It's Friday and it's late and I'm alone. There are barely people out the streets anymore and no one else is waiting for the last bus service here with me and it makes me uneasy. It's a moonless night and almost completely dark, if not for the couple of lamp posts around.

Then.

Then.

Oh my God.

Just like in horror movies, the nearest lamp post starts to flicker as I stand next to the bus stop—even to the fright of it all, I can't help but admit that the setting sets up a good atmosphere for horror films.

If I said I was uneasy earlier, I'm scared now. I try not to look toward the flickering light. Just because, you know. It's only flickering anyway. The bulb must be defective, old, you know, like all lights in the streets are. I'm not going to look. It's not like it's going to explode or something would come out of it, right?

Right?

I catch a movement from the corner of my eye, from the direction of the flickering street light. Oh God. No, I must've imagined it. Yeah, just my imagination, my wild, wild imagination. I've been out since six this morning, for more than twelve hours. I'm starting to hallucinate because of the fatigue. That's it, because of the fatigue. Yeah…

I heard a rustle and I stifle a scream. I will my legs to run but I'm frozen, petrified the way Neville did when Hermione casted a petrificus totalus on him in Book 1. Honestly, this is no time for Harry Potter recollection. Then again, it could be a bird or a cat or a dog, whatever. I'm just being paranoid.

Right?

Why did I stay this late? Why didn't I just finish my paper at home? Why did I have to stay in the library until really late? I'm such an idiot. I should've just called a car instead of waiting like this.

Footsteps. Oh, God. Footsteps. No longer rustles. Heavy footsteps. And they're loud in the dead of the night.

It's getting louder. I feel something approaching me and I'm going to scream—

"Sakura."

I screamed. Fuck the sleeping neighbourhood. I'm alone in this dark street waiting for a bus I don't think will come at all anymore and there's a monster who knows my name and he sounds like the guy who sits behind me during Spanish and—

Huh?

I feel a large hand clamp over my mouth, muffling my scream and my nose catch a familiar fragrance of cologne.

Turning my head slightly, I saw it's the guy who sits behind me in Spanish—Sasuke's his name, I think. I've never been so relieved to see him in my life.

I throw my arms around him and start to sob. He held me there, patting me at my back gently. After I calmed down, he offered me a ride. He lives in campus, he tells me, and that his car is parked just over there.

"I'll drive you home," he doesn't offer and his tone leaves no room for argument. But I'm too tired to argue so I let him drag me toward the student car park. He pulls out his car key and presses the button to unlock the door. Like the gentleman that he is, he opens the door for me and closes it once I'm in and I think maybe chivalry's not dead after all.

After giving him my address and he punches in the details in his GPS, we ride in silence. Not an awkward one but a calming one that tells me I'm safe here with this guy who's practically a stranger to me but somehow I don't care, and this fact doesn't make me uneasy like it usually does, like it should.

Then he drives over to a drive-thru and orders two cheeseburgers (one with tomato, he adds automatically) and two regular cokes like he does it all the time and maybe he does so I promise quietly to myself that I'll bring him healthy homemade lunch whenever we have class together.

He hands me the paper bag and tells me eat. I thought it unfair that I'm eating while he's driving but my stomach grumbles and so I relent. On the red light, I unwrap his cheeseburger with tomato and press it to his lips. He looks at me with irritation but takes a bite anyway.

We've been sitting in the same classroom for the past two years but we never talked to each other and now I'm feeding him.

This could be a start. Start to what, friendship, maybe, or something more… well, you never know.

The End.


hope y'all enjoyed that. first attempt at horror/suspense/thriller-ish.

this little drabble is inspired when i'd take the late buses from the campus and the nearby lamp post would start to flicker just like in horror movies. writing this scared me at first, because well, the flickering light happens to me and i wrote it at 12 midnight like the crazy i am.