Larva

Larva

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Screeching. 

                     Shouting. 

                                        Screeching. 

A deep breath could be heard, one that was steady, but shallow, before upon opening their eyes. Then it played all over again in her mind, the screeching and shouting, it played over and over even as it was happening. Like a rewinded clip of a favorite film, but this was horrifically painful. 

It all happened so fast. She stepped out too fast, and the driver wasn’t faster. She could hear shouting, it felt distant but she could see the driver infront of her yelling something, “Someone call the ambulance there’s an injured child!” The frantic driver kept yelling, but she couldn’t hear him anymore. Her head hammered louder. Her eyes were heavier than the weight of her body being limp on the ground. She closed them. 

GASP. She sat up as quick as light, her breathing frantic and startled. Where am I? What are these? She thought to herself as she yanked off machines connected to her body. The tubes in her nose is what made her the most uncomfortable, once those were gone, she looked at the window. Ah, an exit. She thought before a nurse walked in, then arrived with a doctor. The doctor did an examen on her, her eyes, knees, the everyday doctor check up while questioning her. 

“Where are your parents? Are you a runaway??”
The girl remained silent. 

“Mhm, okay. We need to know, your parents will be worried. You got hit with a car and have been in a coma for 3 months. We couldn’t find your parents.” The doctor looked at her studying her. 

The girl’s brown eyes flickered upwards with a quiet curiosity and confusion, “Parents?” Her voice was small like a mouse. 

The doctor exhaled, “She could be having memory issues, let me try something easier. What’s your name?” 

Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion once more. The doctor wrote something down before walking to the hallway for a moment, talking to the nurse, “Her pupils dilated before I even shined them on…”

The nurse looked troubled, “That’s odd, maybe her body is still adjusting…”

The doctor shook his head, “She should be crippled, yet she’s fully responsive in those areas. Not even a sign of struggle. None.” 

Then, they heard something fall, not glass, but a loud enough thud to be noticed from her room. They both sprint to the room where the girl had been left, finding nothing but the furniture she once laid in and a opened window with a soft breeze against the white curtains. Gone.

She landed outside the building of the building she swung out of, little did she know that it wasn’t the first floor. She slipped and fell, not too far, but it was high enough that when she landed, she landed on her foot but wounded her ankle. Pop. No bones were broken, luckily, but her foot was limp and the sharp pain shot through her making her scream. “Argh!” 

The doctor leaned out the window, looking down where the girl had fallen. “Hey!” Her head snapped to the doctor, looking visibly in pain, and determination settled in her eyes. The doctor’s bewilderment increased as she limped away with her one good foot. 

The door behind the doctor was loudly opened with a bulky man in a black suit and a black tie. He wore obsedian glasses that blocked any view to his eyes, you couldn’t make out his whole face because of the glasses. His face around the glasses was round. 

“Hey you can’t be in here unless you’re the girl’s guardia-” 

“Where’s the girl.” The man cut off, swiftly pulling out a badge with bold ink, ‘BRA.’

The doctor’s eyes widened as panic settled in. “You’re with the B.R.A?” His voice cracked with fear. “The BRA don’t show up unless someone is in danger or worse! A terrorist!" The doctor began pleading with the man, saying how he has done no wrong, that he loves his country ‘dearly’.

“It’s not you that I want. It’s the girl.” The man said in a flat formal tone. It gave the doctor chills down his spine. 

“The girl? What possibly could-” 

“Classified, you will burn the records of this girl’s stay here.” The man said leaving no room for argument. The doctor, without a question, had the documents and lit it on fire with his lighter. He had no time to even let it fall to the floor before the man pulled out a pistol with a silencer to his head. 

Pew.

The man turned away from the doctor’s limp body on the floor, red oozed out onto the white tiles. The man went to the window, briefly seeing the girl limping away. She too saw him. She didn’t recognize that face, but something in her screamed at her, ‘run.’

The man rushed out of the building, speaking into a high-tech speaker, “I found her.” When he reached outside, for a moment, he saw her slip into an alleyway. 

     Her footsteps quickened as much as her body would allow her with injury. Around her, against the alleyway's walls, were ragged, homeless people. They were all dirty. Some looked her way, others didn’t even raise their heads. 

    Behind her, the man’s formal, rushed steps continued purposefully.

Upon seeing the man, the homeless group of people put their heads down to appear sleeping, or hid their faces from the man’s view.  The way their eyes flickered downward spoke that they were afraid, cautious of the man in black. The pistol remained in his tight grip with hostility. One of the people in that alleyway slumped towards the man, slurring his words with a careless sway of his body. “Hey bugger! I know that face from somewhere.” The slumped man snaps his fingers. “Oh! Oh! I know, you’re that-” The man in the black suit didn’t hesitate to shoot the slumped man, causing the slumped man to fall against the brick walls of the buildings surrounding the alleyway. 

     The girl saw this as she ran, her face changed to a deep-boned horror, making her way out of the alleyway into the streets where cars passed, and people walked to a destination like ants. She felt her heart pound in her chest with anxiety when she looked above her, noticing the sky-reaching buildings that, to her, looked intimidating. The world felt like it had multiplied in size, the sounds golfing up every ounce of silence, leaving the streets a constant scream compared to the silence that some might know. The cars honked, people yelled, and the multitude of footsteps on the black-bricked walkway.

     After pushing through the crowd of walking people on the walkway and dashing across the road, she made it to the other side. She gasped for air as she watched the man in the black suit stand across from her on the other side, as people passed him, all their faces blurring in the background for a singular moment with adrenaline seeping into her veins. 

     BAM!

In a blurish motion, something crashed in front of a car passing by, not another car, something worse. The people around shouted in shock, but before anyone could figure out what had caused the car accidant…

People started dying. It started with the driver getting out to examine what jumped out in front. Another blurish motion, something had snatched the driver, ripping into him. That’s when the screams began. The girl’s breathing quickened, almost frozen before blinking and making her way for cover. 

    The man after her was out of sight; he must’ve ran, she thought. Now that the man was gone, there was a much bigger issue in front of her. The creature. She hid behind a grey car, her breathing fast and panicking, while on the other side of the car, all she heard was people’s screams and the sound of things being crushed. She covered his ears, wishing the chaos would disappear. A man could be heard yelling, trying to get away. He crawled to the front of the car she was hiding behind- suddenly, it stopped. 

     She tried to steady her breathing, but the fear inside of her wouldn’t settle. She put a hand over her mouth, hoping that the creature wouldn’t see her, as she could see its shadow just to the side. Then, she heard footsteps leaving the chaotic scene behind. People still screamed and ran in panic. 

     All of a sudden, a figure stopped in front of her. She first saw his black leather boots as she focused on the ground to forget the chaos, before slowly looking up. It was a man from the look of it, he wore all black, but not a suit like the other man, but what she noticed mostly…

Is that he had no face at all. There was only a mask. It was black like the rest of him. Even though she couldn’t see his face, he didn’t feel like a threat, and that’s when he held his arm out. When she looked at his hand, she saw that he was holding out a flower. It was yellow, and it looked like a bell faced sideways as the petals curved outward. 

     She took the flower gently; she had completely forgotten about the chaos. The man spoke with a raspy,  deep voice,  “I am sorry.” Confusion and dread filled her eyes upon hearing these words, though before she could do anything- she was knocked out. 

     As unconsciousness claimed her, she could hear the chaos around her slowly fading. 

                                 Screeching. 

                                                       Screaming. 

                                                                             Screeching…