The rain had made the dirt path treacherously muddy.The rain had made the dirt path treacherously muddy. Stepping over a flowing stream of run-off, my boots sank into the mud. I pulled each foot free with difficulty, careful not to overbalance. The path wound up into the woods, coming out under a streetlight where it was covered in cement. Here, the darkness scared me. As I walked up, I tightened my hold on my backpack, shrugging it up further. On one side, through a shallow growth of trees were dorms. On the other, the woods... I looked into them cautiously. I could only see a few feet before the dark smeared the lines of the branches. Wet snow was clumped around the edge of the path. Beside the edge was trash, beer cans, soda bottles, cigarette wrappers and stubs... At the turn around the boulder marking the curve, in the dim light of the distant street light, I saw the glint of something metal in the water running down the hill. I bent over, reaching forward to pick it up. It was a woman's earring. Delicate silver filigree surrounding a stone set in the center. I looked it more closely, trying to see what kind of stone it was. I couldn't tell. As I inspected it, I heard an odd sucking sound behind me. I turned to find a figure nearly beside me, pulling a foot out of the mud. Something wrong... In the back of my mind, I realized that whoever this was had crept up silently behind me. As I thought this, all in a fraction of a second, I had turned and began a running leap towards the light, filling my lungs with air to scream. My consciousness had blanked. All I knew was that I had to run. |