C.R.E.W

Chapter 16 ~ Guns and Girls

The sidewalk was telling its own story. All the soulless bodies walking along it trying to find a way home...I was added to that list of people. The sidewalk was a glistening blue, water stuck in the crevices and spilling out the sides of each square. I kicked at it as I walked, sloshing all the puddles out in front of me, some water escaping through the sides of the pavement squares. My shoes were all wet, my body was cold. I was expecting to come home a lot sooner, so I only brought a light jacket, it was hardly even a warm one. It was the kind that had fluff inside of it, the type that was meant to be warm, but my body gets cold too easily to even call it a "warm" jacket. I could see my breath in front of me in the frigid, chilling air. I walked along, my arms shoved in between my puffy, silver sleeves. I looked ahead of me and saw a brown buddy bench, it had a fancy green armrest, the sides swirled in and made a fancy whirl-around. I sped up my walking and went over to the bench. I sniffled through my cold nose that now, and continued to, run. I brought my legs up on the bench and cuddled them to keep me warm. I leaned to the side of the bench and hung my head over. I turned my phone on only to see the saddest and worst screen I could possibly see at this exact moment.

A black screen with an open battery just waiting to be filled. Red. A red bar on the end of a wide open rectangle that took up sixty percent of the screen.
Dead.

I hung my head over the phone. I groaned, there was no way of telling my mom where or how I was. I was lost, stranded, just sitting, waiting on a bench. There was nothing to do, I didn't trust anyone enough to drive me home. I laid my head back and closed my eyes. Do I fall asleep? Do I stay awake? What do I do?...

I didn't know my directions enough to walk home, all I knew was that it would be a long walk, a very long walk. The most of that I had ever done was on field trips, which I almost never had the privilege of to anyway, or that day when I decided not to take the bus. I rested my head down and tried not to fall asleep. I started to drift off and my head was slipping off the top of the bench. I caught myself before falling over and held my palm against my head in pain. I had a headache and it was throbbing, the only thing that could make it worse was the loud noise I immediately heard.

A bang.

A gunshot.

The streetlights started to flicker and I listened a little closer, only to see a man grab his chest and stumble to the ground. The man opposite of him just stood there, holding an object. I took my chance while he was looking away and got up to start sprinting.

I held my bag inside my jacket to reduce the noise of plastic, air-filled chip bags crashing into each other and continued to run. My legs were already frozen, I was practically relying ice cold popsicle sticks to keep me going.

"Hey!" That was the first word I had heard in hours. However, they were the last words I ever wanted to hear.

I didn't look back but I knew he was chasing me. His steps were not masked by the puddles, I could hear every time he stepped foot on the wet ground. His footsteps became louder and I felt a tug on my hood. I turned to look and swung my arm around, he dodged and grabbed my forearm. He tugged, he pulled, his grasp was so strong it cut off my circulation. He tightened his grip and stared at me with his deathly black eyes. I was trying to break free, nothing worked. I shot my leg up to kick him in the stomach as he jolted away. His grip loosened and I yanked my arm out of his grasp. I ran and ran until I found an alleyway.

I placed myself against the hard, cold rocks. There was a dumpster near by in the dark opening. I knew I shouldn't speak, but my voice was squeaking as I crouched down and sat by the farthest end of the trash. There was a bag on my other side, I sat in between two stinking piles of garbage. Wonderful. My breath was cold, airy, and flowed in the chilling wind. I breathed heavily, my lungs were cold and felt like they were dried up, shriveled. I didn't know where the man was, I didn't even think he moved from his position at all. I was scared, frightened, unable to process what to do. I had a dead phone, been left alone, crying in the cold, and left completely unaware of my surroundings. I held my breath but it managed to escape, I made noises, gulping noises, I was scared and whimpered, I was scared to be pressed up against the wall. For all I knew, the man could have been super close behind me, for all I knew, he could have been miles away. I was stuck in that position until I knew for sure he had passed by, sadly, I was still waiting for this moment to come...

I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it wasn't long enough. I felt something sharp underneath me and used the time to try and get up, but I was now in a chair position against the wall. There were footsteps in the puddles and I knew that I could either live or die in this very moment. I have to keep this stance.

He clicked his gun, ready to shoot. As a sleuth, he walked around, crouching almost. I could see his feet from underneath the trash bin, they were slow and gradually getting closer. Until...

He made it to my corner.

He stood there and a tear escaped my eye. I whimpered but kept quiet. He kept his ground and put the gun to his side. He waited, and waited, and waited until... there was a noise. It was a garbage can, the top had fallen off and was now ringing around like a hula-hoop. However, it wasn't me, something rustled from the other end of the alleyway and he immediately yanked his gun from his side to up in front of him. I heard the noise from the gun, silent but deadly. It clicked, ready to shoot by the pull of a trigger. He was ready to walk in the dark and mysterious alleyway until a rat came scurrying about. It came wobbly, teeter-totting towards me, and then wobbled over to the murderer. He looked down at the rat and pointed the gun to it. The rat stopped and looked up on its hind legs. He shot it and the last thing I heard was a little twitching squeal that died out. I could feel my body shivering, trembling, the ground didn't feel sturdy, my legs didn't feel still. I was wobbly, wobbling in place as my lips quivered. My eyes were closing and tears were wetting my face. My discolored eyes were surrounded by red outer edges. I could feel my body loosening and losing stability. I relied on the wall to keep my posture steady and to keep me up instead of falling and possibly even dying.

He slowly looked up and kept his gun in the same place as he did when he killed the rat. He moved his gun up and pointed it towards the alley. He didn't move his arms at all, the gun was still at the same height. Only the way it shoots the bullet would be different, only the aim could possibly kill someone. He flicked the gun and flipped it around in his hand to bring it down to his side. He took it and slowly put the weapon away in his pocket. He looked back and walked along, I thought I was free. I slowly started to let out my breath until a large gunshot was fired into the air. I slingshotted my hand to my mouth to cover it and prevent myself from screaming. All that was on my face were dried up tears and newly shed ones. No smile or form of happiness was in my body.

When I knew for sure he had walked away, I slouched down and sat on the cold, wet, concrete floor, completely disregarding the sharp object centimeters away. My hand was getting wet from my tears and my legs were already lifeless. My hair was tangled and my phone was dead, everything was falling apart. Nothing seemed to stay together anymore, no matter how hard I tried...everything would backfire, everything would fall, everything would flash right before me. I cried into my knees and sobbed, my head hurt, my eyes were aching, my back was killing me, my hair was too messy to even do anything, and my life was falling, bit by bit.

~~~~

"Do you need some help?" I heard a voice say as it walked closer to me and held out its hand. I looked up from my legs to have foggy vision. I blinked a bit to notice the scariest and most frightful thing I have ever seen. She was back.

"No, get away!" I tried to scurry away while looking back and forth between her and the remaining darkness behind me. At this point, I was ready to hop into a car and take my chances.

"Oh no, I was only offering some help." Her voice became deeper as her sentence progressed, it echoed, it became more menacing with each syllable.

I started breathing heavy and began to lose my balance, I was already on the floor, what more could happen? My voice was cracking and I wasn't even saying real words. I was trying to move away but hit my spine on the sharp edge of a building. I held in the pain but stumbled to get back up. I picked myself up without looking back and trying to sprint as far as I can to get away.

I stopped.

My breathing slowed and my eyes watered.

My body was numb and cold. 

I made noises to express my pain but it was harder than usual.

I felt the object leave my body and I dropped. My knees weakened, my body unable to hold up its own weight. The last thing I felt was cold, wet, concrete.