Z?
xxx
The night was jet black and bone-chillingly cold but the air held a thickness that clouded the mind and dulled the senses, leaving one in deep inexplicable exhaustion. That was how she felt on this night as she walked down the long grungy streets toward home.
She had clocked off around ten and was taking her time getting back to her apartment. The skies were thick with stained grey clouds, looking almost as if it were going to rain, but without that distinct smell. She smiled then, she loved the rain. Not the murky black ink half-mixed in sour milk skies that poured an acrid scent all over the earth kind of rain, but the calming steel-grey puffed clouds that rolled across the sky like a tidal wave of tinted whipped cream pouring gentle tendrils of crystal clear water from their billowing skirts. That was the rain she loved the most. The kind of rain she could stand in for hours while no one else dared escape their warm, dry nests for fear the cold wetness would invade their fluffy cocoon and taint them forever. She could be truly content like that, truly alone but never being alone. Not with the skies that way to lull her into a sweet dream-scape with their rumbling lullabies.
She found herself just standing completely still with her face upturned toward the skies, a content smile splayed across her face. The rain fell in rivulets down her face from her forehead where they hit, to cut across her brow and roll along her eyelid, to suddenly turn at the corner of her eye and stream like cold tears across her cheeks. From there they rejoined their brothers and sisters to pitter-patter on the asphalt in clear reflective pools.
She opened her eyes then and saw a shadowed figure across the street from where she stood. She couldn't make out a face or any characteristics other than the fact the figure was male. She hadn't known how long he stood there or if he was even watching her. She tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes, hoping the action would somehow clear her vision through the rain. The figure simply stood blatantly still as she had not moments before, but his face was not turned upwards as hers had been. No, his was clearly level. The more she peered the more she began to realize it was leveled in her direction and he was staring at her.
She almost jumped back at the sudden realization but she fought the urge to move at all and just stood there in silence watching him.
He never moved. Only his hand which held a large plastic cup with a domed lid seemed to move ever so slightly for him to reach the straw with his thin lips. She watched him sip the oversized drink for nearly a minute. She tried to pick out his eyes in the darkness that seemed to envelope only him, but where she knew there should have been eyes there was simply blackness. A dark empty loneliness that almost emanated from his entire being stood there watching her in the rain. A sudden chill ran up her spine the longer she stood there and the cooling comfort the rain had offered her only moments ago was slowly being replaced by this darkness. She bit her bottom lip and the action left a white imprint within the violet hue. She brought her hands up from her sides and wrapped her arms around her narrow stomach and chest to try to ride out the cold. But the longer she stood there the more the cold seemed to bite into her flesh and burrow deep within her to her very core. She couldn't take it any longer. She tore her gaze away from the figure and ran down the dark and dank streets the rest of the way to her apartment building. She didn't stop running until she was up all twelve flights of stairs to the thirteenth floor and shoved her apartment key in the lock. Only once she was safely inside her small apartment and all the locks were thrown into place did she let out the breath she had been holding the whole way home. She fell to her knees on the paint-stained hardwood, gasping for air and clutching at her body. She rubbed every extremity as hard and as fast as she could but the cold was unrelenting. It clung to her flesh like a thousand leeches sucking the warmth from within and replacing it with sharp claws of ice. She shook uncontrollably as the cold tore through her flesh like a thousand carnivorous talons ripping into their last meal.
She bolted up from the floor and ran to the bathroom. Once inside she skidded to a halt at the shower and thrust her hand in to grab one of the knobs. She twisted the hot water knob to full blast and jumped in still wearing her clothes. As the water began to pour through the shower head it sputtered and popped as any old shower head would and she could hear the plumbing in the walls whining their discontent at having to work so hard. She clenched her teeth and ignored all of this, forcing herself to just sit there under the steaming hot water. The plumbing would cease its cries of annoyance soon and the shower head would end its aged orchestra once it worked out all of its kinks, but she feared she would never be warm again. She looked down at her skin and saw it grow red with each passing minute as she remained under the water but she could still feel the cold eating away at her. She closed her eyes tight and all she saw was the dark figure standing on the street corner watching her, his empty listless gaze boring deep into her skull the longer she stood there. She threw her head back and let out a blood-curdling scream that nearly shook the walls of her cheap studio apartment. She screamed and screamed until she felt her throat become raw from the sheer effort but she didn't care. She shoved her hands through her hair and clenched at the wet violet locks tightly and screamed again and again...
Outside in the rain, miles away from where Devi sat curled up in her shower screaming wordlessly into the night, Nny stood on the street corner sipping a Cherry Brain Freezy and watching the rain fall against the pavement.
The night was eerily dark and almost silent as the rain fell from the billowing grey clouds above his head. His thin lips curled into a devious smile, stained red from the Freezy, as he tilted his head towards the sky.
It really was a beautiful sight…
xxx
This was truly a one shot. As in if I didn't get all this down in one go it was going to simply fade away in the folds of my Documents folder and never see the light of day again.
Hope you enjoyed it. [bows] -Lucifina