His footsteps thundered against the sidewalk.
The night air filtered in his lungs.
Crisp, chilled.
Pounding.
His heart pounded in his chest.
Matching the rhythm of his hurried steps, slamming stumbled warbles into the concrete ground escaping beneath him as pained gasps filled the cool air surrounding him in an unforgiving embrace. Refusing to slow for even a moment as he kept his pace erratic. Soaring by with the Elysian glows of the street lamps hanging dimly above his throbbing head, their bright illumination ever teasing his every hit beat. To spotlight him with the blinding hues. To highlight him in the crawling hands of the dark, reaching for the young worker's ankles, to wrap their own scaling breath around his bones and root him down into the frozen sidewalk. To expose him before he could slip forever outside of the midnight's untamed hold. To seek him like the bleeding gaze trained on his back.
His ragged breaths ripped through his throat. As if nails punctured his skin, tearing down, down, down, slicing deep into his shrieking ribs. How they knocked and pulled against one another as if their own bones caged them beneath the flesh. Impossible. Drowning in the rakes. Suffocating his choked gasps with gurgles of seeping sweat and the glittering flow of another sticky substance coated scarlet gold between his fingertips. They pressed hard into the side of his neck, each hobbling step jarring the pressing touch away, close, away, close, attempting desperately to sync into the ached throttle of each spilled exhale piling behind his shuddering lips.
The bruise on his head throbbed. The blood seeping from his veins throbbed.
He twisted a glance over his shoulder, carelessly, thrown in desperate attempt around the stiffness driving him still and the sprint forcing him forward.
Those eyes met his.
Those eyes belonging to that deep gaze, tinted radiant red that seeked a shade deeper than it's corrupted tone. Red that bled and stained, dripping through flooding corridors, on perfect alabaster walls, in minds, endless nightmares of twisted fates. Red that tempted deeply with intoxicating scents lingering on clothes and on the impressionable skins, that awoke primal senses in the strongest of hearts, that begged for a release in the slipping of fangs deep into a neck. A sort of insanity. A sort of pleasure that brought nothing but despair.
The eyes that glowed a deep and umbral red, gaze bleeding through like the eyes of a predator.
The eyes of an animal.
He pressed his pace faster. Shoes hitting sloppier against the ground, feet stumbling over themselves while they tried to not slip in the sidewalk cracks, ankles twisting and bending over one another as his knees scrapped against the sidewalk. Still, he pressed himself up on stained hands, grip slipping with the slimey grime coating their cracks like poor acrylic paint, and met the fast hurry of a sprint again. A desperate dash that didn't guarantee him anything other than the uncomfortable puels and cries for rest. Scrambling past their discomfort, he steadied himself against the wall next to him and slipped around the corner of the sidewalk.
Knowing the eyes that followed wouldn't be able to see, the young worker rushed down the outlet of a musty alleyway. Steaming the stench of decade old trash spilled from the tops of echoed dumpster bins to collect in corners, offensive odors of stray dog's homesteads and lifeless deadends that descended into the pit alongside himself, a deplorable display of what the seaside city truly was, but the stench could cover up any scents his draining blood wafted off.
At the end of the alleyway, he ducked behind another corner which led to a final dead end behind the front building. No where to go. No one to slip behind him.
He pressed his spine against the frigid wall.
Sucked in his trembling breath.
And waited.
He watched the entrance of the alleyway for that shadow.
The dragging of a dead weight object against the solid tundra of concrete river beneath their feet, the rattling of shrill cries scrapping images of the world to come into his racing mind. The dragging of a hardened wood against the sidewalk, the rattling of it's length trembling shivers straight to his unsteady spine attempting to keep his vertigo from casting him adrift. The slicing of his caught breath underneath the skilled surgeon knife of that haunting sound in his eardrums, causing him to tremor until his bloodied hand covered up the gap his mouth left for breaths to spill out of. The resonant tapping of the tip of that wooden object against the floors as the steps neared the entrance to the alleyway.
He watched as that form stopped in the entrancew. The shadow casting long into the alleyway, their body and the weapon they chased after on display by the radiant hum of the street lamp above their head.
Those eyes swiveled.
They checked.
Before they turned forward, and hurried away from the entrance.
He waited a moment more, a held breath spilling from his lips as a rigidness left the young worker's exhausted body.
He backed up, slowly turning as he pressed to run away.
Only to be met face-to-face with another umbral silhouette, outlining the bestial form of an animal.
The shadow watching him smiled warmly.
"Got you."
♢♤♧♡
Few notes before we begin:
1) This is a sequel to Meridian! If you don't want to be spoiled don't read. Or, if you don't want to go through the whole book, read the first two chapters and the last two chapters to pick up everything. Though the experience is certainly something and I highly recommend it 😭😭
2) They're adults. They're gonna say fuck.
3) I'm trying out more of a horror aspect with the writing? I want to try and see how it goes ٩(๑òωó๑)۶
4) I can't actually actively tag the chapters with gaslighting, toxic behavior, manipulation, etc. Because that's where the whole mystery comes in. Please be aware there's some very not healthy relationships and actions in here, and I do not support it!!!! Please please please be aware :((((
This story is NOT a romanticization of those types of actions.
5) This probably isn't going the way you think it will. Good luck! ♡♡
आप पढ़ रहे हैं
Nadir ◈ Seungjin
फैनफिक्शनFive years after the disappearance of the serial killer Naberius, mysterious murders are beginning to pop up in the city. Once again, Seungmin finds himself stuck in the middle- At the point where two worlds collide. Rule #1: Don't let your guard d...
