It was cold and the night had been strange.
The alley looked longer than usual, stretching forward into garbage cans and dark shapes, unrecognizeable with soft edges, blurring into the night.
Everything was still. His footsteps were the only sound as he moved forward quickly, not as confident as he looked, acutely aware of the unearthy hour it was and the way the light was fading behind him, not following into the blackness ahead. His jacket wasn’t warm enough. He hugged it to his body anyway, feeling the cold seep in through each individual thread as he strained his eyes against the growing dark.
There wasn’t a specific moment when it dawned on him that he was being followed. There had been that uncomfortable feeling ever since he stepped into the alleyway, and it had crept up his spine and into his mind so gradually that he hadn’t noticed. There was a shadow in the alley with him, just out of sight. He would jerk his head to look at it sometimes, but it always danced away.
It stopped dancing after a while, though, it just stayed in the corner of his eyes until he turned one final time and it had solidifed into what must be a person, not just another shape but the tall dark outline of someone who had been following him for ages and ages. He started to run, but he already knew that the alley never ended.
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