Bright Eyes

2. Midnight Streets

    He could handle this.

    Just then, a pair of headlights came to view, bright orbs amidst the dark. Jack stopped in his tracks, and held a hand up into the air, hoping to be seen, praying for an escape. The car ran down the road, closer each second to him, lights brighter as they pierced through the shadows, music louder as it approached.

    "Hey," Jack called out, waving a hand beneath the streetlight. "Hey!"

    The car now came to full view, but, to Jack's disappointment, it was no cab—but a wrecked, unattractive private car. Loud electronic music and strange-smelling smoke egressed out rolled-down windows. Jack, at moment's notice, dodged a bottle of beer that came hurtling towards him, liquor staining his gray hoodie, glass crashing to fragments against the wall behind. One of the guys in the backseat, drunk, called out an undesirable name. Then the car sped further down the road and out of sight, noise fading into the distance.

    "Idiots," Jack muttered under his breath.

    Still in fear, he glanced at the stretch of pavement to his right, where he remembered to have last caught a glimpse of the stranger. But there was no man, no suit, no pair of sunglasses—just an empty dimly lit concrete path in the dead of night, silence swimming in his ears.

    Jack heaved a sigh of relief. Maybe the man wasn't following him after all, he thought. Or maybe him calling out to the car might have done the trick to scare him away. The reason no longer mattered to him. The man was gone, that was all that mattered.

    He turned around, took a step forward. Then his eyes caught sight of a polished black beam swinging towards the side of his head. Jack quickly lowered himself, the cane failing to strike anything. And when the beam had swept through the air above his head, Jack, in a second of a heartbeat, rose to his full height. Like a flash of lightning, he shot a jab straight to the man's gut, before a fist blew against the stranger's temple. The cane slipped from his hands, and the man in the suit fell to the ground, an arm clutching his stomach, a hand holding the side of his head.

    Jack wasted no time. He ran past the man's fetal form, and shot off into the distance. For a second, he glanced back. The man was already on his feet, picking up his cane, faster than he had expected. Jack sprinted on, heart pounding against his chest, adrenaline coursing through his veins, the stranger quickly trailing behind.

While the world lay asleep, two figures darted down streets. A predator without mercy, a prey desperate for an escape. But Jack found no other way than to run straight ahead, to sprint straight down an endless road—until he caught sight of a mouth leading straight into the shadows. His feet moved all the more faster, and he turned, and slid into a narrow alley. But the stranger had seen him, and followed him in.

    In the darkness, Jack ran. In the shadows, his soul cried out in silence for salvation, pleaded for a miracle. But then the world was asleep, and no soul was awake to care.

    Or so he thought.

    Jack turned before coming into contact with a chain-link fence. But his form collided with another, a beam of light dropping onto the rough concrete floor.

    "Hey, watch it," said another teenage boy, quickly grabbing his phone from the ground.

    Despite the dark, Jack recognized him. A boy a little taller than he was, standing an inch shy of six feet; brown skin, his bones arranged into a stocky frame, a mess of black hair atop shaved sides. Jack had seen him around school, knew him to be trouble. But, at a time as grave as this, none of the rumors mattered.

    Jack grasped Damien's shoulder. "Look, man, you've got to help me."

    "Got no time," responded Damien, shoving Jack's hand away. "I've—" But he said nothing after that, after his eyes caught sight of a man in a suit, his eyes behind dark lenses, a cane in hand.