Volume 2 – Chapter 7: No Choice

[April 26 – 9:00 PM]

It was a tar-like infinity of dark — blackening us with every step. Rika’s hand slid into mine, the one thing inside this whole mess that felt real at all, the only thing that tethered me to a reality that wasn’t so dark and unknown. I could still feel the tremor in my fingers, the jittery energy that wouldn’t quit. I kept looking ahead, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something — someone — was watching us from the shadows.

Rika didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. The tension between us was palpable, the silence deafening, and it was clear she was uncomfortable too. On and on we went, side by side now, hearts racing, breaths shallow, both of us waiting for the moment when whatever it was would finally reveal itself.

“Do you think we lost them?” Rika’s voice shattered the silence, the words barely above a whisper, as if speaking louder would call the danger back.

For a moment I hesitated, looking again over my shoulder, but there was nothing. No sign of movement. No more than the deep choking silence of the city, which had felt too alive on every corner always hiding dangers unseen.

“I don’t know,” I replied, speaking as softly as I could. “But I know we can’t stop. Not yet.”

We had only begun to take off running, and ran faster this time, the pavement breaking up under our feet as we wound through the empty streets. I felt that we were even going anywhere. It felt like we were living in a labyrinth of our own making — fractured reflection of the streets we stood on, and the blocks we walked, and the colors we passed, and the sounds we tried to dodge.

The streets were eerily quiet and too quiet. No distant voices, no car engines, no sounds of life. It was lack of everything. They were no part of the ceded object, leaving the felted city to rot, decay, become one of those ghost towns before the ghost were gone. But there was something else in the air — something visceral, something we couldn’t see, but we both felt it. The existence of something — or someone — lurking in the dark.

I didn’t know what we were running away from. Maybe it was the people who had been following us, or maybe it was something much worse, something we hadn’t even began to understand.” But the reality was we were finding ourselves going deeper into something dark, something dangerous, with every step we took.

Rika had my hand, a firmer grip that as her breath tussled. And I could sense the fear radiating from her, similar to the fear that had seized me. We were both baffled, unsure if what was happening was actually what was happening. What we didn’t know was we couldn’t stop. Not yet.

“Don’t stop,” I said, my voice clear and firm. “We need to get out of here. We can’t stay in the city.”

But where could we go anyway? The outskirts? The safe zone? Both felt so distant now, years and years away, unattainable. It was the sort of city that inched toward turning into a maze of concrete and glass, bending and twisting and becoming a jumbled mess of our footfalls. We had this nightmare we could not get out of and we just kept going in circles.

As we turned another corner, something caught my eye. A flicker of movement, a shadow that blotted out the street in front of us. My heart stopped, and I froze. So did Rika, catching her breath in her chest.

“Did you see that?” she said, her voice shaking.

I nodded, adrenaline coursing through my veins. The presence we’d been feeling — was it real? Or were they only figments of our imaginations, tricking us in the dark?

But there was no time to think about it. I held my breath and walked on, with Rika close at my heels. We couldn’t, could not allow ourselves to be distracted. Not now.

The street in front of me was deserted, but the sensation of being observed had only escalated. At every corner we turned, at every step we took, it felt like something — or someone — was right behind us, just out of reach.

And then, as if to validate my deepest fears, I found it.

My heart thumped when I noticed at the end of the street a figure emerging from the shadow — tall and dark as it appeared, as its features corroded by the darkness. For a second I thought I was going mad. But no. It was real. And it was moving toward us.

Instinctively, I pulled Rika behind me, my heart pounding in my chest. I needed to protect her from whatever that was.

“Who are you?” I called, my voice low, but solid. I had to stay calm. I couldn’t allow this thing to see my fear.

The figure initially said nothing. It was simply watching us back with its eyes glowing in the darkness. I could sense its observant presence, a booming gaze, cold and calculating, measuring us up, judging us.

“Who are you?” I said again, my voice firmer, more demanding.

Finally, the figure spoke. Its voice was smooth, almost hypnotic, sent chills down my spine.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” it said, as though it had practiced the words, speaking carefully, perhaps a touch too calm. “Both of you.”

I coughed and swallowed, my mind racing. Waiting? For what? Why? How could it possibly even know who we were?

“We don’t know who you are,” I said, as my hand moved almost as if of its own accord toward the small knife tucked inside my jacket. It was little, but it was all I had.

The figure didn’t move. It seemed not to notice the knife. What it did do was stand there staring at me.

“I’m a guy who’s been watching you,” the figure continued, almost whispering, tight, low and measured. “Been running, have we?”

I froze. How could it know that? How could it possibly know?

“What do you want?” “Why?” asked Rika, voice quaking, body shaking with terror.

The creature’s lips curled into a horrible smile. “Oh, nothing for the moment,” it said. “But I want to tell all of you this. There’s no way out anymore. No escape.”

Those words hit me like a ton of bricks. There was no escape? What did that mean?

“We’ve been waiting for you,” it said again, widening its smile. “Now, “it is time to see if you are really ready to look the truth in the face.”

The truth? What truth?

It was all happening too quickly for me to process. It was the figure’s voice, its presence, everything — it felt like a bad dream, something outside of our control.”

And then before I could answer, the figure moved in closer. Fast. Too fast. I was so busy processing what was happening — that is a definition of a trauma — and then everything went dark. The lights extinguished, swallowed up by the shadow.

For we were dragged headlong into the silence, the darkness enveloping us. It was as if the city and the figure and everything itself were bait, and you were part of something — something much larger than all of this.

And at that point, I knew: whatever happens next, there’s no going back.