Prayin' For You

Shuddering

My body trembled as I awoke in a severe cold sweat hanging off my knitted brows. My eyes darted around my quiet one bedroom village hut. I heaved heavily hunched over as my hands held me up firmly pressing and grasping my red wine colored cotton sheets. I flexed every muscle awake, letting my bones crain and ache from jolting up out my sleep so quickly. I found myself staring over at my dresser mirror that rested directly in front of my king sized bed. I watched as my doey brown eyes flickered through the night air wrinkles setting above my brow. I looked a mess, a wreck indeed. In the mist if my self-analyzation, I heard it.

A cry in the dark; a plea that fell on deaf ears that surrounded us. I cringed at the sound, making my calming heart rate reboot itself into overdrive again. In a matter of seconds I found myself scurrying out of my drenched bedding and on my feet again. My adrenaline pumping like mating jack rabbits, I could barely hear myself think. I was at it, shoes gracing my feet, my white T-shirt coated in a thick layer of sweat, and my black knit pajama pants hanging low off my waist. I jetted out my bedroom, down the hall, and soon out the front door like I had been late for the only bus to take me to school for the day. Sweating like a Hebrew slave in the Wakandan nightfall. I felt my feet kick up all dirt and gravel as the peircing cries screech through my head over and over again.

I kept telling myself I was coming, I was going to make it, but this journey a very familiar one always ended with me arriving a little too late. I quickened my pace, as I passed up a few of my neighbors that rocked along on their porches. Some humming what seemed like to the thumping of my heart or the pace of my feet as they treaded off the graveled dirt roads. Others calling out as if I was in a marathon, shaming me as the town's idiot watching and antagonizing me knowing I was on my way to my own destruction. I paid them no mind as I looked down the road, coming in view with the what seemed to be glowing home. It was the only house illuminated on the block, well to that capacity at least. I heard it again, the pleading ping, the cry, if my legs wasn't already moving fast enough they sure were racing now.

As I came to the porch steps I looked around the two-story home alert and now fully awake. I decided to take this slow, as I heard the blaring of the music and the drowned out weeps and whimpers coming from inside the house as the screen door is what separated the outside from the in. I came to the door slowly peering inside the lit up foyer, I sighed seeing no telltale signs of destruction or damage. I grabbed the handle of the door, opening it with caution and slight worry not wanting it to creak. I looked to my glowing kimoyo beads seeing that I still had two unread messages. I already knew what they were about, I just didn't have the heart to look at them. I closed the door behind me as I entered the house fully.

My first instinct was to call out so I wouldn't cause heavy alarm but I settled for complete stealth thinking that was a truly better option. My head snapped in the direction of a faint weep as the music still erupted from inside of the living room. I came into view of the winding staircase and living room. I made my way into the living room seeing no sign of life, I quickly turned off the stereo. I looked around cautiously listening out for any movement. I heard nothing, that's where I started to relax by a notch. I turned my head back to the direction of the weeping sound from a moment ago. The kitchen, I passed up the dining room and made my way into the kitchen only to see a body laying hopelessly on the ground. Light trails of blood and a knife, a pot, and a pan scattered amongst little shards of glistening glass. I immediately went to the person, who weeped lowly into their arm.