Someone's Always There (ONC 2024)

The Other Side

A young Adrian was racing the morning, his legs pumping furiously against the pedals of his old but trusty bike. The early sun, barely a hand above the horizon, painted the world in hues of gold and amber, stretching the shadows of everything—trees, mailboxes, even Adrian himself—across the pavement like dark, reaching fingers. His breath formed in quick, visible puffs in the cool air, a rhythmic accompaniment to the steady hum of his bike's tires on the road.

He was navigating the familiar route to college, a path he could ride with his eyes closed, not that he ever would. Today, he was particularly hurried, eager to not be late for his first class. His backpack, secured tightly across his shoulders, bounced slightly with every pedal stroke, the weight of his books a constant, comforting presence.

Out of nowhere, reality shifted. A car, silent as a predator until that very moment, veered dangerously close. Its side mirror clipped Adrian's bike, a jolt of metal against metal, sending a shockwave through the frame and into Adrian's arms. The world immediately erupted into chaos—tires screeched like angry beasts, the sharp, sudden sound tearing through the calm of the morning. 

And then, as swiftly as it had all begun, darkness swept in, engulfing everything. The vibrant morning, the rush of motion, the acute panic—all faded into a silent, pressing black, leaving nothing but the echo of his heartbeat in the void.

Adrian, dazed and disoriented, pushed himself up from the cold, hard ground. His first instinct was to seek out his bike, his mind still partly clinging to the normalcy of just moments before. The streets around him, once buzzing with the morning's activities, now lay desolate, shrouded in an unsettling silence. The daylight that had guided him only seconds ago had dimmed to a twilight that cast everything in shades of gray and uncertainty. The air had turned cold.

It was in this gloom that he saw it—an entity that defied logic. A shadowy figure, its outline blurred and shifting, moved with unnatural agility across the facade of a nearby building. Its limbs contorted in ways that seemed to mock the very notion of physics, painting a macabre ballet in the dim light. Adrian felt a surge of fear so potent it seemed to freeze his blood. Every instinct screamed that this was wrong, a scene plucked from the darkest corners of imagination.

Panic took hold, propelling him forward with a burst of adrenaline. He sprinted towards the subway entrance, his only thought to put as much distance between himself and the nightmare behind him. The image of the creature, with its jerky, unnatural movements, was seared into his mind, a stark warning of the unknown dangers that now prowled in this altered world. The familiar sound of his footsteps on the pavement was swallowed by the oppressive atmosphere, making his escape feel all the more surreal.

As the creature pursued Adrian to the subway, a wave of raw anguish and despair washed over him. The entity was a seething, shapeless mass of darkness, moving with a sinister, fluid grace that defied nature. Its red eyes, glowing orbs in the shadow, were fixed on Adrian with an intensity that felt almost tangible, unblinking and brimming with malevolent hunger.

Adrian was overwhelmed by a suffocating sense of dread, almost as if the creature was telepathically calling out to him, enticing him to embrace the darkness alongside it. His legs turned to jelly, yet he forced them to move, sprinting through the subway's dimly lit corridors with panic as his fuel. Above him, the creature defied gravity, its form contorting grotesquely as it skittered across the ceiling, always just a breath away. It seemed to be biding its time, waiting for the perfect moment to snatch him into the abyss.

In stark contrast to this nightmarish chase, in the real world crowd had quickly gathered around where Adrian lay. His bike twisted in a heap nearby, evidence of the accident still fresh. Murmurs of worry and confusion floated through the air as people dialed for help, unsure of his condition but united in their desire to assist.