So, throughout the week of sunshine, I have put this together. I came up with the idea for a new character and wrote this over a few days. I hope you like her, and I can't wait to see what other snippets I can come up with about her...
The low
rumble of the engine cut through the silence of the night around me, and I felt
every bump in the road as the bus idled down Main Street . A soft glow from the street lights
illuminated the interior of the clumsy vehicle intermittently as we cruised the
road and pulled up at the next stop. Two
passengers stepped onto the bus, meaning I was no longer a lone passenger; the
first passed by with her head down, a woman with fiery red hair ad a big
shopping bag tucked tightly under one arm.
The second however, a tall man in a trilby hat and a smart navy blue
suit, glanced up as he made his way up the bus, meeting my gaze with a gentle
smile. That was all it took, I really
wish strangers wouldn’t do that.
As the bus
lurched forward, making my stomach jolt anyway, I felt the familiar pull deep
in the pit of my abdomen and my head began to spin. Light and colours exploded in front of my
eyes and I reached out to grip the cool metal bar in front of me to steady
myself. The vision rolled in like a
storm gathering power; chaos - the vibes were always stronger for chaos than
they were for an accidental or natural death.
I considered fighting the vision, using the theory that ignorance is
bliss, but thought better of it. Did I
not owe something to this man if I could alter his fate? Chaos meant that it wasn't his time, this
wasn't an old man about to pass in his sleep after a long fulfilling life; it
was a man about to be cruelly cut down in the prime of his life. He probably had a family, a wife, children,
hopes and dreams just like I did.
I hated it
when this happened in public, but more so that this appeared to be
tonight. Then I felt obliged to step in
or at least try and defer it. It wasn't
like I could prevent anything long term - but I could put enough of a glitch in
death's plan to make it reconsider another time.
I took a deep
breath and let the vision take a hold over me, my damp palms gripping the hand
rail harder to keep me grounded as the colours began to take shape. I saw the man in the suit step from a bus
into the dying light of late evening; no, not any bus, this bus. As the bus pulled away, the man pulled up the
collar of his suit jacket and began to stride confidently down the road towards
the shop fronts. A light flickered
ominously by a boarded up store, and I saw the flicker of movement in the
alleyway that ran down the side of the vacant building. Knowing exactly where this was heading and
deciding that I didn’t want to watch it play out, I gave myself a good hard
shake and began to pull free from the vision, teasing it apart thread by thread
until I could see the tattered back of the seat in front of me again.
Unfortunately,
I wasn't quick enough and I saw the young teen in the alley jump out on his
unsuspecting victim and pull a gun. I
didn’t see what happened next, instead I concentrated on the small hole that
was worn into the grubby material on the seat in front of me and tried to
steady my breathing. At least now I knew
what I was dealing with, I didn’t need the specifics, I already knew the ending
to this tale. Turning slowly to locate
the man in the trilby, I smiled as I met his gaze for the second time
tonight. He was sitting three seats
behind me and I realised too late that he probably thought I was flirting, perfect…
Now I had
that killer decision to make… Let life
play out as it had been determined? Or
interfere and avoid the unnecessary death on my conscience by saving his life? I knew I didn't have long to decide, the stop
that I saw in my vision was only a couple of streets away, and the likely hood
of the bus stopping between here and there were slim. After years of battling this decision, I knew
that I couldn’t save everyone, but I could stop some of the injustice in the
world, like tonight for instance. My
instinct told me that it wasn't this mans time to die. It didn’t have to work like that, if I could
do some good tonight, by eliminating the pain and grief that this tragedy would
cause to the people effected by the loss, then why shouldn’t I? Maybe it would make me feel better and do
away with the gloomy mood that had descended upon me after the lousy day that I
had endured. It didn’t matter how I
justified it, I had made my decision.
Fog clung to
the ground as I stepped off the bus after the stranger in the suit; four stops
before I needed to I might add. My sense
of duty had got the better of me, no matter how much I had tried to reason with
myself that it wasn't my problem. One
day I would have to stop messing with this stuff, I still didn’t fully
understand the ramifications of a situation once I had messed with it, but for
now my conscience had gotten the better of me.
I didn’t even know this man, but I felt it was my responsibility to save
him.
As he turned
right and began to walk, his shoes echoing in the brisk evening air, I bent
down and untied my shoelace and retying it while I surveyed my
surroundings. This situation couldn’t
get anymore ironic if I'd planned it. I
saw the boarded up store front from my vision a few blocks down the badly lit
street, the street lamp directly outside it flickering threateningly like
something out of a low budget horror movie.
How much
could I alter what I saw, could I merely delay him and dodge the issue, or was
I going to have to be more creative and completely change the scenario?
Thinking
fast, I stood up and turned after the man.
'Excuse me?'
I called ahead.
He turned and
gave me a polite smile lifting his hat and tipping it in my direction whilst
cautiously glancing sideways.
'Mind if I
walk with you rather than follow a few paces behind? I'm heading just around the corner.' I gestured to street that branched off the
main road a few blocks after the dark alleyway that held the armed
teenager.
'Of course
not,' he answered politely, holding out his arm for me to take.
Clearly
seeing a damsel that needed to be protected out in the late evening darkness,
he tightened his arm pulling me close as I took his gesture and fell into step
beside him. The bus turned the corner
ahead and took with it the only noise in the empty street other than the
metallic click of the flickering street light.
I trained my eyes on the alleyway up ahead and kept looking for any
signs of the kid from my vision, whilst trying to pay attention to the man that
was now politely trying to make conversation beside me.
'You can call
me Val,' I answered in response to his posed question after introducing himself
as Calvin.
I noted the
wedding band on his left hand as he waved it about animatedly in front of us as
he spoke and knew that I was doing some good if I could make sure that he made
it home to his wife tonight. As we
neared the alley way between the abandoned store and the novelty gift shop next
door, I saw the glint of something shiny move in the darkness and drew a sharp
intake of breath. Calvin looked towards
me at the sound and I quickly pretended to stumble so that he could right my
step chivalrously.
'I'm sorry, I
can be clumsy sometimes,' I muttered whilst surreptitiously glancing back to
the dark alley entrance.
I saw my
opportunity and gestured for us to cross the road towards the turn off where
the bus had gone. Calvin agreed and
stepped off the curb with me into the road.
The teenager didn’t make an appearance from the darkness and I called it
a successful intervention. As we headed
down the street under the soft glow of the street lights, we continued to make
small talk before we parted ways at the corner where I now had a three stop
walk back to my apartment, but the stranger from the bus would go home to his
wife. The teenager was clearly looking
for an easy opportunity to prove his rebellious side and a couple walking down
the road would not prove easy, and killing a woman would not prove him as anything
other than sadistic.
As I finally
climbed the stairs up to my third floor apartment, I shrugged out of my coat as
I slipped the key into the lock and released a deep breath, trying hard to let
go of all the tension that had built up throughout the day. I dropped the keys on the bench by the door
and flipped the catch before heading straight down the hall and peering around
the end doorway into my daughter's room.
Standing in the quiet flat, I watched as she slept soundly, completely
unaware of the world around her, and hoped, like I did every night, that her
life would turn out differently.
Yep, that's
me, a loving mother, the wife to a successful junior doctor and a
Valkyrie. Oh, did I forget to mention
that part? Yep, that's me, my name is
Melissa, but I tend to go by Val when I am out defending the innocent. Three years ago I discovered that the
delusional visions that I had been seeing since I turned sixteen were in actual
fact premonitions of up and coming deaths; jolly I know! So, after spending many painstakingly long years
of confusion, upset and self doubt, I have spent the last three years, after
finding out what I was, from a most unlikely source I might add, learning how
to understand and control my abilities, and even harder, to learn how to deal
with my conscience after deciding whether to let destiny play out to plan, or
to intervene and piss off the universe by messing up their plan every now and
again.
It was a hard
line to two - one that didn’t seem to be getting any easier no matter how many
times I had to deal with it, but I think I was getting there. In the mean time, I had to settle on the fact
that my life was slowly working itself out, and I could be happy, despite my
history.
Hope you enjoyed it :)
Louby x
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