A/N - My response to Who, What, Where Challenge by Smuffly.
Lindsay Messer, a parcel and Central Park
M Warning due to f-word and sad and traumatic subject matter, despite nothing actually happening in the text itself.
Lindsay sped through Central Park, running through the trees as she tried to make it in time to the designated location. Rain spat down on her face, hitting her skin with such force it hurt. The sky above her was black with clouds, the light dim and fog creeping in. The thin cotton shirt she wore did nothing for her warmth but she didn't care. She needed to run faster, time was slowly running out, running down in a countdown towards zero. She no longer felt her skin, just the pinpricks of pain as she sped on through the mist. It was hard to breathe, the swirling white invading her lungs, consuming her from inside out. She coughed, choked, gasped for air and then retched over to one side, pure bile rising from her stomach to splatter onto the rain sodden ground. She watched in some sort of fascination as it almost froze the second the warm liquid touched the ground. And then she was up again, running onwards towards oblivion.
She could feel frost creeping down her throat and clinging to her insides, freezing against the walls of her internal organs and passageways. It was suffocating her; she struggled for air, fought for the pure right to breathe. The blood in her veins was pulsing red raw, her heart thumped so violently that her whole body shook with its vibrations. And then suddenly she was falling, clasping for anything, fingers moving through the thin air before she crashed heavily to the ground. Everything was hurting; every tiny piece of flesh and blood that made up her existence throbbed as she screamed in agony. Time was running out. Time was dying. She flailed and tried to right herself but the mud clung to her and only dragged her further into its grasp. She was sinking into the Earth, into the dirt and rock of this malevolent planet full of sin and immorality. She fought against the endless dropping and her fingers dug into the ground in front of her, pulling her up, bleeding as the cold ripped skin from those poor extremities.
Her once white shirt was now dark brown, jeans blackened with the dirt and mud of the Earth but she fought on and stood clumsily on her feet. Wind howled around her, rain hitting her with such force it felt like the world was against her, that some higher being was fighting against her struggle. On she ran, her legs numb from cold and aching with every step. She had to keep going, time was almost out. The world in front of her was now a mass of white, she had no idea where she was but her sheer determination pushed her on. She would get there; she would be there in time. It would be okay. She was strong, her willpower being the strength she had survived on for so many years before she'd met Danny Messer. The love of her fucking life. Romeo to her Juliet. Pyramus to her Thisbe. Odysseus to her Penelope. He'd stampeded into her life like a light shining down through the darkest of nights, the blackest of blacks. She'd been so alone on her arrival to the city, so uncertain of herself and unsure if she'd even made the right choice to move there. She'd told herself that the attractive cheeky-chappy was beneath her, that she was superior to him in practically every way. She was more intellectual than him, kinder than him, worked harder, played by the rules, was a better friend to those she cared about.
Lies. It had all been lies. The start of her life in New York had been one huge lie after another. Their love story had been the greatest she'd ever known. Danny and Lindsay. Lindsay and Danny. Monroe and Messer. Messer and Monroe. Danny had never let her go, not once he had got to her. He had trailed her across the country and into her cold, steely heart. Broken down every protective barrier she had raised against love. Against hope. Hope had died that day back in the diner in Bozeman. But Danny had restored her faith in believing. In hoping. In seeing that life wasn't all despair and evil. He had completed her, given her the best years of her life and she had never cared about anything so much as one Danny fucking Messer. Her soul.
A strong gust of wind blew so forcefully it whipped her backwards and she flew through the air, landing in a heap on the ground. She gasped the icy water and air into her lungs. She scarcely felt anything now. Her eyes were barely open against the cold mist that drenched the park and city. It was a desolate place, seemingly devoid of any life. No animals stirred, no people were out, not one living thing made itself known to her. And yet she hoped. She hoped just for one living thing. Just one. She clambered up and let out a howl of anguish as time evaporated into thin air. There was hardly any left. The voice on the other end of the phone had only given her thirty minutes. Only four were now left. She didn't even know if she was going in the right direction but she hoped. For Danny had given her hope. He was her hope. Her legs moved mechanically now, she didn't even think to move them and for a moment it was almost as though she was out of her body and flying above herself, watching as the woman below ran on and on, dirt staining her face, hair drenched, clothes barely existent due to the mud camouflaging them in with her body.
Lindsay ran out onto the edge of the lake. She knew she was there when she suddenly sank into the water, the mist disguising it as some sort of clouded land. She pulled back a few steps, sliding down into the frozen water before working her way out of the lake. She shivered and felt her body shutting down, her core temperature so low that she could barely function. She ignored all the warnings in her head. She had to press on; the location she was looking for was just round the lake, under the huge willow tree that overhung it. It was bent so low Danny had once joked that it would fall in one day. Lindsay ran, she ran and ran, her body tired, exhausted and telling her to stop. Mac and Jo had tried to keep tabs on her, they'd known she would go AWOL and tried to stop her. Adam would have tracked her down by now using her phone but she didn't care, she was going to make it on time and then no-one would have to worry anymore. Sid would have an empty morgue for once and Hawkes would be pleased to finally go home and see his wife. But this killer was ruthless, a maniac, a devil amongst men who had murdered sixteen people already.
Flack would have come with her, she knew in her heart he would have, instead of trying to stop her like the others. He'd always understood that primal need for revenge, to take matters into your own hands when it was sometimes necessary. None of the others had ever understood that, they were all too law abiding. But Flack now lay in the hospital fighting for his life. The killer had got to him first, slicing a knife through his stomach as he escaped from the detective's clutches. Yes, the killer was the Devil himself in human form and his deathly cold voice on her phone, telling her what she must do had brought shivers to her spine, hairs raised on end. Cold leaves suddenly slapped into her face, whipping across her cheek and leaving it ravaged and raw. She'd arrived. There was still time. There had to be. She followed the leaves and stumbled, slamming into the cold, hard ground. Her knee split open on a rock, warm blood making its way down her leg. She felt it through the frozen skin on the limb. Then she turned and saw what she'd tripped on.
A parcel. A square box of a parcel that had remained relatively dry, sheltered by the huge tree's trunk and branches. Written on it, in huge black letters that were now slightly smudged read the name 'Lindsay Messer'. Lindsay gasped as a cry choked through her being. She reached out and her numb fingers scratched at the paper, scrabbling over it to find an edge that she could rip. She cried out in rage as her fingers kept slipping, too cold to be of help. She clawed at it, ripped at it savagely like an animal, tearing it open and ripping off the parcel paper. She held the box close as she moved closer to the tree trunk and leant against it for support. Then carefully, slowly she removed the lid and dropped it to her side. The piercing scream that came to her ears and reverberated around her was so loud it drowned out the noise of the wind and rain. It resonated in her head, smothering her until she realised it was coming from her own mouth. The box fell from her arms as she collapsed, the object inside falling out and rolling away towards the lake. She felt herself coming apart, being ripped into pieces as her frozen body and mind was shattered.
"No!" she screamed out in agony.
"Nooooo..." she howled in anguish. "No..."
"But I made it..." she sobbed.
"I made it in time..."
Her face planted into the ice cold mud, her body freezing to the ground as she slowly stretched out a hand into the box to retrieve the only thing that was still left inside. Her fingers closed around the small metal frames, sticking to her fingers as the ice infused skin and metal together. Slowly, she drew her hand back and opened out her fingers, ripping them from the tiny metal item. Glasses. Danny's glasses. And along with them the death of hope. The death of her hope. And the welcome of oblivion.