The Blind Witness

1: The bus stop

A vivid slash in the grey drizzle of the evening. He's carrying an umbrella, the bright fabric worn and fraying at the edges, its colour too bold for someone like him. He was always muted before, like the world had dulled him. But now, that red stands out, fierce and wrong, like a wound in the murky underbelly of the sky.

I freeze on the bus steps, my breath faltering, pale fingers clutching the cold metal rail. He was standing in the bleak bus stop. His watery charcoal eyes brush over mine as we pass, they hold no recognition.

Empty.

Cavernous, like they've been scooped out. His skin, the colour of ash, stretches taut across sharp bones, and haggard feet dragging down the granite. We don't speak. I don't even think he sees me. But it's like the world bends around him. It's darker, colder, shadows crawling at the edges.

The door hisses shut behind me, and the bus lurches into motion. My legs feel like lead as I sink into a seat, the cold vinyl sticking to my legs. My hands are trembling, slick with cold sweat. I can't stop gaping at the spot where he stood, the place where we crossed paths, and yet I can't shake the feeling he's still out there, his presence clinging to the air, curling up inside me like smoke, heavy and bitter, filling up my lungs until I can't breathe.

I feel it all over again, a serrated blade pressed to my throat, a feeling I've buried so deep it rots in the marrow of my bones. I choke on the guilt clawing its way up, devouring me.

I need to tell someone. The guilt is gnawing at me, turning sharp.

I call Emma from the back of the bus, the rain still falling, my hands still shaking. My voice is barely a whisper when I say it.

"I saw him," I murmur. "He was at the bus stop. He had a red umbrella."

The silence on the other end feels too loud, too long.

"That's impossible," she says, her voice like glass about to shatter.

"What do you mean? I saw him, Emma. I know it was him."

She inhales sharply, and when she speaks again her voice trembles.

"He's been dead for three years y/n," she finally said, her voice low, hesitant. "No family. No one knew how it happened..."

The words swallow me, folding me into myself. My stomach churns, and the world feels colder, smaller. I look out the window again, my breath fogging the glass. The streetlights blur in the rain, but all I see is red, bleeding through the darkness, fading, but never quite gone.

He's gone.

But that red, it lingers, like the memory of blood on my hands.

A/N -These chapters will be very short because they're all being written as short stories. (and separately being handed in to my english teacher who thinks she's the only one reading them)