Charlotte-Mecklenburg 23 Things: Thing #10 (3 AM #1: The Reluctant)

(Typed on The Internet Typewriter, part of Thing #10)

There was a shrub that served as a frame, like a cruder, natural version of the cardboard box turned television crafted by a child. She didn't know she was being watched. She merely stood there, leaning against the lamp post to catch her breath as she hugged her torso with her thin arms. Her skin was flushed from running. I knew that to reach out and touch the glowing flesh would be like pressing these cold fingers to a kettle about to whistle. The air pushed from her chest with each laborious exhalation would surely be like the steam rising from that same kettle's spout. Her eyes were wide with frantic fear, and for good reason. It wasn't hard to guess why she had been running so hard. It wasn't hard to guess why she was here.

Sympathy was hardly an option; there were too many things about her to envy, such as the rise and fall of her chest and the vitality that glowed in her hair and skin even in the unflattering light of the lamp above her. Whatever was chasing her, she must have deserved for some reason or another. She wouldn't be here if that wasn't the case.

They weren't far behind. They could have overtaken her in an instant had they wanted to, but they enjoyed a good game. People - prey like her were as much entertainment as they were nourishment. The chase would not end until her potential for amusement had dried up. It was true of the young and the old, but the old were more subtle. The young did it this way, running down their prey in packs in order to appear more threatening while in actuality only one would be feasting tonight, and he wasn't even here yet.

The sound of their approach was muffled by the roar of the bellows her lungs had become, but they could not hide themselves for too much longer. Her ability to sense danger so acutely was another reason to envy her. Even in her exhaustion, where the andrenaline that pumped through her was the only thing keeping her from collapsing in defeat and depletion, she still retained her faculties. Though still wide, her eyes flared with a passionate anger so intense that it reached the leafy frame when they came into view. They only laughed at her as she stood with her post at her back, as if she were an accused witch about to break her bounds and flee from the purifying pyre.

She was soon surrounded like a cornered rat. They moved slowly, eyeing each other as much as they eyed her.

It could have been described as a primal sort of roar - the cry of a stronger, more dominant creature - but it did it's scripted job in scattering the others at the same time it encased her in ice. There had been words to it, but they were lost in the echo that bounced against the stones in the walls and road. Alone, she stared into the blackness, clinging to the pole as much as she clung to the light that emanated from it.

The dark is nothing to be afraid of. No child is afraid of the dark itself. It is only what is potentially lurking in that darkness that is worthy of fear. But when he emerged, some of that fear fled with the darkness as the lamp's light encircled him. She was grateful, but only because she had no way of knowing.

I watched in horror as he led her away.