Now You See Me parody (Sterek)
Prologue
Eleven years ago
LEAVES, MUD AND GRASS DEADEN SOUND. EVEN screams. The boy knows this. Any sound he might make can't possibly travel the quarter mile to the car headlights and street lamps, to the illuminated windows of tall buildings that he can see beyond the wall. The nearby city isn't going to help him and screaming will just burn up energy he can't spare
He was alone. A moment ago he wasn't
'Julia,' he says. 'Julia, this isn't funny
Difficult to imagine anything less funny. So why is someone giggling? Then another sound. A grinding, scraping noise.
He could run. The bridge isn't far. He might make it
If he runs, he leaves Julia behind
A breeze stirs the leaves of the tree he's standing beside and he finds he can't stop shaking. He dressed, a few hours ago, for a hot pub and a heated bus ride home, not this open space at midnight. Knowing that any second now he may have to run, he lifts first one foot and then the other and takes off his party shoes.
'I've had enough now,' he says, in a voice that doesn't sound like his own. He steps forward, away from the tree, little closer to the great slab of rock lying ahead of him on the grass. 'Julia,' he says. 'Where are you?'
Only the scraping answers back.
The stones looks taller at night. Not just bigger, but blacker and older. Yet the circle they make seems to have shrunk. He has a sense of those just out of his line of sight slipping closer, playing grandmother's footsteps; enough that if he spins round now, there they'll be, close enough to touch.
Unthinkable not to turn with an idea like that in his head; not to whimper when a dark shape plainly is moving closer. One of the tall stones has split in two like a splinter of rock breaking away from the cliff. The splinter stands free and steps forward.
He runs then, but not for long. Another black shape is blocking his path, cutting off his route to the bridge. He turns. Another. And another. Dark figures make their way towards him. Impossible to run. Useless to scream. All he can do is turn on the spot, like a rat caught in a trap. He swing his fists and it hit one of the figures but there are others until they take a hold of him and drag him towards the great flat rock and one thing, at least, becomes clear.
The sound he can hear is that of a blade being sharpened against stone.
