You don't go into the streets late at night. Not by yourself. How foolish, how mad, how utterly incompetent of I to forget this? This one little rule put in place to keep me safe from whatever lurks beyond what I would see in the daytime, and I throw it all away to simply forget? But there I was, as the sky was gradually darkening from its' sunset shades of orange to an enveloping black, with a fog as thick as a soup that you might sip on a cold winter's day. Even so, with all of the warning signs, I did not head home, my feet would not take me there.
Footsteps. Slowly, ever so slowly approaching my position. So soft you would hardly hear them against the howling winds. But with my sight impaired by the masked, foggy skies of the night, my hearing was peaked, and I did hear, I did hear. Footsteps. They did not get louder, like they do in the movies, they did not grow faster. They echoed about me, and I realized they were mine. I could hear nothing but my own footsteps against the cold pavement, booming, echoing. They encased my ears, allowing me to hear nothing but footsteps. Everything was silent, everything but my footsteps, which rang out in an awful, nails-on-a-chalkboard way.
A sudden flash and a strike of fear, my heart pounding. Alas, but only lighting in the distance. Of course, nothing else it could be. I was alright, if not a bit startled, and achy. I must be achy from the cold, I thought, I had not done much else that day. It struck me only later that along with the lightning, there was no rain, only a transition of light and a screech of booming thunder to cover the sounds of my noisy gait.
Then they stopped. Very suddenly, the footsteps were gone. I was so startled by the lack of sound, the utter silence that caused me to hear the very blood pumping in my ears, that I stopped walking. It was replaced by new sounds, frightening sounds. I do not recall exactly what they were, but somewhere, there was a feral man laughing. There was a young mother singing a distant, fading lullaby to calm a thousand souls. There was a young child, quietly weeping, with a slow ascend towards a bloodcurdling, whiny wail.
My eyes began to work against the fog, with a bluish-grayish tone to the very air surrounding me. I saw nothing but figures, just figures. Shadows, even, shapes. But not people, no, these were not people. These were shells, walking along with me, walking along without footsteps. Footsteps. It was then I realized I did not make a sound, not a single sound, and neither did those around me. Not a single sound, not a single footstep, though there were literally thousands. Only one pair, one set of feet clamped noisily along the ground. They angered me, those footsteps. Why did they have footsteps, while I could not make a sound?
I cried out, we cried out, the tortured, innocent souls among me cried out without sound. How could one disrupt this blissful silence encompassing our minds!? How could one be so clumsy and selfish as to force upon us this sound!? This wretched sound only rose, it rose until i could hear nothing but the pounding patter of footsteps. The sound plagued me, it called back awful memories of my past, it mocked me with it's impish sound and it's complete dominance over everything I heard. I could not think of anything else, not even if I tried, than the footsteps. I had to stop them, they had to be gone.
I held my hands to my ears, forcing myself towards the footsteps with a new found motivation. The other figures moved with me, towards the only sound we could hear. Wailing all the way, there was a growing sound, a growing sound of the utmost pain and anguish. The sound of a thousand tortured souls. I descended upon the sound, among the others, screaming, wailing, thrashing about in a fit of absolute madness and anger. I stopped at nothing to eliminate the sound, flailing wildly with the others surrounding me, allowing me into their crowd to destroy the plaguing noise.
A flash of light, and a rumbling, booming clap of pure, distressed sound. Louder than anything I had ever heard. And when it finally dimmed, I breathed a sigh a relief. Not a footstep. Not a sound, not even the sound of a breath. Another figure appeared in my peripheral, the same shade of bluish-grayish as everything around me. It wandered about, but it's feet did not touch the ground. No one's feet touched the ground. There was not a single patter, not a single sound, not a single footstep.
You do not go into the streets late at night. Not by yourself. How foolish, how mad, how utterly incompetent of I to forget this, this one little rule put in place to keep me safe from whatever lurks beyond what I would see in the daytime? But as I walked about, I knew I was lost in the fog, but I no longer desired to be back at home. Home would never be quite so silent, it would never hold the same still, blissfully quiet air that surrounded me and filled my ears with pure nothingness. The silence brought me peace. I would not return. I would not go back. I would do anything to keep this silence, this beautiful silence that seemed like a drug to me now, like a slice of a serene and angelic heaven.
I could hear nothing. I could feel nothing. I was not even sure that my heart was beating. Everything was still, and then I heard it. Gradually building, encompassing my mind with it's god-awful sound that was completely impossible to turn away from.
Footsteps.
ns 18.68.41.175da2
