ARE YOU ALRIGHT
She had been staring at the road for almost four hours now.
Seated on an uncomfortable bench at a bus stop, in the exact same position for this long, should have been painful. Yet she felt nothing.
It was the corner of an almost forgotten street. No one had passed by, even though she had been there this long. It was late now almost midnight but it had been pretty early in the night when she had got there.
She wasn't really thinking about her current situation, she wasn't really thinking at all! She didn't want to. She couldn't!
Her body shuddered; partly to wake her out of her stupor and partly because the evening air was cold. The overcoat wasn't doing her much good, especially when there was hardly anything under it, except her shorts and her torn tank.
The shudder woke her from her daze. She looked around trying to recall where she was. It wasn't a familiar part of town and she had hardly any recollection of how she got there. All she remembered was running till her feet could no longer move; looking back over her shoulder every few minutes, to make sure she wasn't being followed.
As her body slowly came back to its awakened state, she began to feel all the familiar indications of being alive - the cold, the stiffness in her body, the ache in the soles of her bare feet, burning hunger and most importantly a sharp stinging sensation on her thigh that surpassed every other uncomfortable feeling at the moment.
She parted the overcoat to look at her thigh. The hem of her pale pink shorts was stained with blood from 3 deep scratches that went almost all the way up her left thigh. It looked like she had been mauled by an animal.
She shuddered again. This time it was brought on by the pure disgust that surged through her veins, at the memory of that evening. The nails of her attacker had dug in deep and drawn blood. The blood had dried now, leaving stains. The wound itself looked sore; ugly like the deed that caused it.
She knew she was not to blame but she found herself filled with a sour feeling inside. She knew she would not survive in her current state in the cold and yet she could not imagine why she cared. Wouldn't freezing to death be a far more pleasant ordeal than what she had lived through? And yet she found no comfort in what seemed an easy escape. She looked around again, this time it wasn't a blank stare but a purposeful search for shelter from the cold. The road was broad and had little buildings on either side. They looked like they housed offices and that would explain why the street was deserted all this while.
Down the street on the left, a small distance from the street corner, where it connected to what looked like a bigger street with more shops and eateries, was a small one storey building with a dim light still on. She hesitated. She knew she did not have the strength to run or save herself from evil hands again. But this was a risk she would have to take if she did not want to freeze to death on the bench she was still perched on.
She stood up and almost fell back. Her feet were wobbly, numb. She gathered some strength and tried to get to her feet again, slower this time. The sores on her feet were killing her. She was pretty sure she had cut herself running earlier. She slowly made her way to the light. As she got closer, she noticed it was a small patisserie and coffee shop. It was closed for the day. She saw a light in the back room that dimly lit up the front of the quaint little place.
She stood there awhile contemplating her next move. The place was closed and even if it wasn't she couldn't imagine walking in there in the state she was in. She could knock and seek shelter for the night but she was too proud to ask for help. She had walked to the light but she suddenly felt naked and vulnerable and longed for the darkness that enveloped her minutes ago and sheltered her from the reality, that she had nowhere to go and no one to reach out to.
All the will to survive the cold, that had egged her on to seek the source of light in search of shelter, now left her. She stood there lost and beaten, staring at the ground beneath her, when suddenly she found herself plunged in darkness. Someone had turned off the light in the back room. She heard a bustling in the room behind the glass windows, now cloaked in pitch black, followed by the sweet jingling of the bells above the door. The door was thrown open and she found herself staring at a tall girl with a cloud of dark hair fiddling with the keys to lock up the place for the night.
The girl finally got the place locked and threw the keys into the pocket of her dark blue jacket. She swung around and was completely caught off guard by the sight of the shorter girl in the huge overcoat staring at her with a vacant expression in her eyes. A second later the surprise on her face was replaced by a compassionate warmth as she stepped towards the girl, almost scared of scaring her away.
"Are you alright?" she asked softly.
The shorter girl looked up into the warmest pair of brown eyes she had seen. The softness of the genuine concern in those brown orbs felt like a warm blanket thrown around her. Her inner strength finally gave in and tears trickled out of her stormy blue eyes.