lucky. Again.

He just always got off so god damn lucky.

The only light on in his crappy little apartment was his phone, which lay face up on his bed. He didn't need the light. This place was so small, so intimately familiar, he could pack by darkness. 

He'd gotten the text a minute ago, as he laid on his side to anxiously watch the pretty violet lights through his bedside window. He'd ignored it, being to caught up in the grip of agony to check and see who in the world would be texting him in the middle of the night. It was his tradition at this point. As soon as the first purple strand had started to paint itself on the sky he felt it, like he did every year, a electric pain shooting its way through his brainpan and rendered sleep a futile effort. This time, though, the agony was differed. Instead of feeling like a evil crab digging out his skull so it could repurpose it for a fancy new shell, this time it had felt like a barbed wire centipede was burying its way deep into the soft tissue. The difference was subtle and yet significant, because as he felt the centipede curl up and get comfortable in its new home he suddenly just...knew. 

He knew that things were different. He didn't know how he knew what he was now, he just did. That meant he had to force his way passed the pain, pull his sorry ass out of bed, and check whom had texted him because that suddenly might be very important. He wasted thirty precious second coming to terms with what the text said and putting that information in its proper place, before hopping up and desperately starting to pack.

What did you even bring when you went "on the run?" He'd pulled a duffle bag out from under his bed and ran through mental list of what he had that he could fit in there. Phone? In the bag. Wallet? In the bag. Keys? They'd know his car, right? So, useless. Throw them in the bag. Underwear? He reached down in the dark, scooped up three pair just lying on the ground and throwing them into the bag. Pain meds? He unzipped the bag fully and just swept everything on his bedside table in there, getting some loose change, a big gulp cup, and his alarm clock in the bargain. Shoes? In the bag. Wait! No.

Put those on.

The plug on the clock pulled loose as he pulled away from the wall and started toward the door. No time to get dressed, just gotta go in his pajamas. He at least grabbed his coat of the hook on the door and threw that on. It was kind of nippy out.

He slowly turned the nob on his door and opened it up into the hall of his apartment. Stepping out, trying his hardest not to make a sound, he closed the door with a soft [i]Click[/i] and made his way towards the stairwell on this floor. He took the steps two as a time as he want down, the alarm clock plug [i]tap tap tapping[/i] as it bounced along the concrete stairs. 

He slammed his feet down on the ground floor, winded, and looked at the two doors he was faced with. One went out through the front entrance, which he would definitely roll up on if he were a bunch of goosestepping government thugs. Besides which, it was the wrong direction.

He went out through the fire door, the freezing January air like a pair of scissors driven right into his ears. He bird it, running out into the alley behind his apartment. In the distance, carried on the wind, he could already here gunshots. Screams. The purge was happening right now.

He wondered if this was how she'd felt, in then wee hours of the morning after she'd awakened. Had she been this scared? Or had it been different? For all he knew it had been wondrous and magical for her.

He shook the though off, and focussed in the task at hand. Two streets west. He just had to make it two streets west. He knew the right direction. After all, the sun set in it every day.

He set out into the icy blackness, repeating those directions in his mind more for comfort than anything.