1 Aurora

So, here we are. The end of my story. The end all to be all of endings, and honestly it sucks donkey balls. It sucks like when you buy not one, but two pair of super cute Elastic Waist PU Skinny Jeans from a rather sketchy website for dirt cheap, and when they finally arrive weeks late, all packaged in a crinkling rubber bag, new and beautiful, and you put them on right away; because who the hell waits; only to find out you can't get the waist past your fat mid-tight. What the abomination is the ELASTIC waist even for then? But I know I picked the right size! I even made sure to go one size over because you can never be too sure. Curse those Impossibly gorgeous skinny Asian models. Somehow, it has to be all their fault.

What was I talking about again?

Oh yes! The end of my story. In case you were wondering, yes, I do mean that in the morbid-est way possible. Like how you say someone has kicked the bucket or that they've gone to a better place. I never understood that saying. How do we know that there is a better place? they could be chilling in hell with Lucifer himself sipping on a glass of bloody Tatiana. How does anybody know?

Anyway, I'm going off topic again. This is my curse. I get brain and mouth diarrhea when I get into stressful situations, (and this situation is as stressful as it can get without traveling to the deepest part of the ocean) my sister Lydia calls it word vomit, Bless her eloquent diction. She has a precious heart. Its just buried very, very deep beneath her god awful sense of humor.

I lift my left but cheek and reach down to pluck out the jagged pebble that has been stabbing into my ass. I throw it to the side with a sneer and continue trying to unlock my phone with numb and cold fingers. Curse you fingerprint lock for being incredibly secure yet horribly inefficient in an emergency. I should have never set up the stupid thing. What pray tell, is worth locking up in this stupid thing? My candy crush app maybe, or the Wizard of Oz puzzle game? Or even better, my supper awesome dress up game! Stupid! stupid! Stupid!

"I'm getting rid of you the moment I get the chance" I mumble menacingly to the home button of my phone, as I repeatedly try to swipe my finger correctly across it. It is not working. The chill of the night forces me to huddle in on myself, shoulders trembling. A loud snarl jolts me back to reality. That did not sound human, does one of them have a dog? I raise my neck like a giraffe to peak over the front bumper of my small red car.

"Yep, I'm going to die." I mumble, "and in a Wellmart parking lot of all places", The moment I am discovered, I can consider my life forfeited. How embracing is that going to be? Once I die, I'm going to be made fun of by all the other ghost, I just know it.

I retract and sit back down on the graveled ground, sulking. Just my luck to get killed carrying a plastic bag containing lubricant, a douche and a J.R Ward novel, and finally a box of Danish donuts. Yes, I can hear the silence. I will be reported on the news as the douche girl that died in a parking lot, or maybe, the douchennete? Has a nicer ring to it. Or better yet, Lubricita. I face-palmed myself with the phone screen. How humiliating.

Just for the records none of those things have anything to do with each other. The douche and lubricant aren't even mine. Ok, some of the lubricant is mine, but its not for the regular purpose. I swear to baby Jesus. Because this is a time when regular Jesus just won't do.

Irritated at myself for my rambling thoughts, I glance back down to my phone only to see the message 'five fail attempts, please try again in five minutes' I want to scream in frustration and curse the heavens. I feel the foul-mouthed words build up in my esophagus, and itch to let them out like hell-hounds out of hell. Except I can't. If I do that, the guy murdering someone about a hundred feet from me will hear, and then I will certainly be in real trouble. I am just trying to call the police, why does this have to be so complicated! Wait a minute, I mentally slap myself, A good slap too, because i deserved it. The emergency call button, right there staring at me. I feel the burn of embarrassment run from the very center of my being down to my toenails. That is it, I am burying myself in a dune of sand somewhere once I get out of this alive. Somewhere crows can peck out my eyes and brains. Because obviously I have no use for them.

Finally I slide the Emergency call button opened and type in nine one one. After a few beats of seconds, i hear, "911 what's your emergency" A calm muffled voice picks up after the first ring.

"Yes, uhm so there is a guy being murdered here" I whisper yell into the phone.

"Ok ma'am who is being murdered and where is your location?"

"I don't know who is being murdered!" I whisper-yell, edging myself out of my sitting position, to crouching on all four to see beyond my red Honda into the darker part of the parking lot. But no one is there anymore. "Do you suggest I go ask them politely what their names are?" I reply testily. I squint into the gloom trying to make out anything, but the two struggling figures there a moment ago are nowhere to be seen. The parking lot is as empty as a Maze comeback concert, but for a few cars here and there. Wait no, a pile of something whitish is on the ground just over there. What is that? I take a few crawls away from the protection of my car. My plastic bag of sin forgotten by the front tire. All my focus narrowed in on trying to make out what the pile was. It wasn't there a second ago. I jump at the voice of the operator in my ear.

"Are you still there ma'am? Where are you right now?" The 911 operator asks more urgently.

"I'm at Walmart" I answer simply, immediately realizing how vague that is. Nobody is going to find me with that. "I'm at the one on broadw-" My breath catches in my throat as I feel; not a presence exactly, but the breeze at the nape of my neck charge with tension. My whole body stiffens. Crouching there like an idiot on all four, gravel digging down into my palm and knees, with my ass in the air, all I feel is the unnerving sensation of the silence in the night pressing up against me, trying to seep inside trough my pores. Only the operator's voice penetrates, asking that I confirm my address; but even that also fades as my arm lowers involuntarily. The phone going with it. I discreetly slip it into my pocket.

If anyone was wondering, this is the part where you scream at the soft-headed heroine to run like her life depends on it, because honestly it does, but don't judge until you've been in this situation. I used to be one of those people yelling bloody-Mary, and guess what. I was right. There is no way some stupid horror movie gimmick is going to get me. I pop to my feet and dash it toward the opened Walmart without a single look back. I figure quickest way to prevent a murder, is to have other people around. Who would have thought Walmart would be my saving grace? Despite it being very late, the big consumer vortex in front of me still boasted a semblance of anonymity that comes with being around people. I have legs, two very short legs, but legs none the less and they work just fine,most of the time. Just try and catch me you murdering psycho. I run like a bee and sting like a butterfly. Is that how that saying is supposed to go? Does it even apply to this situation? Oh whatever, god knows what I mean, that is enough for me. I pump my stumpy little legs as far as they could go. In my next life I better be a six-foot five Brazilian model with legs up to my sternum. I deserve it for all the crap of short leg-ness I have to put up with in this life. I'm almost at the door I can feel my heart thumping in my chest and my breath coming out in rasps. Hey, I never said I was good at running, I just said I could; because duh, legs.

A steel band clamping down on my right forearm abruptly stops my forward movement. My feet, slow to get the memo that we were stationary, went flying from under me. I would have slammed down to the ground on my back, giving myself a concussion in the process, i'm sure, if it wasn't for the hand still holding me in the air by my shoulder; then jerking me backward to slam against the chest it was attached to.

Ok, so it's definitely a male chest I'm being held against. A very large very wide and firm male chest. I am not even going to acknowledge the jolt of something that ran through my body the moment my back touched his chest. I would have thanked him for not letting me fall, if it wasn't his fault in the first place, and if he hadn't breathed down on my neck all creepily. I 'ew ew ewed' mentally as I wiggled my body trying to escape his hold.

"Let. Me. Go." I hissed.

"Oh, a feisty one" The stranger rumbled back. Ok, that voice! Murderer or no, that voice is just, damn. He had a distinct ascent I couldn't place but could have been European or English for all I know. That is not saying much really, because i honestly don't know much.

"Who the hell are you, I don't know you, so leave me alone." Let me go, let me go, let me go. I still have so many things I want to do, I don't want to die all because I couldn't wait till tomorrow to buy a douche for my little nephew. Oh, God Lydia must still be waiting for me wondering what is taking me so long. She will be so mad that I'm keeping her up. What am I saying? I'm about to die here.

"I can't do that." The mountain man countered. "You saw, didn't you."

"Saw? Me? What are you talking about? I saw nothing. As a matter of fact, I'm legally blind." I blabbed.

"Are you now?" The stranger answered disbelieving.

"Yep, I am, so If you just let me go, I can stumble my way to my car, and you wont ever see me again. See, everybody is happy!"

"How do you drive if you can't see?" he asked, I can hear the amusement in his voice. The jerk.

"Er... Er..." I fobbed, " Oh yes, photons." I cried triumphantly. Did I mention I was an idiot?

"Photons you say?" he chuckled. I can feel the rumble of his laugh against my back. "please do explain why don't you." I am in a life crisis here and he is chuckling at me? The nerve! no one laughs at me! Not even a sexy sounding murderer! "I want to know more about these photon that make a blind woman see?"

"Oh, you see there is a whole complicated science behind it. Very complicated stuff you know. I wouldn't want to bore you" Just let go of my arm already so I can at least turn and see your face for the police sketch artist when I report your ass. I rant mentally.

"Mmm" The mountain just mumbles at me. Ok this is getting ridiculous. Time for those harder than hell family training courses in self-defense to pay their due. I turned my uper body abruptly to the right and kicked him in the shin with the heel of my right foot. He grunted but didn't let go of my forearm like I thought he would. But his grip loosened on me. That was enough for me to make a fist and punch him right in the solar plexus just like I was taught. Bad idea. My hands felt like they punched a brick wall rather than a stomach, but he let my arm go. I suspect more from the surprise and shock on his face when he looked down at my me, rather than anything I did, but I will take what I can get.

I stumbled back a few steps and raised my head way up, chin jutting out defiantly to meet his gaze. For a spark of moment when our eyes me I wasn't sure who or where I was everything inside of me shattered and reformed in a split second. The hell? And wow, what a face. The moment locked me in place. Eyes that I could not place a color to in the moonlight stared into me as if searching and learning the very depth of my soul. His unwavering stare of; I'm not sure what exactly, hunger or need? maybe something else? It rooted me in place. His face cut in chiseled lines and planes gave him this complexity I could not put my hands on. I would have been happy standing there staring into his eyes, but then he took a step forward toward me, left hand outstretched palm upward as he mumbled something in a foreign language sounding like 'eger'. So, I kicked him right in the balls.

No way in standing here like dumb ass, while he does whatever he wants. As he doubled over cursing, I ran past him back to my car, unlocking it with the remote car keys I dug out of my pajama pants pocket. Only now realizing I was wearing my hello kitty pajama set. Oh well, I'm not in the business of impressing creepy man in parking lots, even incredibly hot ones.

I dashed into my car, crabbing my discarded plastic shopping bag by the driver's door as I went, Stared the engine in record time and was out of there before he could say whiplash. As I drove away I glanced back in the rear-view mirror, and the tall stranger was just standing there like some weird statue, watching my car drive away. But as I stared a few seconds longer, I could see several humanoid shapes emerging from the shadows, like specters in the night, to join my statued mountain man. He sure recovered quick I mused to myself, seeing he wasn't writhing in pain on the floor anymore, but standing there all hulk-like.

He also had friends. I wonder why they didn't show themselves earlier. I shook my head and focused back on the road. I really wasn't sure what just happened, but I made it out alive that's all that counts. As my Nana always says, "When the shit gets rough, hike it like a cheater, questions won't do naught but slow you down." I won't ever see him again. Everything will be right with the world, sunshine and butterflies and all that crap. Wait can he find me by my license plate? I mused over the possibility for a second, chewing on my bottom lip. Nah, a chuckle escapes me the longer I think about it. Normal people don't do that. That only happens in movies and bad sitcoms. He's probably already forgotten I was even there. Yes.

You're good Aurora, I smiled to myself in the rear-view mirror, you're good.