Disclaimer: I do not own Sleeping Beauty. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.
There are those moments in life when time just seems to stand still. You know those moments, you have had them. Sometimes you can see them. That day when you were fifteen, standing by the side of the road barefoot, long hair a mess, watching as the car sped through the light just after it changed, headed straight into the oncoming traffic. The sickening crunch of metal colliding, the scream of brakes, the last, desperate attempt to avoid what you know is coming. And then nothing, the silence is so loud it is deafening for just a moment. Your ears hurt with it and it echoes in your mind like a gunshot. Then, the scream, shrill and filled with pain. And you Can't. Do. Anything.
Sometimes, they sneak up on you. The last thing you can imagine and all of a sudden things stop. The music, that solace, the only constant in your life, the thing that held the pain and joy and sorrow and fear, it is silenced. The freezing air conditioner, along with the low, mechanical hum that lets you know it is working ceases. The blue and black and pink lights go out and the dim emergency lights kick on. You freeze, midstep, disoriented. Silence has never been comfortable, it screams the truth and here, up high, cool metal beneath your hand, you freeze. You're used to being without clothes but rarely are you truly naked.
In that moment, sometime around midnight you think, at least that's what the clock said the last time you could see it, in the dark and the quiet, you want to scream but you can't. You're frozen, again and you can feel the eyes on you. Time stands still and you wish something, anything would happen. A noise, a scream, hell even that godforsaken excuse for music, autotuned beyond recognition, would be welcome. But there is nothing. Nothing but silence. Silence so loud that it hurts. And so you do what you do best. You run.
Behind the curtain, out the emergency door, into the night. Your clothes, if you could call them that, are half on and, even if you were fully dressed, you're pretty sure that a public indecency arrest is in your near future.
It's quiet out here too, overly so. There should be sounds and light. Traffic, music, lights, SOMETHING, but no. Head down, you turn the corner, crashing into something solid and warm and DEFINITELY not made of brick. Hands on your arms, strong and keeping you steady. You look up and meet mercurial grey eyes, familiar and yet unknown, like a ghost once glimpsed in a mirror. You lose yourself in them for a moment, frozen in their depths, in the possibilities and memories that pass between you in an instant.
And then the noise comes back, and the lights and everything. And then you run. Again.