What's The Worst... Chapter 18

Clare spun and turned as the crowd before her parted.

Her attention was grabbed by an intense pair of eyes staring directly at her through the sudden parting. They were blue, very blue. They were framed in darkness.

She lost focus on everything else around her. Her hands fell to her side, palms outward and forward, the fliers falling into the breeze. She turned slightly, facing full on to the approaching figure; but all she saw were eyes, blue eyes, blue eyes full of cold fire.

She heard a sound start to rise, a scream or shriek, but she neither flinched nor tried to block it out despite the fear it inspired; she just saw eyes, blue eyes moving ever closer...

Trisha saw Clare come to a halt... at first she couldn’t make sense of what Clare was doing, the way in which she was standing.

Looking past her she could also see the young man darting forward, directly towards Clare. Trisha recognised that something was wrong with the picture, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

Looking directly ahead, Trisha was unaware of the commotion behind her caused by the little old lady who appeared to have fainted.

Trisha didn’t notice the subtle darkening of the sky; she didn’t notice the slight fuzziness that the world had taken on; she couldn’t really say that she heard the sound of the darkness; her attention was totally on Clare, and the young man...

The boy saw the fair haired girl appear from within the crowd directly in front of him. Something inside him raged against the fact that she appeared, young, carefree and happy.

What right did she have to peace when he suffered so much?

His anger at such injustice burned brighter as he stared directly at her. There was no conscious thought of vengeance. There was no conscious thought of anything, he just aimed directly for her, focussed his hatred and anger directly on the happy soul before him.

The whirling shadow coalesced, concentrated, drew on his focus...

As they came together, he threw his arms around the girl...

Clare felt arms envelope hers, saw blue eyes staring straight into her’s...

The force of their impact spun the pair through 180 degrees; Trisha could now see Clare’s face over the shoulder of the stranger. She watched as Clare folded into the stranger without any resistance, in total supplication; and then Clare tensed, appeared to draw in a great breath and her eyes widen as if in shock...

Clare felt the bear like hug, the cold and the pain...

Trisha stared into Clare’s face; Clare stared back, a spark of recognition; she shuddered, coughed; tasted copper as she struggled to draw breath. The pain started to grow with the panic, trapped in the strangers embrace, she pleaded, “Help me...”

Clare knew that she had made no sound, she had only mouthed the words, but she repeated them again, imploring her friend to come to her aid...

Trisha’s horror grew as she watched Clare call for help, but instead of sound, only blood bubbled up and out of her mouth, falling down her chin and down the back of the stranger. She stood transfixed as she watched the light in her best friend’s eyes start to dim, engulfed by fear...

A scream roused Trisha to action; without further thought she leapt toward her friend...

Dorothy sobbed, lying in the arms of another stranger, but staring at the scene before her, she saw the fair one suffer, but then the dark one started forward. She tried to shout, but it came out as a moan, “No, don’t...”

The good Samaritan supporting the little old lady’s head couldn’t make sense of the whisper from her lips...

As Trisha raced forward her only thought was to strike the dark stranger from behind and as hard as possible and free her friend, whose face was now nestled on the dark stranger’s shoulder, her body slumped in his grasp, her blood still trickling down the back of his coat.

The boy’s mind reverberated with an intensity of feeling the like of which he had never before experienced; the laughing was cacophonous, the wailing shriek was beyond piercing, the cold was a searing pain but above all was the elation and horror of extinguishing another life; this was startling in its suddenness and unexpectedness.

Something other than a voice commanded him, “Turn”; he spun around throwing the lifeless girl from him; saw her friend charging toward him...

Trisha saw Clare flop to the ground, landing twisted in an unnatural heap. Onlookers jumped back, terror in their eyes. Trisha could clearly see her friend’s stomach and chest torn apart, her shredded clothing flapping around the scarlet and white mess exposed to the sky.

Trisha was still racing forward, but unable to draw her eyes from Clare, she had no chance of seeing the malevolent grin on the face of the stranger as he prepared to parry her charge. He uttered a single guttural roar, sweeping his hands in deliberate arcs.

Trisha felt as though she had run into a wall; she felt searing pain from her left shoulder to right hip, then across to her left hip.

For a moment she was held bolt upright.

She felt herself turning and falling, falling straight backwards... and then it was dark.