TENSIONS. || a story i wrote for a language arts assignment

The pale moonlight glowed across my features as I ran, my breathing heavy and my footsteps seeming way too loud. As I stared in front of me, willing myself to continue on despite my much needed breathing break, I tried to block out the noise.

Hearing the maniacal laughter, it was as if he wanted to trick me. Perhaps he wanted me to believe that he was closer than I had initially thought he was to begin with.

That couldn't be true. Could it? With all I had, it felt as if I had already been running for hours, and at times I would stumble over my feet clumsily. When I did, I would always pause and inwardly scold myself, telling myself that I shouldn't be tripping over myself when a literal murderer was after me. I knew it was just a way for me to finally get a small breather, no matter what the consequences might end up being because of that.

Yet I knew I didn't have any time for that. No breathing breaks, no scolding myself, nothing. I had to push myself past my full limits, no matter how hard it hurt me. Why?

Nobody who came across this killer lived to tell their tales yet. He'd been on the run for over three months and yet he still somehow remained anonymous, even after just a few months that seemed to drag on forever the longer he had been on the run.

How was that even possible? How was any of this even possible? I kept repeatedly asking myself what I had done to deserve this, to deserve the fate of a most probably gruesome death in the end. Did he go after just anyone? Did he handpick those he went after? I certainly hoped it wasn't the latter. However, a gut feeling told me it might just be.

Whilst I ran, I decided to glaze over all of the just tiny bad things up to the horribly unspoken things I'd done up into this point of my life. Did apologizing even work anymore, when I had no idea who I was apologizing to anyways? I wished that I knew.

I so badly wanted to know who he was.