The Wind, the Fear, the Waves Below

As Christopher passed by his bedroom window, something caught his eye. He stopped in his tracks and walked back to the window, pressing his face up close to the glass. Across Pembroke Alley, in the apartment directly opposite his, a girl stood framed in the window pane. Not that it was strange, a girl at the window, except for the fact that the apartment had been abandoned for quite some time, and Christopher hadn't heard of anyone that had come to live there recently. Yet there she was, staring right at him with an unwavering gaze. Her appearance was disheveled and mangy. She had scratches marking the skin up her arms and neck and a bruise on her left cheek. She looked to Christopher as if she hadn't slept in weeks. Her hair was matted on one side and she was made mostly of skin and bone, a tiny frame in a tattered blue dress. Though the rest of her appeared tired and deflated, her eyes were a strong piercing blue. Not a greenish blue, like the Irish sea, or a cornflower blue like the sky. They were a deep, penetrating blue, a blue that made Christopher wonder if every blue he had ever seen until today had just been a reflection of the blue of her eyes. He held his breath. He was scared that if he were to breathe she would disappear, possibly forever. He wanted to save her from whatever had caused her blue eyes to well up with tears. As a tear slid down her cheek, he felt his own eyes filling with water, and the girl's reflection in the window became cloudy and blurred. Suddenly, a whooping cough from downstairs snapped him out of his trance. He jumped from the unexpected noise, dropping his camera on the ground. He glanced down at the camera at his feet for just a tenth of a second, but by the time he looked back out at the window the girl had vanished. Christopher's eyes cleared as he stared at the place where she had been standing only seconds ago. He couldn't explain it, but somehow Christopher felt even more alone than he had earlier that morning.