pearled fever

Alarm Bells and Red Lights

Toby

2:37am, September 2.

I planted my shoe firmly in the soil beneath it, my breathing deep and shallow the same. My eyes burned with pain induced tears. Pain induced wasn't quite the term I should use. See, although my body knew it should be feeling something excruciating my nerves didn't quite get the message. I haven't felt a twinge of pain since the car trash that took my sister. Speaking of cars; I'd just been hit by one. Still in slight shock from my form tumbling across the hood of a brand new white Mazda MX-5 now smeared with my blood, I scurried into the treeline of a thick forest. After limping for a while I propped myself on a tall mossy pine tree, dropping one of my hatchets and inspecting my wounds. I'd already had a gash on my lower leg from the night before, now it was open and gushing cerise pus. My knees and forearms were rubescent, presumably a result of landing all fours on the rough dirt road. My body was heavy and heaving. I knelt to rewrap my shin, that was when I first saw her. 

Apprehensive, I jerked to run and felt a jolt of discomfort in my now cascading waterfall of a leg. Her figure was slender with a slight power behind it, dark hair wisped around her cheeks. I must admit to seeing her before. She walked these woods every night, the same time as myself. I always left her unbothered, silently ushering her to the end of the beaten in track. I assumed this was the first time she'd noticed me. She stood in complete silence, eyeing me, unblinking. It was starteling to see her this way, I'd always seen her vulnerable and bouncy, taking in the sounds of the night, breathing in the salty scents of the river. 

The girl flicked around something in her hand, "Don't move!" She yelled, too loud for the thirty or so feet between us. I couldn't get away or attack in the condition I was in, as if I would attack the gorgeous innocent bystander I'd been trying to protect for half a year. Raising my hands and straightening my posture, I kicked the hatchet that was already in front of me further ahead and threw it's pair next to it. "You-" My voice was raspy and light, I cleared my throat and tried again, "you got a bandaid?"

I could just make out a slight furrow of her brow, her thick bangs swept back by the breeze. The curious stranger stepped forward trepidatiously, legs quivering in the cool fall air, closing the feet between us. Thirty, twenty-five, twenty. She reached an awkward leg forward, shuffling both hatchets behind her on the dirt. Next thing I knew, I was blinded by the light of her phone. "Show me your face." The dark haired girl demanded with a thrust of her knife. I did as I was told and slowly reached toward my mask and goggles. A sharp breath slipped through her plump parted lips, not an uncommon reaction upon seeing my face these days. She dropped her light and receded, almost tripping over my weapons.

"N-No! No, you're dead. You're supposed to be dead." She was right, I faked my death a handful of months ago before fleeing into these very woods where I met the being who would change my life, for better or worse I am still yet to decide. I burned my family house to the ground after stabbing the man I was forced to call my father to death. I was supposed to have been killed in the fire, although they never found my body. Probably due to the fact I'm still alive... on the outside. Hey, I have the right to be an angsty teen! 

The girl's gaping mouth reminded me of niceties and social etiquettes. I guess, I need to explain myself? "Listen, I killed my dad, set a fire and fucked off, what more do you want from me?" Her face twisted and she shuffled back as much as her frozen legs would let her, "I'm bleeding out here, help me, help me!" I dropped my arms and restarted tending to my shin while the girl started scrambling for her phone that was now by my feet. I managed to snatch it before she could, and shook my head. The last thing I need are the pig like police on my ass. Then she lunged.