I had a new appreciation for the struggles of humanity. So many needs and wants. So many decisions and distractions. Overwhelming, to say the least. Easy maybe, with resources like money and housing. But depressing and almost impossible since I had no resources at all.
I remembered watching Hazel, all those years ago. I didn't remember her having such a hard time being homeless. She got along very well, in fact.. I should have paid better attention, maybe I would have learned something. Because this...this was awful.
I was always hungry and thirsty. Always tired and finding the concept of falling asleep to be more difficult than it looked. I understood now why Hazel would often need my assistance with it in the past. Haunted by anxieties and nightmares.
And God...the nightmares. Some born of my own mind, but the freshest and most vivid were things born of the memories I stole from her.
The worst of them all was one that was reoccurring. Always started out the same. Pleasant. We were together and happy in a room. Rolling and laughing on a bed. She was her old self. But then I would touch her more intimately, and it would change.
She would scream and run from me. Speaking her nonsense while her appearance shifted to the skinny, scarred and insane Hazel she was now. Calling me a monster.
I'd had enough of it all. I just wanted to get to the bunker. Where at least I knew I'd have the resources and family. And Hazel, if she even made it there. With no contact after the payphone, I had no idea what was going on with any of the Winchesters. For all I knew, the angels killed them all. But of course, I couldn't think that way or I'd never get out my situation.
The boys I believed would pull through one way or another. They always did. But my rose was out there, cut from the bush and missing half her thorns and petals. I feared she would succumb to her madness and get lost in it. Therefore getting herself killed.
I had settled in a church for awhile, after recent events on my journey as a human had proven to be chaotic. I thought a place of peace would give me time to think.
I then had a rather interesting conversation with a woman of faith who was praying there. Essentially she gently tried to convince me that my father was listening.
Ha.
It was night when I left the church. The street was no less busy than before, but quieter. Less food carts roaming. Fewer businesses open. Just people, the shadier ones found at night, alot of them, walking and driving.
It was this more quiet setting than the horror show I experienced earlier that made a loud sound more obvious.
A powerful combustion engine was rumbling and whirring somewhere nearby. Around the block maybe. It startled me a bit, but I paid it no mind at first. Until the sound was joined by the screams and complaints and angry honking car horns as the engine seemed to be drawing closer.
My heart started to race. Whatever was driving whatever machine making its way, could very well have been an angel. Or more than one. They were getting bolder each time they encountered me. I quickened my steps, paranoia getting the best of me and running me into an alley.
In the streets, the shouts and protests grew louder and closer right along with the ever approaching vehicle that seemed to be terrozing the neighborhood.
I crouched in the shadow of a steel dumpster, watching the blur of the nosiy contraption rush by at surely illegal speeds. Just as I thought the mysterious disturbance was distancing from me, I listened closer to find it was simply slowing down. Angry engine chattering loudly but calmly as it cruised. And then I heard it pick the pace again.
I thought I was being crazy, hiding from an obnoxious thrill seeker most likely. So I stood up and steadied my breathing. At least until artificial lights filled the alley with a roar of the motor attached to them.
Panic set right back in.
They found me.
I tried to run, but what turned out to be a motorcycle, caught up, went ahead, and came to a sliding halt in front of me. The driver in a dark helmet was obscure in the shadow behind the headlights.
They shut the engine and lights off. Now it was dark again. But I could make out that my pursuer was a petite female. In fact...I'd recognize that shape anywhere.
