Quote:
You're walking home in the dark and soon hear the sound of footsteps following behind you. Every time you turn around, nothing is there. If you try to quicken your pace, the footsteps start running right along with you. No matter how you try to see behind you--if you use your phone camera or if you look in window reflections, you can't see anything...but you know it's getting closer. If you don't run fast enough, you can almost feel a hand on your arm, a breath on your neck...

You need to get home, fast.

If you can.


It had been a long patrol. Not a particularly difficult one, but long. The youma had shown up just about the time she had decided to go home. Unable to leave it, she'd dusted the thing with a few arrows and was sporting a few bruises and scrapes for her trouble. It wasn't great, but at least everything she cared about was safe for the time being. She had wanted to stop by and say hello to Papa Camelot but had discovered the library shut down and dark. Barring that, she powered down to walk home. She didn't like leading people to even her general area with her aura, now that it had gotten a little stronger.

The streets were surprisingly quiet as well as she made her way home.

The footsteps didn't bother her at first. It was probably just someone else wanting to get home, same as she. She wasn't so selfish that she couldn't share a sidewalk after a long night. After a while, though, she realized that the footsteps seemed to have a natural cadence that matched her own. Nervous, she glanced back behind her.

Nothing.

No one was there.

Picking up the pace she noticed the footsteps started up as soon as hers did. It couldn't be an echo, she wasn't anywhere that could cause one, and her heart started doing that strange flip flop thing that it had done the other night when she heard footsteps in her house. This time, it definitely wasn't a video game messing with her; this was all real. She couldn't be imagining it.

A glance over her shoulder revealed that she was alone but the steps seemed to be gaining on her. She began to run.

All she could think about was home and Willie waiting for her. About Spunky and her happy little tail thumps on the ground waiting for pets. She just wanted to get home, sick of being frightened. She'd been there for a long time after being almost killed by Painite and didn't want to go back to that place where she didn't recognize herself and was content to be someone who stayed in the same four walls all the time. It had been awful and she wasn't going back.

Feeling a hand on her shoulder she yelped and sped faster, looking back to see no one was there. She couldn't run any faster but she turned toward her parent's house - much closer than her apartment. She cried out and spotted her parent's house ahead. She had a key to the studio they'd built in the back yard and somehow, for some reason, she thought she'd be safe there. It was the only place she'd felt safe in the city after Painite's attack.

She kicked the gate open as she felt a hot gust of breath against her neck making her shiver far more violently than the cold night air. Streaking across the yard she laid a hand on the doornob, twisting it and finding it locked. She reached to fumble for the key before she realized that nothing had followed her this far. The presence she'd felt so strongly only a few moments ago was no longer at her back.

She looked around, feeling foolish, and saw no one. No lights on in her parent's house. No monster trying to make kibble out of her. Nothing there that shouldn't have been.

She leaned against the door and breathed a sigh of relief, closing her eyes for a second. She unlocked the door and slipped inside, spotting the day bed she used when she worked late. Knowing he'd worry she sent her boyfriend a quick text that she wouldn't be home tonight and where she was, in case he wanted to come to her.

It was still going to be a while before her heart slowed down and she let out a shuddering breath punctuated by a short laugh.

"Halloween certainly doesn't seem to be dull anymore around here."


word count - 665 words