Fun-sized

Caught in the Cold-1000 words

This is the same plot as the other one except with more detail.

Caught in the Cold

The day my life changed forever, well it was autumn and the air was chilled with a light breeze—it seems like everyone’s stories start like that—and I was walking to my car from my work. I was a journalist and I had just finished a very important article about a local café fundraising for local under-privileged children and it was due the next day causing me to have to stay late into the night. This had been happening a lot lately because I have a bad habit of slacking off during normal hours and I seem to write better at night.

I was exhausted as I made my way to my car, and I just wanted to go home and relax with some Earl Grey tea and some Nanny reruns until I fell asleep. Unfortunately fate had something else planned for me that day.  

As I began to try to turn my car on I caught myself in the reflection in the mirror and frowned. I looked as exhausted as I felt with my chest brown hair thrown into a messy bun and smudged make up.

I began to notice that the car wasn’t turning on no matter how many times I tried. Groaning I got up from my seat and opened the door and around to my car. In my exhausted state it took me a moment to figure out how to open the hood, but eventually I got it open and peered inside oblivious to the events that were sure to come.  

I am not a mechanic, I am lucky I know what a steering wheel is, but I knew that there was something wrong with a car when there were wires broken and frayed. Like something had been ripped out. I felt a chill go down my spine as I fished through my pockets for my phone and tried to turn it on. It was dead, only adding to my anxious and fatigued state.

Giving up I made my way to the small park on the other side of the street from where I was and sat down on the old park bench. The wood was cold against my light pants and wasn’t helping me with getting warm. That’s when I began to feel them. The eyes of a predator. Not surprisingly I began to panic. Then I heard the sound of someone moving and it sounded like they—no, it felt like they were moving towards me. The pace was slow and even, the strides were long and calculated.

I knew I should turn around but I couldn’t bring myself to face the reality of what was behind me. I think deep down I was praying I was imagining the whole, like it was some weird twisted nightmare that would end at any possible second to save me from facing my stalker.

My hands gripped the metal of the bench as I prepared myself to hold on to for dear life. Hoping that it would protect me. I had decided to ignore the back of my head saying that it was just a regular bench, not a super bench.

Don’t freak out, Julia, I thought to myself, hopefully you are just delusional. Any other day I would be worried about that thought but it seemed like a good thing to cling on to right about now. Anything to keep myself calm and not have a panic attack over something as small as a squirrel (if anything was out there). Any piece of hope that I wasn’t about to get violently killed at minute, that the next breath I took could be my last.

I couldn’t even begin to tell you what it felt like sitting there like a criminal awaiting execution, with your heart beating faster and faster waiting to escape from your chest and save itself, your palms sweating and your face feeling hot even though its freezing outside.

That is what I was experiencing.

Absolute terror.

Then he appeared. Like swirling mist over an eerie graveyard, light from a lamp post caused his large shadow to loom over me. I looked up feeling like a deer caught in the headlights as I took in his appearance.

He was covered in dark leather and was as pale as the moon. He had short ebony black hair and his eyes were a piercing light grey. Suddenly looking at his handsome face the feeling of being watched was gone as I was faced with the mysterious stranger.

His pale pink lips turned up into a smile and an unfamiliar glint in his eye. He reached towards me with his hand, “I have been watching you for some time now, Julia. I have a proposition for you.”