𝗕𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗗 𝗔𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗖𝗞 𝗔𝗦 𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗥 ⚔︎

4

drenched in a cold sweat, giovanni roused himself awake from a night terror.

he dreamt that he was alone, whistling a tune and minding his business, strolling down a dark alleyway somewhere in the city — when suddenly, a large hand had grabbed him by the throat and began to strangle him. helpless in the stranger's grasp, he choked and struggled and gasped for air, trying to pry the hand off of his neck. he could not see their face, only a hand; a big pasty hand with bruised and hairy knuckles. then, everything had slowly went dark, but the choking feeling had stayed until he managed to flee, back into the safety net of the real world.

giovanni looked at the time on the alarm clock beside his bed. the blinking red letters read 3:42am. he glanced around his room and heaved for breath, checking his surroundings for possible danger. rubbing his eyes, he felt a deep ache in his chest, almost as if it was going to crumble and cave in on itself. he settled his head back onto the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

when giovanni was a little boy, he had often had night terrors. they mostly happened during his summer visits to mother's house — he had no idea why, and neither did sofia — but she knew how to handle them much better than his father did. his mother would clamber into his tiny bed, kiss him and stroke his hair until he fell back to sleep, while ivan would either smack him for screaming too loud or force a finger of whisky down his throat to sedate him. from the ages of three to eight, when said terrors occurred, he would scream and cry and thrash around as something tortured him relentlessly, either physically or mentally. luckily, he grew out of it, and the terrors got scarcer and scarcer as he got older — but when they did happen, somehow they became more intense and more disturbing — each one being a thousand times worse than the last. there could be months, if not years, between each terror.

grumbling to himself, he heaved himself out of bed, his whole body feeling as heavy as a million bricks. he went into his closet and searched inside of the drawers for a pair of trainers, some running shorts, and a pullover hoodie: a quick run around central park would surely clear his head. he put the hood on and tied the strings together in order to keep his shaved head warm. since november had crept in, the weather in new york had soon turned sour — the icy air nipped at your ears and fingertips and drives of snow had begun coat the city streets in a pale white sheet.

giovanni took his keys and marched out of his bedroom, along the hallway and to the front door. halfway down in the elevator, he realised that he had forgotten his walkman, but figured that it was probably for the best. it was late (or rather, very early) and central park at any time of day could be dangerous, especially if you were alone. he needed to be alert — it was not often he encountered trouble in new york, as he was the one often perceived as the threat, and not the other way around. people seemed to steer clear from him. he was rather intimidating to a regular american.

after steadily jogging for six blocks, he reached central park, a fine sheen of sweat dampening his forehead. since waking up a mere twenty minutes ago, all of his senses of time and rhythm had been blurred: he carried on regardless, picking up the pace and running faster through the trees. the golden beams from the lampposts up above were his only guide. his ears managed to make out the hoots of an owl from afar, and a fox with its jaws full of discarded food dashed out in front of him across the concrete path, gone once again in a split second. fresh snow crunched under his shoes and he could feel his cheeks and the tip of his nose slowly turning pink. as he ran, his breath swirled out of his mouth in silver wisps, only just visible against the darkness of the night.

giovanni ran south in the direction of the lake and the meadow. pushing onwards, his lungs and his legs worked together tirelessly. for a moment, as he tried to control his breathing, he zoned out, thinking about jesse and how they used to go running together, back when he lived with the lavignes in their queens mansion: jesse was always better at it than he was (and often teased him for it). they would never go during the day. it was always first thing in the morning or right before bed — he had never told jesse that he always favoured the nightly runs, as they would stop beside hewlett point and look out into the still, tranquil waters of the long island sound. they had never said much to each other on their runs, but he didn't mind (those moments were often the only times he could get him alone). he wondered where jesse could even be now on his adventure along the east coast. he still hadn't received any calls from him — which worried him, to say the least, but he knew that if there was trouble, jesse would call him the minute it went down, like he always did.