I tug on my hand, but it’s stuck
fast to the handprint on the wall. Is the person getting closer, it’s hard to
tell but I feel a heat, like I’m moving closer to a bonfire.
I tug as hard as I can and my
hand comes away. The man disappears before my eyes, like someone, someone has
turned him off. I know it’s a man. I can’t say how, but something about him
feels inherently mannish. Like I could see him but I couldn’t.
Is that what the man on the
street led me to? Is he there even now, just out of my vision.
Frightened by the idea, I
stumble backwards and make my way back down the stairs leaving the handprint,
now tinged slightly blue behind me.
I run down the stairs a little
too quickly, so my legs take over from my brain and do the work for me. I reach
the lobby and sprint out the front door. I feel an echo now, a presence in the
place, like lines of smoke on the air, tendrils worming their way towards me
and inching their way towards my skin.
I close my eyes and burst
through the door into the sunlight. I keep going and barrel right into someone.
The wind is knocked out of me
and I feel very sick all of a sudden. Falling back onto the floor, I come to
rest and wipe my brow. Cold sweat comes away with my hand, and the feeling of
sickness intensifies.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
says the girl. She picks herself off the ground and pulls back a shock of pink
hair that has fallen over her face.
‘I-I…’ I stammer.
‘Use your words,’ she says,
looking at me with exceptionally dark eyes. They must be a very dark shade of
brown.
‘I’m sorry,’ I finish. ‘Wait,
are you dead?’
‘Well aren’t we a charmer,’ she
says, sitting cross legged on the ground. ‘I like to think if myself as living.’
I nod as I agree with her. I
look from side to side, watching out for the starbright man.
‘I’d say you look like you’ve
seen a ghost,’ she starts. ‘But I’d have to eternally condemn myself for using
a dreadful cliché.’
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