Different Worlds

I never thought that anything could hurt this much. To be in love with someone who so clearly didn't love me back. There were two words for it - unrequited love. I could remember clear as a bell his voice whispering into my ear that he loved me - no more than a week ago - yet here he was, standing straight across the street from me, his arms wound around my best-friend's waist. Make that my ex-best friend. They were both completely oblivious to their surroundings as they continued to kiss each other with a passion that I could see even from this distance. My eyes blurred as the tears in them became so overpowering I could see nothing around me. I was over it! I was over men who couldn't commit, I was over men who were only after a one night stand. And most of all, I was over men who just didn't know the meaning of those three important words - men who could say them one day and then do something that would completely contradict them the next! And I was over best friends too.

I wiped the tears away furiously with the back of my sleeve. I'd been crying so much that my sleeve had become saturated from the salt water that flowed effortlessly from my eyes. He wasn't worth it. They weren't worth it. Let them have each other!

With great effort I managed to stop myself from crying - though it was too late to stop looking like a complete idiot to everyone else on the street. It was in this moment that the make-out fest across the street stopped, and my ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend finally noticed me. Trying to hold onto whatever dignity I had left, I turned and walked away as fast as my legs would allow, with only time to catch the frozen looks of surprise and guilt on their faces.

I walked as hard and as fast as I could, and though I had managed to stop the waterworks a moment before, I wasn't capable of holding them off. I broke into a run, the only thought going through my frantic mind was to get inside my apartment where I would be free to cry for as long and as hard as I wanted. There was just one problem. I had been running just to get away in the heat of the moment and I hadn't been paying any attention to where I was going. And now I had no idea where I was. I looked around me and saw that I had inadvertently run into a part of town that I had never been into in my life. I must have come a lot further that I had thought. Prostitutes were hanging around on the corners of the streets underneath the dull street lights which had just switched on, and suspicious-looking guys were looking at me with interest.

I pulled my jacket around me tightly as if I were hoping that it could shield me from any danger, and began walking quickly.

"Hey baby," one creepy-looking guy slurred. "You wanna party? Come with me, I can show ya a good time."

I broke into a run again, this time trying to find my way out of this hellish part of town. In my eagerness to escape I tripped over my own feet onto the pavement, causing blood to spill out from the stinging scrape on my right knee. Ignoring it, I got to my feet again and continued to run, trying to block out the suggestively disgusting things that were coming from the mouths of men who could probably only ever get sex by paying for it.

I was completely lost. I had no idea where I was going or how to get back to my apartment - to the safe side of town. I had no money on me so a cab fare was out of the question too.

I could hear feet coming after me, and I looked behind only to see the sorry excuse for a human who had 'propositioned' me chasing me down. There was absolutely no way - I pushed myself even harder. I turned corners and ran down streets that I had never even known were there before. Then I ran down an alley hoping to escape only to come to a dead end, with the unsavoury character getting closer. I felt like a frightened animal caught in a cage. I had no idea what to do, and I had ever been so frightened in my life. What self-defence did I know? I'd only ever taken one self-defence class in my life, and right now the fright was making my mind draw a complete blank. The only thing I could think of was to scream, but my throat was so dry that no sound would come out.

It was then that I noticed something strange - something that made me forget to be so scared. I walked to the right-hand-side of the alley up to the back corner and looked down. There was a black - hole? Chasm? right in the corner. I put my foot down on top of it and it went right through, but the second I did this I couldn't pull it out. Instead I could feel my entire body being sucked right through. At this point I didn't know what was worse - letting that disgusting creep catch up with me and taking my chances on getting away, or getting sucked into some black chasm in the corner of a dark alley. Not much of a choice.

I could see the silhouette of the man at the start of the alley begin to come towards me. That made up my mind. Taking a deep breath I closed my eyes and let the suction of the chasm pull me in. Darkness closed over as the world above me disappeared.