another change in my walk when a hand reaches out of nowhere and grabs me gruffly by the elbow, yanking me inside of an empty building. “Emma! Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
Startled and panting I manage to speak. “Zoë!” I say with a huge sigh of relief. “I have no idea what happened. Something knocked me off track. I was lost. I was in some sort of cave.”
“A cave, Emma? You were in a cave?” she asks disapprovingly.
“I’m here now. Which is where, by the way?”
“I don’t even know. It feels like New York City but it’s off somehow. I don’t know how we ended up here and more importantly, I don’t think we’re the only ones here. Something feels off. Follow me.”
Zoë leads me towards the back of the seemingly abandoned building we are in. We walk at a brisk, yet cautious speed, with a sense of urgency hanging over us.
“I saw a girl," I tell her. "She was young, maybe seven or eight.”
“There are literally thousands of people out on that street,” she responds without hesitation. "Of course you saw a little girl."
“No, this wasn’t like that. She saw me too.”
Zoë stops walking and turns to look at me. I narrowly avoid crashing into her. “She saw you?”
“Yeah. I have no idea who she is though—”
She abruptly pulls me out of the light and into the shadows of the room.
“Someone else is here,” she whispers.
We crawl behind an old empty counter that smells fetid, of years gone by. The footsteps get closer. We quietly scurry behind dusty, cobweb covered shelves and crouch down low. I hold so completely and utterly still that the only movement coming from me is the gentle whoosh of air flowing through my lips.
As my mind runs over how we will escape this situation, my heart rate quickens. Blood flows through me with the force of an ocean wave, muffling my hearing.
I carefully try to get a good look at whoever is here. It’s a menacing looking man. He stands at least six feet tall. His face is rough and covered in a dense layer of black and gray stubble. The thick hair on his head bears the same salt and pepper appearance as his facial hair.
We don't know if he can see us or not, but it's best to avoid finding out.
He walks methodically toward the door that Zoë and I entered the storefront through, carefully scanning the room, obviously in search of someone. He doesn’t seem to detect our presence.
He extends his arm to reach for the handle of the door and just as we are about to breathe a sigh of relief, a large gray rat scampers by and startles us. We accidentally bump into a shelf while trying to evade the rat and the mysterious man hears us stir. He knows we are here. This is bad. He stops dead in his tracks and turns around to survey the area. He looks in our direction and for that fleeting moment, we are frozen with fear.
Miraculously, the rat runs out into the open where he can see it. His gaze turns sharply to it and he mutters something unintelligible under his breath before turning to leave. The door loudly clicks shut, echoing throughout the abandoned storefront and signaling his exit.
We breathe simultaneous sighs of relief. “Have you seen him before?” I whisper to her, still not ready to hear my voice at full volume.
“No. I have a bad feeling about him. I think he’s a dark walker. He’s probably why you ended up in that cave and why everything here looks so strange. We should walk somewhere else as quickly as possible. It’s not safe here tonight.”
I nod my head in agreement. When a dark walker is present, you lose control of your walk. Sometimes, without even realizing it. Losing control means getting lost. Lost is not something you want to be. You don’t come back from lost.
“I know where we can go," she says as she takes my hand.
Everything goes black. Time and space whirl around me, twisting my reality. Colors, light, and sounds slowly fade in to existence. It starts as a feeling then overcomes my senses and magically I’m there in the middle of it, woozy and dazed. It takes a few seconds for me to adjust to the new surroundings as it all snaps together.
Long, flowing grass rests softly under my feet. Bright blue skies above make my eyes narrow. The warmth