It was a
freezing October night. She was running as fast as she could, dodging speeding
cars, street lights and water hydrants like a maniac. She could have died. She
could have gotten hit by a car, but she somehow survived. Her bare feet were
soggy and hurting from the thunderstorm and all the sharp rocks scattered
across the streets of an unknown town. She was bleeding, with huge, deep red
scars, almost as if splattered on. She avoided almost all the small gaps in
between buildings. ‘I don’t trust-‘, she thought to herself, just before
getting interrupted by screaming, yelling and shouting from familiar, yet
forgotten voices. Maybe she didn’t want to forget them, but she did. Or maybe
she did want to forget. But that doesn’t matter, for now. The chase began.
“Get back here, you little prick!”
demanded a fascinatingly low voice with an annoying Australian accent.
“Carl! We’re trying to regain her
trust, not scare her away!” said a woman. Sounded like a powerful one.
‘Carl’ echoed a thought in her
shattered mind. But before the echo could end, sirens started wailing in the
distance.
“Focus, goddamn it!” she half
whispered to herself, mostly huffing. She
felt her legs going numb. She couldn’t run much longer. She had to do something
about it. ‘Lame’ came another thought. Even though she had to stop, she somehow
liked this chase. It was like something out of an action movie. A few hundred
feet after red and blue lights started to slightly reflect off of buildings,
she saw a bridge, and stopped running. Below it was a river. The jump was about
14 feet tall, and the water level was higher than usual. The river was also
flowing faster than usual. She heard the screaming again. The voices were
countable now. ‘Two. No, three people-‘
“Where did she go?” asked a curious
voice, a small kid, perhaps.
‘Oh, shit, right’, she swore to
herself. “I could jump” was the only thought that came to her. Not “I could
die” or any other normal thought. She had two options: jumping, or getting
caught. If only there was a third...
“I think she’s there!” said a
man with a sweet voice. They all stopped running. The police were a couple
hundred feet away.
“You only think?!” yelled the annoying
Australian.
“Yeah, well, if you can see any better
than I do, then go ahead! Go ahead and tell me what that goddamn 5’6 figure in
a white suit is, Carl!”
“Jesus Christ, Jeremy, you know, it
all was your fault!”
“Gosh, will you guys ever stop arguing
and shut up for once in your lives? Look!” the woman caught their attention.
She pointed to the bridge. “I think she’s gonna jump! Go get her, you idiots!”
After the men’s arguing came to a
halt, the police arrived. One officer instructed them to slowly approach the
‘figure’ but to be alert, in case it will want to run. When the chasers were
less than 100 feet away from it, the street lights went out. The only sources
of light remaining were the moon, the stars and the police cars.
“What’s happening?” asked the kid.
“I’m scared!” They all were. Even the police were. Nobody knew what happened.
He didn’t even get a proper answer.
“Weird” mouthed an officer to his
partners. “Get the guns, the flashlights and hurry!” he commanded, while
comforting the child. “It’s gonna be alright, buddy, okay? Just… stay here.”
She was just staring at them,
paralyzed. She didn’t understand why they didn’t just simply get her. Why they
probably were afraid of her. That gave her time to think of the third option
that she needed to escape them. ‘Escape’ echoed in her head ever since she
started running like a headless chicken. She didn’t quite understand what she
was running from, or why she was
running. She just knew that she had to go somewhere. But only then did she
realize that she had no memory from before going on this adventure. She thought
something was wrong with her. She also wondered what she could do, or if she could do anything to get out of
that situation.
“What will happen to her?” asked
the kid, once again. Although, this time, he did get an answer. Not the one he
was hoping for, but the one he expected the most.
“We don’t know yet, sweetheart.” said
the woman, presumably his mom.
“When will we know?”
“… I have no idea”
A few seconds later, the policemen
came back, armed with flashlights and guns. “Stay back, everyone! I’m looking
at you, Carl” said the lead officer, the last part under his breath. Carl
sketched a ‘Why me?’ gesture.
Right as they pointed their
flashlights to the bridge and ‘figure’, which was absent, they heard a splash.
“No!” shrieked the child. And without
any hesitation, he started towards the bridge. People tried to stop him, but he
broke into a lunatic run. The lead officer caught him, but he quickly broke
free and only stopped in the middle of the bridge. He couldn’t really see, but
all he knew was that she wasn’t there. That she jumped, that she’s gone, and
that he won’t be seeing her for a long time.
His mom arrived there, too, and hugged
him. Then the others carefully walked towards the potential suicide scene. When
they pointed the flashlights at the water, there was no sign of a body, on
neither side.
“So she’s alive?” he asked, knowing
very well that the answer would be
“We don’t know that.”
“We will conduct a search party as
soon as possible” acknowledged one cop, the one that comforted him earlier.
“Thank you, officer, for everything.
I’ll make sure to participate in that search party” said the mom. “We’ll leave
now, it’s pretty late.”
“Can I come too?” whispered the kid,
as they were walking home. His mom was lost in thought.
“Sure, honey” she muttered, after a
good minute of thinking.
‘Yes!’ he celebrated internally.
“You can leave now” spoke one officer to Carl and Jeremy.
“We will, in a minute. Thank you, officer”
As the police left, the power came back on. The two men were having a heated argument, that ended with “I told you she’s still crazy, Carl!”
