How utterly cliché, thought Lily bitterly, as the warning of rain rumbled overhead.
Four days. It had been four days since the last time Coelus had shown his face. Lily didn't want to admit to how clingy she must've become, but her days were now filled with a dull ache as she wandered around, alone.
It was just like he had simply become a part of her life. He wasn't there one day, and then he showed up and everything got a little funner, a little brighter. He had drawn her into his little universe, and now suddenly he had left, leaving Lily like an abandoned planet, lost, lonely, and cold; a planet dying without its sun.
Had she really become that attached? She didn't want to believe it. But she knew that she had.
She was a lonely person by nature. Friends had never been a big part of her life, in fact they were nonexistent, at least until she stumbled upon Coelus.
She'd done everything. Revisited the library, and all of his favorite places. She meandered down the same paths they'd travelled upon earlier, followed where they'd walked all those days. She paused by the trees they had stopped to sit by, faltered by the patches of flowers from which Coelus had plucked one and stuck it in lily's hair, grinning at her, and she wondered about where he might live, so as to go and check.
It was like a bad breakup, though they hadn't even been in a relationship.
As the rain began to fall in tiny little droplets, Lily begrudgingly got off the Philosophy Bench she sat on and hunched her shoulders, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets. Had he just left? Or was he in trouble? She couldn't decide.
Lily hadn't even realized that she'd been walking completely alone on the path until she heard the sound that made her aware of her previous solitude, and how it was now broken. It was an odd sound, barely detectable above the wind, but certainly present. It was the sound of footsteps.
Feeling paranoid, Lily whirled around, and as she suspected no one was there. Spooked, she continued on, rolling her eyes at her own jumpiness.
However, as she continued she heard the footsteps again, and this time they were closer and quicker.
"Coelus?" Lily cried out hopefully, turning in a slow circle. She bent her head to peer around a tree. No one, of course.
Lily picked up her pace and kept her head down, practically running as the rain began to fall heavier. The footsteps did not stop.
Aware now that she was possibly in very real danger, Lily began to really run, her heart pounding at her ribcage, her arms pumping, her feet slapping the ground until-
She slammed head-on with a stranger and a strangled scream erupted from her lips. Lily broke into ridiculous karate chops and backpedaled quickly, breathing heavily.
Standing in front of her was a very disgruntled young man with his collar turned up, his hands deep in his pockets.
"Sorry, sir." Lily muttered, trying to regain her composure. She swept her hair from her face and glanced at the man, who kept his head low. There was something odd about him, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
"Oh, it's nothing, little girl. It's easy to be frightened when you're…alone…in the rain…" The man had a chillingly high, aloof voice and it unnerved Lily. Then he smiled- a strange sort of smile that set off alarms in Lily's brain.
"I gotta go." she muttered, hurrying past him.
"But not without," the man snagged her arm and stopped her in her tracks, turning to face her. Lily was ready to scream, to fight, to run away.
"This." The man held out a slim little wallet, her wallet. Huffing a sigh of relief that he wasn't about to murder her, Lily accepted the wallet and thanked him. With another unsettling smile, the man walked off leisurely. Lily hurried on in the opposite direction, jogging, but when she glanced back, the man was gone.
A sudden gust of wind buffeted her hair, making it fly around her head. Lily swore she could hear someone scream, just before the wind died down, and she sprinted all the way home.
Sorry it's so short, but this is where things start to get interesting… :)