Ein Stalker, ein Verbrechen, ein Unfall, der alles verändert… Um was es genau geht, erfahrt ihr in folgender shortstory von Michelle Herlan.
”Hey!” Erik was almost shouting but the girl walking right in front of him was still pretending to be deaf for what he was saying.
He sped up a little, so that he could walk right beside her. “I said hey”, he hissed angrily and grabbed her shoulders.
”Let go!”, she screamed, but he didn’t even think about that.
Roughly he pushed her against the wall next to the pavement. “I told you to wait. And I greeted you. I even did that rather friendly. And you’re ignoring me and walk away? Where’re your manners, dear?” He looked down at her scared face.
Her eyes were opened widely; Erik could tell how afraid she was just by looking into them. Who would not be? They all had been frightened by him, but that had never lasted for long. He had always done his best to let them feel something completely different. And that was, what he would do now.
But before he could even grin nastily, he felt a stabbing pain near his stomach. Confused he looked down, just to see the handle of a knife sticking out of his belly. “What the…?”
”There are people able to defend themselves.”, he heard her say.
He let out a deep growling sound, as his irritation was replaced by pure anger. But as he lifted one of his hands to take revenge, she pulled all her strength together and pushed him away.
Surprised by that quick movement, he stumbled backwards onto the street.
“How dare you…”, he began.
He never got to finish his sentence, because that was when the car hit him.
Pain. Severe pain, raging deep inside his chest.
He opened his eyes in shock, trying to discover the reason for his suffering, but his vision was blurred. Further away he could see shadows moving bizarrely: dark, slender creatures drawing nearer and nearer. He tried to stand up, to escape whatever there was, but he couldn’t move. Invisible chains of pain were holding him back, forcing him to stay. He wanted to scream, to let out part of this unbearable feeling, but not a single sound would leave his mouth.
The shadows were now very close and he was struggling to get rid of whatever was keeping him where he was.
He closed his eyes, as he saw the creatures closing in on him.
Out of sight, out of mind.
His pain was getting worse, now spreading throughout his whole body. It felt as if it was trying to tear him apart from the inside.
Make it stop, he thought, as the world around him turned pitch black.
As Erik opened his eyes, he could still sense a slight headache, which felt almost comfortable compared to the pain he had experienced the day before. Had it been yesterday? He couldn’t tell. Carefully he sat up and looked round the room. He had no clue where he was, neither how he got here.
The room was quite small; with walls painted white and not much furniture. Was he in hospital? Why would he be there?
Although he stood up very carefully, he first had some problems to keep his balance. Step by step he slowly made his way through the room, always keeping his eyes on the only door.
Slowly, he pushed it open.
Behind the door, there was a long corridor. The walls were snow-white just like the room he had woken up in. Nobody was there; the corridor lay empty and silent.
For a moment, Erik thought it’d be the best to turn around and stay in the room, because even if there was no one to be seen outside, he felt unsafe and defenceless. He couldn’t see where the corridor led to, neither could he see how long it was or where it ended. The room behind him was small. He’d notice if somebody entered.
But the moment he decided to leave the strange, bare corridor, he heard a rasping voice.
”You wouldn’t do anyone a favour by turning”
He winced and looked around, trying to locate where the voice came from, but there was nothing than white walls and gaping emptiness.
He shook his head and resolved that this could only be a dream.
But his second try to change the direction was stopped before he could move.
”If you want to find your way out, you’re wrong there. Don’t expect someone to come and pick you up, ‘cause nobody will”
He rose his eyebrow. He had family, he had friends. As if they wouldn’t come to get him – especially in a dream.
”Whatever you want to do, I won’t hold you back”, the voice told him.
Being given orders by something not even physical wasn’t that frightening now, but actually this dream was kind of creepy, so he decided to walk down the corridor.
As he left the room behind, he could hear the door snapping in. But he didn’t look back. Dreams could be strange as hell, he thought.
Having walked for a while and not passed anything or anyone, he decided that he’d had enough of that and looked back. Impenetrable darkness greeted him. Shocked, Erik turned around again and began to run. Whatever was going on here – what abnormal kind of dream it was, he didn’t want to stay.
He couldn’t say how long he had been running down the endless hallway until he collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily and loudly. It had never bothered him, if there was no one around to annoy him with any of their business, but right now it was almost disturbing. And that… deafening silence. It was just too much. He leaned his back against a wall and covered his face with his hands.
Time passed.
”You’ve given up?”
Alarmed he freed his face, just to see the girl from earlier kneeling in front of him.
”You!” His confusion was wiped away, as soon as he had recognized her. “It’s your freakin’ fault that I’m here!”, he shouted, but he didn’t feel the motivation to hit her. He didn’t even want to move at all.
She lifted an eyebrow. “Is it? Well, take it as an excuse, but I thought you’d need the company and decided to join you.”
”Well, I don’t need you here” At least he got pride.
”And what if I say I’ll get you out of here?”
Her? Why would she take him out if here, if there were family and friends to do that? Had he been running through that hallway just to meet her?
”So?”, she asked.
As Erik agreed, he thought that – for a moment – this had been a rather nice surprise.
The last thing he heard as everything around him was going dark was relieved laughter. Girls laughing he knew very well.
Michelle H., 10d