Alethea has always been awkward - eccentric, even. On a typical day she spends her time cloistered inside a tiny apartment hiding from the world she doesn't really understand. When her therapist encourages her to push herself outside her comfort zon...
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Everyone is afraid of something. My problem was I couldn't find anything I wasn't afraid of. I had all of the typical phobias like the fear of heights, spiders, and clowns, but I also had a few more uncommon ones like mysophobia. Mysophobia is more commonly called germaphobia and it was the reason I was currently having a panic attack on the sidewalk outside of my local supermarket.
Grocery stores are cesspools of germs. Even in less populated areas supermarkets can see traffic upwards of a thousand people a day. Those same people – disgusting, contaminated, petri dishes of various bacteria – touch everything in the store, unknowingly passing their germs and illnesses along to other unlucky people.
On any other day I would have had my groceries delivered to my home so I could stay in my own clean, controlled environment, but my delivery boy had moved away and I had yet to find a replacement. So I found myself having to brave the task.
I had chosen to shop at night hoping to avoid larger crowds, but there were still quite a few people walking around. I took a deep pull from my inhaler and tried to slow my racing heart. Several passers-by had been giving me strange looks, though I couldn't blame them. After all, I had been standing in underneath the streetlight for twenty odd minutes just staring at the shiny doors with dread. And from my reflection in the glass, my hair was rather wild and my expression was manic.
Plucking up all the courage I had, I took two steps into the store and looked around. It seemed relatively clean, but I knew the truth: handles of shopping carts were filthier than some public bathroom door handles. Baskets were a safer bet, but not by much. Picking one up with extreme prejudice, I held it with only two fingers and far away from my body. Pulling the germ-x from my pocket I coated the basket with it and then put two coats on my hands. Better safe than sorry.
Less than nine minutes and two bottles of hand sanitizer later, I had what I deemed was enough groceries and fled toward the checkout line like the aisle behind me was on fire. My left eye had developed a twitch and my lungs were burning badly but I didn't dare fish my inhaler out of my pocket until I knew my hands were clean.
The teenager at the checkout looked rather concerned with my obvious nervous breakdown, but he kept his opinions to himself. In all honesty I might have gotten through it without incident if it hadn't been for the man behind me.
His sneeze echoed like a gunshot through the store and I stood frozen in horror and disgust.
"Excuse me," he said, unconcerned, as if he hadn't just possibly brought death upon us all.
My eyes stared at the bags of groceries in front of me, but I wasn't truly looking at them. My mind was far away, envisioning all of the possible illnesses I could have just contracted from this sick stranger.
To get my attention the cashier cleared his throat and instructed, "Ma'am, that's thirty-two fifty."
"Right," I managed to croak in his general direction. "Here."
After shoving a fifty at him, I picked up my bags and shot out of the store, not caring that I was supposed to wait for my change. At least I only lived a block from the store. I could hurry home and hopefully wash the germs off before they had time to incubate.
"Hey, lady!" the man from the checkout line yelled at me. "You forgot your change!"
"No, no, no," I hissed under my breath and walked faster. "This cannot be happening. For the love of all things holy, please don't let him catch up to me."
"Lady! Hey, lady!"
"It's okay!" I called back over my shoulder. "Please, just keep the change!"
"I can't do that!" he shouted in return. "It wouldn't be right. Here, wait!"
I could feel my lungs contracting. It was only minutes before I had an asthma attack and there was no way I was going to touch my inhaler with my filthy hands. No way.
"Hey, just wait up!" he called again. He was sprinting to keep up with me now and I prayed with all my might that he would just give up and leave me alone.
Unfortunately some deity had to have it out for me because as I turned to look behind me, I slipped in a puddle and slid four feet off the sidewalk and into the nearby drainage ditch. The final catalyst: seeing a dead raccoon floating in the water beside my head – its body bloated and bloody.
The asthma attack I had feared having earlier hit like a freight train and as my lungs seized up painfully the man from the grocery store finally caught up to me. As if things couldn't get any worse, as he approached I saw him wipe his nose and then use the same hand to pull me up out of the water. My palms had grown clammy and the snotty man's voice had been replaced with the thudding boom of my heartbeat in my ears.
"Hey, are you feeling alright?" I heard another voice say to my left. "Let her go, man. Can't you see she's having a panic attack?"
Looking around I came face to face with an angel. Well, not literally, but he was gorgeous. He glared at the man from the grocery store and I let out a whimper of relief as snotty man finally let go of my wrist and took a few steps back.
"Hey, easy," the newcomer whispered to me. "Concentrate on my voice. You're going to be okay."
Temporarily forgetting my aversion to touch, I let this new man take my elbow and lead me away. The people passing us seemed eager to make a path for him and averted their eyes as if they were afraid. That baffled me. How could they fear him? Couldn't they see this man had saved me?
I ignored their reactions. The humid air outside didn't even bother me for once. My sole attention was focused on the man leading me down the sidewalk. His blond hair glowed underneath the streetlights making him seem even more angelic, but his black leather jacket and boots conflicted with that image. A fallen angel perhaps?
On any other day I would never have allowed myself to get this close to a stranger. I had never met this man before in my life. Why was I so comfortable with him? Looking at the leather of his jacket firmly creased under my arm, I wondered why I felt so strange, so alien.
"I'm sorry about this," he whispered to me. "But she's given me no choice."
His voice was music to my ears and I stared at him in confusion. Sorry for what?
I didn't scream or run when he lured me into a dark alley: it didn't even occur to me. I felt no fear as he transformed into something monstrous before my eyes: his teeth becoming fangs and his fingernails lengthening into talons.
It was only after it was all over and I was drained of blood that feeling returned. Fear and pain began to blossom throughout my body, but before it could completely take hold the dark angel commanded, "You will forget what happened here."
