Author Games: Empty Night

Semifinals: Ozias Alva

Midnight was the kind of hour that you could feel in your bones. It was an ache. Deep and heavy, like a thick blanket spread over your body that forced all the air out of your lungs. You could feel the pressure building up as the minutes ticked away, getting closer and closer to true midnight the higher up the moon rose in the sky. But real midnight, absolute midnight, seemed to last so much longer than sixty seconds. Midnight could be hours. Or days. Weeks, even. Until you forgot entirely how the sun felt against your skin and the color of the sky. It was liminal space: the threshold between what had been and what would be.

This was one of those midnights. I wasn't cold, but my hands rubbed at my arms anyways, chasing away goosebumps that didn't exist. The hot tears rolling down my cheeks had long since evaporated and left only their ghosts behind. Nothing was real. Not the air I pulled into my lungs, or the rush of a stray car flying past, or even the uneven sidewalk beneath my feet. Everything that mattered, everything that existed, had somewhere better to be than here.

Step on a crack, break your mother's back, I thought numbly. Call it superstition— even though stupidity would be more accurate— but the rhyme stopped me from stepping on so much as a fracture in the concrete.

I didn't recognize the buildings around me. Under normal circumstances, I probably would have been more concerned. But if I'm honest— getting lost was the furthest thing from my mind. My eyes were glued to the sidewalk, following it wherever it would go. The phone in my pocket stayed cold. Silent. Mom didn't know I was gone yet. Fingers twitching, I slowed to a stop long enough to pull out the tiny screen and unlock it. I squinted through the brightness, sliding my finger across the screen to tone it down to a more tolerable level. It would have been so easy to send her a text message. My thumb hovered over the screen, waiting. Hey, I wanted to write, I needed to clear my head. Went for a walk. Somehow, the words wouldn't come. Slowly, I slid the phone back into my pocket, comforted by its temporary warmth.

If I had checked the time, I would have seen that midnight was over. But I didn't. Instead, I kept walking.

Headlights flooded the ground beneath me, casting elongated shadows that stretched onwards into the darkened path. The steady thrum of a car engine behind me wasn't any cause for alarm, just another person passing through on their way to somewhere else. But the car never passed me there on the shoulder. It stopped, engine quieting as a door slammed and feet met the ground. "Ozias!" a voice called, and I shut my eyes. For a moment, I thought about just bolting. Anything was better than the shitshow I'd be in once I got home. "Don't run, I'm a friend of Adam's!" Christ. Cops. My feet slowed to a stop, a heavy sigh shaking my shoulders as I turned.

I couldn't see much of the officer that approached me from the car. The headlights washed out most of his details in light, leaving me squinting the closer he came. Something wasn't right. Without thinking, I slid my hand down towards my pocket, fingertips brushing against the top of it. Hesitation squirmed in the pit of my stomach, keeping me rooted to the spot. "Look, kid," he took a step forward, blocking out more of the headlights as he did, "we've got patrol cars looking everywhere for you." Why would they call the police first? "Hop in, let me take you home." Why wouldn't they call me?

"I—" Blood. A smear of red against the driver's side of the windshield. Another one just barely visible on the end of his sleeve. Chills shivered up my body, pulling my feet backward as I tried to put more distance between us. "Actually, I think I'll walk," I told him, keeping my voice as steady as I could muster. "It's not far."

My heart pounded in my chest. It grew faster when he smiled, cocking his head to one side with a shrug of his shoulders. "I get it." He took a step closer. I took another one back. "It's been a hard night. But I promise, I can talk your folks out of grounding you," he offered. Oh god— He was still getting closer, heavy boots hitting the pavement with a dull thud each time he took a step.