•••
Darkness swarmed me, like a field of disturbed locusts consuming my every sense with the never ending hum of their constant clicking, as I wander through the many winding streets casted by the dark gloom of shadows.
Mindlessly, I stride forward as my thoughts are consumed with the rapid plans that spin their reluctant webs within the chaos that is my fragile brain. The worn down soles of my sneaks make a pitter patter echo against the cold cement, the over towering city now takes on an eerie silence, or more so then what had haunted these tight avenues just a few hours prior. Only the rawr of flash cars and their squealing tires skidding across the road can be heard from a short distance away from where I plod forward.
I don't know what I'm going to do. Leave this city? This place that I've built my entire existence around, that Eliana's structured her enter existence around. How would I possibly be able to do that? I'd have to leave my job and then somehow find a new one else where, which brings up another issue of how I would possibly be able to get me and Eliana out of this place, I've never lived in my own apartment or anything alike before, only the small, broken down apartment that Nan moved into a few years ago.
My legs burn as I push forward, knowing that Eliana is only a few streets from me. Once I get then I can figure out what we will do and plan forward in what is best.
Whether to stay or flee.
A vibrate buzzes in my back pocket for the millionth time today, more than I have ever gotten any other time in my life. Typically, the only thing flooding my cracked phone screen is the subscriptions I sighed up blissfully unaware of the folders filled with daft unoriginal concepts they decide to send out to each of their subscribers. And this time is no different as I stare at the youtube link suggesting me a video on the differences of language. but then I notice it, just below the red icon is a white square with a bright red triangle in the corner and a explanation point stuffed into it. Only a few words to be read by what I would image to be many.
WARNING - Stay inside and do not attempt to leave the city.
Sent an hour ago.
My face contorts into one of disbelief. That's all they are going to say? With everything that is going on, all that I alone have seen today, and that is the only thing they have to say to the masses of thai city? I'd checked the news sites to see if they had updated anything after what I'd heard in the taxi, but nothing was found. It had seemed like hourly updates just for them to go radio silent on people desperately needing answers.
But a thought twisted its way through my mind, leaving a hollowing dread sinking to the pit of my stomach.
The government has never been silent before, even for the most scandalous things, and definitely not for an outbreak. So why now do they choose silence?
Striding down the pavement, I notice a familiar floral shop filled with numaras contrasting colours, blending together. Typically the strong scent of delicate petals waft through the open glass door, but all that overconsumes my nostrils is the stench of urine and gasoline dripping from peoples notably distraught cars in need of a check up, as I pass by the store front. Only two more blocks, then I'm home with Eliana.
Colours burst out like firecrackers near the end of the street. Orange reds and yellows blend together like water paint being poured onto a blank canvas as shadowing bodies flock around the silhouette of the sedan that's parked in the middle of an intersection. One figure belts out a howl that echoes throughout the empty streets.
What are they doing? Out in the open like this surely the police would be contacted by now, or shorty?
With slow steps, I trudge forward as I further watch them run around the burning vehicle, like they are mere children innocently playing a game of ring around the rosey. They bellows consume everything around them, as though they are the only ones beneath the spot light. Not something typically to be felt in a cold, bustling city like this.
With each wary step I take, I can hear there voice dip in and out of range. Nothing but random words with no meaning to the human language float toward me, words with no rhythmic pose but the ramblings that you'd hear from that of a man who lost his sanity long ago, until I fall into the coherent sentence structure I was trying to achieve.
One of the shadowed figures with long gawking limps flings his arms to the air, his long locks swooping past his bony shoulders as his head swings back.
"God, this is so freeing," his words float in the air like leaves in the summer breeze.
The other two bodies copy the young man in his motions, as though they are all united as one. One mind.
"We're free!"
Their laughs are blown away as a gust of wind takes their joy with them, the flames behind them following the harsh motion. I pull the woollen jumper closer to my goosebump-ridden skin, hoping that the sudden wind changes course soon.
One shadow halts and turns to the others that surround him, "are you sure they won't come?"
"Have you seen any?"
"Or anyone for that matter? Its fine, man. We've got this whole street to ourselves."
"We've got the whole god damn city." The boy flings his head back, screamimg the words into the flickers of fluttering sparks above them.
The other join him in his bellows. I inch closer, but only just a few steps. I dont want to get caught up in what they are doing, because truly, we dont know what roams these streets.
My mind flickers back to the towering man from just a few hours ago.
One of the boys stops, his frailing arms sliping back down to his narrow hips as his head turns to the opposite way I'm in.
"Uuh, hey," he says to the shadows before him, slapping one of his friends on the arm.
The other spacks him back two times harder, the other just pointing to the dark street before them. They all halt, dead in there tracks as they stare into the shadows, as if something is hiding within them.
"Are you gonna come out, or just hide in there." the boys voice deepens, unlike the cracking words that were said prior to the visitors arrival.
I squint my eyes, trying to witness what they all see, what stopped chants of these boys, because I have a feeling not even the cops themselves could stop these raging collage students.
From the grasps of the shadows, a stiff figure wanders forward, her head tilting as she eyes the boys. My spine bristles as a gust of wind blows past me. Her stance is almost...inhuman as she approaches the three guys, never stopping and only closing the gap between her and them. Her matted hairs slips to the side as she tints her head.
I need to leave. I need to get out of here. I cant be here.
I dont attempte to be stealthy any longer, as I twist my body around, going back the way I had just come.
"Are you gonna answer us?"
"Just-no stop there-don't get any closer."
The further I get, the more the words turn back into the ramblings that of a person who as last the sane part of them. The further I get, the more momentum I build beneath me. The streets begin to blurr around me as I sprint through them, never bother to glance behind me as I push my self further away from the burning car, from the boys and the lady.
The further I get, the more I begin to wonder whether the screams are being conjured within my mind, a sick game my brain has created to taunt me with, or if its them, pleading for the help of strangers.
•••
I dont know how long has past, it feels like blocks, but my legs burn as I bend over, my hands resting top of my knees, my breaths hot against the chill of the nights breeze. My hand reaches in to the back pocket, where i had just felt the buzz of my phone. The screen lightsm burning my eyes for a brief moment, before the blurr dissipates, revealing the new message.
Eliana - someones in the apartment.
***
Chapter word count // 1,474
Overall word count // 13,893