A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Eight: Part Two

“Uh . . . um . . . um . . . !”

I stammered as we approached the freeway. The whirring of the traffic droned through the evening surroundings.

The sky above us was slowly fading into a dark shade of indigo. Small, white specks began to appear in the night sky.

“Um—“ I began, though I was promptly interrupted.

“What is it?” the boy murmured irritably, turning a furrowed brow towards me.

I pursed my lips together. The whole point of arriving to the beltway before sunset fell was so I would have a sense of direction. Now that the sunset had already fallen, I couldn’t tell which direction was which.

The lights of the brightly lit freeway and the fluorescents of rushing traffic gleamed into our eyes.

As soon as we were just a turn away from the streets, the boy shoved my back against the walls of the entrance.

“We should stay behind the white line,” the boy whispered, peering his gaze towards me. “Unless an ambulance comes, we won’t really need to worry about getting run over.”

I eyed his gaze with my mouth slightly and unknowingly ajar. His eyes had a blend of scarlet and brown, like the sands on a beach during a sunset. When he tilted his head, his eyes seemed to glitter. I could easily have gotten lost staring at the swirls of red and brown until the moment his eyes peered back at mine, harshly narrowed, and whipped away.

The boy promptly released his grip on my sleeve. “Stay close behind me. Don’t wander off.”

“Wait!”

The boy had begun to step into the freeway, but he paused as I tugged on his arm.

He whipped his gazeback around, focusing on my grasp on his arm.

“We have to go west!” I informed, whipping my grip off of his arm. “We can’t tell which way is which.”

The boy raised a finger towards his mouth. A few seconds after he nibbled his fingertip, he raised it into the air.

I immediately recognized the breeze blowing past us.

He lowered his hand to his side and twirled it back around towards the freeway. He pointed around the corner of the wall we were standing beside.

“It’s that-a-way,”

“That-a-way’?” I repeated, peering curiously at the boy. “How do you know that?”

“The news said the wind was blowing east today,” he began, slowly turning his gaze back towards me. “I heard it after school. I was late because I ran into—“

He abruptly paused.

“Hmm?” I chirped, stepping towards the boy in curiosity. “Ran into what?”

The boy began to amble towards the freeway. “Well? Aren’t you coming?”

I gave the boy a firm nod and I clumsily stepped towards him.

“Stay close to me. Don’t wander around, okay?”

We hurried around the corner and into the freeway. It seemed that this boy had been my sunset. I felt relief for finally finding the beltway. But could something lingering in the freeways be even more dangerous than the Hanabusa household?