Obsidian King

CELIA

23 years old

The city's pulse throbs through the ground like music to an unwelcome resurrection as I make my way down the street. I hate large crowds. I swear I can feel the heartbeat of every person I pass, feel the air radiating off them as I slow my pace to blend in. As much as I hate crowds and people, crowds are safest and easier to hide when running from some psycho who doesn’t like taking no for an answer.

 I slink into the shadows and blend in, making sure to keep my breaths shallow as I glance around for where he went; I could have sworn he was right behind me. Neon lights, light up the sky, drowning out the stars, smoke billowing from rooftops, tainting the air and creating a haze that resembles the thickest fogs.

Zipping up my jacket, I pull the hood up to cover my blonde hair. Yet, I make sure to keep my hands from my pockets. I've always wondered why people tuck their hands in their pockets and drop their gazes on their toes when hiding from someone. Nothing screams sus more to me than someone who is clearly evading being looked at. 

Instead, I keep my head up, slightly tilted away from the reflection of the windows I pass. My pace slows, and I control my breaths, heavy like a heifer in labor after running for your life is another thing over the years that gets you caught easily. Nothing turns heads faster than people thinking you're either sick with a plague as you wheeze and having a panic attack as you gasp. 

 Stopping by an old, cold, iron-wrought sign proclaiming fortunes read and futures to be told, I pretend to read the sign like it's why I am standing outside this spooky building with cobwebs holding spiders that look as old as the withered-up face of the fortune-teller supposedly inside. Yeah, right, I don’t need a lady to tell me my future. It’s pretty set in stone, and that is always running. Running from this man who has been hunting me for the past 3 years. 

My gaze lingers on the figure weaving through the throng of oblivious souls; his silhouette is unmistakable, a sign of my potential downfall if he catches me. Patrick, the man who once whispered empty promises, now hunts me with a predator’s singular focus.

With each step he takes closer, my heart mirrors the rhythm, an abrupt beat echoing the dread that coils within me. The city's noise becomes a sinister orchestra playing, and my surroundings spin as I look for another way to escape. I clutch at the necklace around my neck; it was my mother’s and was the only thing I had left of my parents. 

Even their faces are lost to me after all these years, but I need to get past him to get to the train station. So, once again, I try to blend in. I edge closer, pretending to be some tourist, not someone on the run.

Another thing I've learned is never to look back. You stick out like a sore thumb. You might as well scream, worried that someone is following you. It always amazes me the situations I find myself in, yet they always turn into a learning experience where I f*ck*d *p enough to get caught. 

Instead, I slow more gradually, knowing I need to look for another way to the train station because there is no way he won’t spot me. The area up ahead has fewer people, most of them going into the casino, leaving the front without a crowd like this part of the street, which has mostly restaurants and boutique stores. I stop at a bus stop, pretending to read the timetable, using that as an opportunity to look around to see if I can find where he went. 

My breath hitches when I spot him. As Patrick draws nearer, the very air feels thick with the malice I know he brings with him, almost tangible, suffocating the little hope I have left. My eyes, the color of the sharpest emerald, remain fixated on him, tracking his every move. I pray to whatever gods deigned to listen that my presence would go unnoticed in the sea of people flooding this strip.

Fate, however, has always been a fickle mistress and has never liked me.

Just as I decide to try to sneak back the way I came, I step quickly back to blend into the bustling people, but only for a body to collide with mine, a careless nudge from a woman too engrossed in her phone to notice someone right in front of her. She spills hot coffee from the street vendor down my front. I hiss and jump while the girl freaks out. I try to hush her and calm her, knowing she is drawing attention. When she rushes to grab some hand towels despite my protests, only as she does, she knocks the vendor's sign down, and I internally facepalm at her clumsiness. It hits the ground with a metal slap that rings as loud as a gunshot. F*ck, she should have just stuck a neon sign to my *ss screaming right here!

The sign clatters to the ground with a clang that shatters the false security of my so-called blending-in-like shattered glass. Time slows, and each second is a torturous eternity as the sound draws Patrick’s gaze, which meets mine. The recognition in his eyes ignited instantly. I s*ck in a breath as his lips curl from the burns, tugging slightly as if to say I got you now.

"Dammit," I curse under my breath, the words a whisper as I ignore the woman’s apologies and run for my life, something I am certain he’ll take if he catches me; I hate to think of the alternative if he doesn’t kill me upon catching me. His footsteps thunder behind me, an ominous drumbeat that promised a grim finale should he close the distance between us. Panic courses through my veins, a bitter elixir that threatens to overwhelm my senses and make me crumble and beg for mercy. Something I know that man doesn’t hold a morsel of.

"Stop, Celia!" Patrick's voice slices through the air, a command wrapped in his velvet of dark intentions. But submission is not written in my stars. I am no one's prey, least of all his, not anymore.

With the city's peak traffic hour before me, I force myself to cross the road. Cars honk their horns and shout at me as they narrowly miss me. Yet, his voice rings loudly behind me, demanding someone stop me.

My breaths come in ragged gasps, each one sharp enough to slice through the noise of the city. Concrete and neon lights blur past me—a monochrome blur as I weave through the human torrent that floods the streets. They are oblivious to my terror, their laughter and talk blurring to background noise. No one ever helps. These days, people would much rather film the drama and become bystanders, something to complain about but never intervene.

Silently threading through the narrow alleys that crisscross the city. The darkness is both ally and adversary, cloaking me ye