Ephemeral

Thundering Footsteps

The man in front of me huffed and huffed as he stared at me – his eyes held an unreleased amount of darkness and evil inside of them. I could tell just form gazing into them that he had done unspeakable acts before and he wasn't about to stop them, either.

I couldn't breathe and I couldn't move...I stood petrified in my spot, only looking at him. My heart was beating harshly into my chest and I wanted to desperately move the tips of my fingers. Every muscle in my body wasn't cooperating with me.

"I..." His eyes narrowed. Recognition had flashed in his eyes as he tilted his head lightly to the side. I couldn't stop hearing the crack that his neck had made as it echoed hauntingly in my ears. "I remember you..." He scathingly spat out.

His hatred towards me was coming off his person in waves. My body began to tremble at the animosity that was directed at me – the waves that met contact with its target since I didn't have any energy or spirit to move an inch to get out of his warpath.

"Yeah," he added in accusation, narrowing his eyes even more if it were possible. I dreaded what he was about to say next, since I knew that it wasn't going to be good. "You're the reason why my face got fucked!"

He stepped into where I could see him, even though the heavy veil from the darkness.

With the dim light coming from the sky above us, I could see that his face had multiple scars that looked to be still healing. Scars from what looked to be from knives – a lot of knives. It looked mangled and I couldn't imagine the pain that was inflicted upon him – the skin had hardened over in some places as it refused to heal...splotches of different colors, mostly reds and white streaks where the blades and perforated into the skin, littered his face.

I held my breath, seeing the multiple crude, jagged stich marks that were on his face. The way they were performed...the skin would have never healed properly.

He..?

I tried to force myself to breathe even though I couldn't. I knew that Aidan had liked to torture his victims some before he sold them...but, I didn't think that I would see some of his handiwork staring me down.

Did...?

Did Aidan do-?

I wanted to swallow although my throat still had a similar texture to sandpaper. It was too dry and scratchy for me to even attempt to hide away my fear and anxiety from what I was seeing. I didn't know whether to apologize to the man for something that I seemingly indirectly did to him – I wasn't the one at fault.

"Fucking bitch..." He muttered, spitting a wad of spit over in my direction forcefully.

I had watched as a glob of spit had nearly hit my shirt, but had fallen only a few inches short of actually hitting its target. I was still frozen, unable to open my mouth to say something to the man that had mentally scarred me from pointing a gun and nearly ending my life back in Japan. I hadn't wanted to admit that someone could scare me more than Aidan did, but that was a lie – this man...he scared me down to my core.

His disdain towards me was alarming – it was unprecedented. I had more reason to hate and despise him than he ever had reasons to dislike me. I might have been the reason for Aidan's anger towards him...he was physically scarred because of it.

I should be the one to hate him – he mentally scarred me...

He was about to kill me not even a month ago-!

"Boss man," the man shook his head in distaste, clearly not wanting to remember the events that happened up to his facial incident. "He really..." He trailed, and I listened on eagerly and silently, clinging onto every word that he released.