Heavy Rains: Inferno (WATTY AWARDS 2012)

Part 1: Chapter 6

1.6

The phrase, “Deer caught in headlights” was something Grey understood. It was simply a reference to the fact that when a car is coming straight at a deer, the deer would stop and stare, wide eyed and fearful as it’s pea-sized brain would try and comprehend what exactly was happening. It was a rather cynical phrase when you thought it through, but never the less, commonly used. It was easy to paint a picture in someone’s head by using this.

However, many knew what a deer looked like when it was caught within the streaming pools of light, the glassy eyes of the creature burning inside of your own, but not many people could say they knew how it was on the opposite end of the scene.

Not many could say that they were quite literally a deer caught in headlights. Standing stiffly in the middle of the road as they would try and compute what was happening just as the blinding light would seem to suffocate their thoughts. The adrenaline rush did nothing but add to the fear as their hearts raced inside their chests.

However, Grey Boone knew exactly how it felt late one night as he stood in the middle of the road, looking down the road as a came in fast, barreling towards him at tremendous speed, and for the first time in his life, his brain couldn’t catch up.

He knew that he was in danger, and he knew he needed to move, but it just seemed like his body couldn’t be bothered to actually move. He stood there, body rigid and quivering in the down pour of the rain as it beat relentlessly against his frame. The headlights reflected in his eyes and the glassy orbs screamed in fear but his mouth never opened.

The driver looked back at him, eyes wide as they slammed on the brakes at full force.

And finally, as the car slowed, his body turned on and he jumped from certain death, rolling into the thick mud of a grassy trench. His body froze instantly in the intense cold water retained within the trench but he ignored it as he slowly stood, his legs numb but somehow sturdy.

A shadow of a head peeked over the side and called down to him, referring to him only as, “Mister.” In a female voice.

He jerked his head up, surprised that anyone was scrupulous enough to care if he had been injured, or worse dead.

He shook his head subconsciously, “I’m fine. I apologize, I was at fault.”

The woman slowly got to her feet and kicked off a pair of high-heeled shoes. She sat on her knees carefully after placing her jacket beneath her, onto the soaked asphalt, to avoid getting her skirt wet.

She reached down with her hand and Grey eyed it carefully, the woman could have purposefully set this out in order to lure him into her car and then kill him viciously.

It was not odd to think it possible, murder attempts had been set out on him before.

However, he saw no logical reason to avoid the help of escaping the trench, after that he could simply walk away.

He squinted in the thick downpour of the rain. Wait, no he couldn’t. He hadn’t the faintest as to where he was.

He bit his bottom lip in thought as he always did, why he was here he didn’t know. When he had gotten here, he had also forgotten. Where he had last been? That would take some thought.

It was as though he had been abducted and then abandoned, unconsciously. However, the oddest part was that when he had come to, he had been standing up, in the middle of a road, fully awake.

He simply hadn’t been in his right state of mind. Was it possible he had forgotten ever coming out here and why? Or had he been sleep walking in some sort of form?