Spinning on my heel, I drop my arms and start walking backward, panning my pulsing vision over the fog stretching to either side of the paved pathway.
An invasive sting swarms my eyes, my heart ticking faster and faster the longer I don’t see another soul.
But I hear him.
Carl’s boots clomp. They alert you of who’s coming and demand attention. And the sound that rings my head with trauma is only a few feet away.
Except, no one’s here.He’snot here.
Swaths of light collect in my only company, turning the fog milky in spots and clouding me from seeing too far ahead.
I vibrate, rattling in my shell like the scared bunny I will never grow out of being, and keep walking backward.
I’m not escaping the other presence.
It’s following me.
My sneaker catches on a chunk missing from the pavement, causing a jolt up my body that has me stumbling and swimming through the air to retain my balance.
I recover and keep going, heaving for thickening oxygen with my head on a swivel, until my back crashes into something hard.
My body lurches forward, my shoes scuffling against the grittiness, and I snap around with a scream getting lodged in my chest.
Palming the overfilled balloon in my heart, my watering eyes stick to the unfamiliar man standing still as stone, his sickly skin catching the light and appearing damp and gray.
He’s dressed in a wrinkled, black and white shirt that resembles the swirl design on the exterior of the tents, as if he works here… or performs here.
He says nothing. He doesn’t blink. His milky, hazy eyes are stuck to me and he’s sinisterly stiff.
“Uh…” I look around, panting and wiping at the percolation on my forehead. “Can I help you?”
Checking over my shoulder, I notice the sound of heavy boots no longer follows me, and as I swing my head back around to keep my eye on this guy that seems blind—he’s gone.
My bottom lip trembles, sucking in unsteady oxygen and setting a target on my tent just up ahead. I don’t think. I start running.
Adrenaline overrides my lack of sleep, pounding into the pavement with everything I can give, until I’m leaping through velvet.
Closing the curtains behind me, I rush through the darkness and around the chairs, and bullet into my dressing room.
Not that fabric is much security, but I continue to pull them tight together, making sure their weight keeps them closed, then hit the switch for my vanity.
The warm light spreads, illuminating the merlot space with a softness that for once gives me comfort.
Staying in the dark would make more sense if someone’s wandering around fresh from the psych ward.
I give myself chills, rotating around to make sure he’s not already in here somehow.
He’s not. It’s just me. Like always.
My taut chest drops with a heavy exhale, plopping down to my stool and vacantly staring at the floor. “You thought not sleeping would help your mind… Now you’re hearing things and… seeing things.”
Becoming annoyed with myself, I shake my head and swivel around, sticking my feet beneath the vanity and taking in the crazed state of my hair.
Now that my heart is calming, I feel fizzy, like my face is made of cotton candy and my eyes aren’t real. But something is yanking me, keepingme alert and not allowing me to lay my head and surrender to the tingles encouraging me to rest.
I don’t know who that was. Nothing about him clicked reconciliation within me. It was just a punch of terror. But there’s something tangled, as if I’ve seen him in passing or have spoken to him.
Which… is likely, considering how bigVorereally is. I tend to stay in the first quarter, though. I don’t stroll around and take advantage of the free rides, games, and food, nor do I know the names of everyone employed.
