Heavy Shadows

The autumn air bit at her exposed cheeks as her footfalls hit hard against the pavement. With her car in the shop and that bill soon looming in the back of her mind Larkyn knew she had to spend the money she had wisely. The sun had set long ago and Wyatt, her long-time friend had asked where she had been. The corner store with one flickering lamppost wasn’t too far from the rinky-dink little apartment they shared. The little apartment was leagues better for her little brother Cassian than the abusive household-they ran from. It was a beautiful house sure but on the inside, just stepping through the threshold anyone could feel the tension, the anger, the sorrow.

For Larkyn just thinking about it was the same as being right back in the house. She shook her head, knocked her hair loose from her hood, and stepped back towards the apartment. Even with the darkness loose around her, she stepped steadily, not ready to let her worries get the best of her.

She had faced worse darkness, she wasn’t scared of her own shadow.

A few cars would pass every now and then their headlights shining on her lone figure, stretching her shadow behind her again and again. Once even a driver flashed their brights and she looked up, slowed her pace and carefully traded the bags to one hand before she pulled out her mace. Larkyn took a few more steps before she whipped around and pulled the trigger on her mace only to spray the absence behind her.

“H-Hello?”

“Is anyone else out here?”

Larkyn stopped for a second before she rolled her eyes at her own actions “Yes Lark, ‘cuz the person trying to kill you is gonna answer. You’re just a crazy person macing and shouting to the wind.”

She turned on her heel, her stomach in knots and her body like bricks. She had just wanted to get home to Wyatt and Cas. With her mind overly distracted she hadn’t noticed the body step forth from the all-consuming shadows. He slinked like a cat, fluid, and silent until he stepped in her old footfalls. He waited for complete silence.

One moment she was on the sidewalk bags in hand the next she was gone, just like the sun. He wrapped an arm around her torso a hand upon her lips.

Larkyn stomach became weightless, her feet feathers. She could’ve floated from there if only she wasn’t held down. He held her to the backside of a building in an alley. The darkness around them swallowed them like an abyss. A passing car shined enough light on the man’s face for Larkyn to remember him.

He pulled her from the wall and slammed her much smaller frame into the pavement. As Larkyn gasped for air he placed his hands on her throat. Her mind flashed of Wyatt, and his soft blue eyes, of Cas and his sweet smile. Tears streaked down the sides of her face as she thought of Cas without her, he didn’t deserve that.

When he pressed tighter and little black dots of deceit filled her vision her nails pressed crescents into his flesh. A small shriek escaped her throat like a wounded animal and he removed a hand to press it to her lips once again. This time, Larkyn thrashed furiously. She sunk her teeth into his calloused flesh and bit down hard, like a bull shark. She refused to let go, continuously she thrashed as the man above her let loose a string of curses tried to free his hand.

It wasn’t until he removed his second hand that she made her final move. With as much force as she could, she thrust her palm upward into his face. When he tumbled to the side like a chopped-down redwood she rolled the opposite way and bolted out of the alley. Her footfalls were once again heavy this time faster than before as his words pierced through her hammered heartbeat.

“The game isn’t over!”

She didn’t stop her dead sprint not till she reached her apartment building. Her chest pounded with a thousand drum beats, nose drier than summer air, legs shaking like branches in the fall breeze. Her mind ever raced of thought of how she escaped the claws of deaths, just barely.

She was never afraid of her own shadow. She had faced worse darkness.

This changed that.