Catherina - Day 2

The boy was running on a grass field, the tip of his unzipped coat flying up and down, resembling a small grey flag under furious winds. He was breathing fiercely with that rusty smell rising in his throat, and with every motion of his chest, he seemed to be pulling each string of muscle forcefully and hopelessly.

A red tractor was in his way. He must be considering going around it, but the question was: back or front? He chose neither. Instead, he jumped. When his left foot stepped into the driving space, his weight was already outside of it. A fabulous move - one might safely suspect that he had broken a record or two in track and field back in school.

The boy wore sneakers, and the landing onto the soft soil and grass seemed to have hurt his ankle, for he frowned at that moment. Still, he was swift, aiming towards that white tower standing on a small hill in the center of the field. Now that the boy saw no obstacles in his way, he finally had some time to reflect upon his situation: Am I fast enough to be safe from them?

Someone was chasing him, as his thoughts on the mysterious "them" suggested. Nonetheless, no one appeared on the field even long after he had entered the tower. The boy flung open the tomato-red wooden door, storming into the tower as if a pack of wolves was after him.

The tower, from outside, seemed unnatural. Not only was it strange to find a lighthouse-shaped building on a farm that had no crop or cattle(which reduced the boy's guilt for infringing on other's property), but also was this concrete standing ghastly white, pale as drowned people's faces. If the boy had not been so focused on controlling his legs, he would feel quite uneasy entering this construction.

Climbing upstairs was a torture, especially as the boy had to maintain his speed. Inside of the tower was nothing but a never-ending spiral stair leading into the unknown. Despite all those that seemed terrifying, the boy ran up the stairs, mechanically driving his legs up and body forward.

At the very end of the stairs, the boy found himself exiting the suffocating darkness onto an open platform. It was very misty when he first came out, and the air was so moist that his footsteps left watery marks. The boy got uneasy - the lack of clarity was threatening every square inch of him.

As if understanding his concern, the mist dissipated in the next few seconds as in a fast-forward thriller scene. Now, the boy could see beyond a meter from his feet. He was certainly no longer at the farm, as an entire city laid out before him - dove-grey buildings each occupying a check on a chessboard drawn by dusty streets.

No time left for the boy to ask where he had come – it was evident that the universe was acting out of control here – for he saw a little girl standing on the flat roof of the building opposite to his (the boy swore she was not there before). That building looked like an administration establishment: it was angular, with columns of small, black windows lining up on the wall. It had a shade of withered wheat that frequently appeared on other public constructions. "Administration," the boy named it thus. In full contrast to the Administration, which was common to all municipality, the little girl was unsettlingly strange. Raven dark hair, a face that the boy couldn't see clearly, and outfits like elementary school uniforms. Indeed, the girl seemed just like an ordinary grade 6 who had too dark an expression.

Despite exhaustion rising from his sole, the boy was alert. The entity of his nerve was as if grasped into a bundle, sending waves of refreshing pains. His eyes fixed on the girl, tracing her figure from scalp to toe. One, two, three. Four, five, six. The boy was counting his breaths, counting each second past between the girl and him.

Eventually, the girl moved. She shifted her weight from the center onto the left leg, and then to the right. Forward and backward. She swayed her body, languidly like a loose swing. With every weight change of hers, the boy's heart pounded harder, his inhalation hastened, and exhalation heavier. At one moment, the girl swayed herself up, literally, and her body tipped over the edge of Administration, initiating a freefall.

The boy felt honestly relieved when he saw the girl falling - no guilt because the girl was threatening. She was, indeed, and even more. The next second, she came back into view, floating in mid-air like a balloon.

Effortlessly she landed on the boy's building, launching an assault in a split second - maybe even before her feet touched the ground. Though she had no apparent arm, no guns or sword, or anything, she came with great force like a dark bullet straight at the boy's heart. The boy shifted rightwards to avoid her, and then he ran for his life. Weird, why didn't he hit back? Because he was powerless and afraid. He was weak as a little chick, and the only thing he could do was to pray.

Bless me to run faster, and bless me to arrive at somewhere safe; bless me that the girl would not hurt me, and bless me that she would be gone.

Maybe his patron had heard the prayer. The boy found himself running fast as lightning and zigzagging across the platform. Despite looking straight ahead, the boy felt as if he had eyes on his back to tell him the girl's movement, and thus saving him from her first strike, the second kick, and the third hit – she was now after him with a long black sword double her height coming out of nowhere.

The platform seemed to be extending indefinitely, for the boy was sure he had been running on it for over five minutes without approaching its edge. The girl would kill him if she could, though he knew not why. Regardless, that frightening idea alone was sufficient for him to continue exploiting his leg muscles.

Then, with a weird sense of safety, the boy turned to look back. The girl, or her head alone, suddenly began to expand like an overfilled balloon. Her head increased in size and became hollower - perhaps her brain did not follow suit. Her neck and rest of the body stayed slim and little, like a thin thread and a small weight holding a balloon.

Standing still, the boy carefully observed the girl while the expansion of her head brought a hiatus to her attack. Now that her head grew wider than her shoulder, the boy saw a small red mark appeared on her forehead. The girl's hair was growing longer as well, and when that curled hair tip touched the ground, a second red mark appeared on her left cheek. It was soon followed by the third on her right cheek, fourth vertical above her right brow, and the fifth below her bottom lip.

A mist began to rise, and sluggish white fog gradually closed in upon the platform, hiding the girl from the boy's sight. Before she was gone from his eyesight completely, the boy could see a full layer of bleeding red marks upon her face.

The mist was at its height; whiteness brought darkness.

Boom.

An explosive sound came from the girl's spot, soothing the boy's stiffened nerves - the girl had gone. He did not understand from where this confidence had arisen; he very much relied on his intuition.

The boy waited for the mist to melt away. When his sight was clear again, he saw a red balloon floating where the girl was, a little pebble tied at the end of its thread. He grabbed that pebble, the balloon above his head like an alarm signal. Then, he sprinted towards the edge of the platform (which was no longer an indefinite 2D plane) and jumped. Freefall – not precisely, because the balloon was there to keep him afloat.

The wind was blowing the ballon wayward, but eventually sending the boy towards the Administration – one of its windows, to be specific. It was a standard rectangular window, nothing particular: no window-side decoration, no pot flowers, no nothing visible. It was a pure black hole, a trap awaiting its prey.

The boy set one foot on the edge of that window, and soon the other. The window absorbed the boy just the same way it let no light escape. The boy released the red balloon, which flew downward with that small stone on its thread.

A Red balloon was flying free from a black window. There the boy went.

photo credit: http://wallpaperswide.com/blavand_lighthouse_winter-wallpapers.html