HORROR
As I stood awaiting the S bus, I felt a cold chill run up my spine.
Was it an omen? Some divine signal, telling me to run? Or was it the disorientating darkness of heavy precipitating clouds oppressing the midday sun that caused this uncertainty?
With reluctance, I boarded the S bus.
Soon after, I noticed a strange man board behind me. His neck was long and thin, almost pencil like with a slight crick that seemed unnatural. His dark hat obscured his eyes. He couldn't have been above the age of 28 and in spite of his youth, this strange man's presence terrified me.
I kept my head down.
As others aboard the bus began to shuffle and squeeze with every movement this strange man found a way to jolt my body.
My clammy hands, struggling to maintain my grip on the pole.
As soon as a free seat emerged, I leaped towards it as children do when jumping from rock to rock.
I composed myself and maintained a fixed look out the window, feeling the strange man's gaze burn holes in my chest.
Later that day, I saw him again in the company of another man. I was in front of the Saint-Lazare, or so it appeared.
The strange man walked directly towards me, my legs going numb from fear.
I can't move, I can't run.
Simply frozen.
In a deep and raspy voice that continues to ring in my ears til this very moment, he uttered a single word, "Missing."
As the words left his mouth, his thin and boney finger touched the loose threads of my coat where there once was a button.
Upon sensing his touch, I awake.
Gasping for air.
Comments