By: Spooks
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Down the stairs...
Out the door...
Into the night...
And into the fog...
Heero’s shoes slapped the pavement as he ran, loud rubbery smacks on concrete echoing into the night.
He ran, throwing his body forward in a desperate sprint.
He ran, not caring about being quiet, not caring about being efficient.
He didn’t care. He didn’t. He couldn’t!
He had to get out, had to get away, had to get into the cold night.
So he ran.
Exertion.
The fog twisted around him, enveloping him, hiding him from the window above.
The window to his dorm room.
Heero wondered, as he dashed through the muted shadows and the oppressive mist, if Duo was peering out through the glass. Would he press his fingers against the clear barrier, eyes searching?
Or would the other pilot shove the window open and lean out, hoping to hear rather than see him in the foggy night?
Yes, that was more Duo’s way. He’d open the window, if anything at all. If he even cared.
Heero could almost see Duo forcing the pane up, cracking the paint that glued the portal shut. The strange squeal of wood on wood echoed in his mind.
He could almost smell the flakes, those swirling peels of dust that would erupt from the ancient oak with the rising of the glass. He could almost hear Duo cough, almost see him lean against the sill and halfway into the shifting grays of the fog and the lamplight, hoping to see or hear...
No.
He had to stop thinking.
Heero’s feet ached. He had run past dormitories and across the quad, now he was dashing parallel to the main school building. His reflection flashed in the windows beside him as he passed. He kept his arms tucked close, ignoring the sudden stitch in his side, and turned his head to look at himself in the silvery windows.
Racing his reflection...
Flash! There he was...Now gone again...Now back!
Brick wall...reflection...brick wall...reflection...
Heero saw himself...
He looked like shit.
Eyes wide, chest heaving, muscles corded into tense knots, hair tousled and sweaty, he looked like someone who was running to nowhere from nowhere. Was that true? Was it?
The fog was so dense that he couldn’t see anything behind his mirrored doppelganger. It was a gray distorting wall, and it was coming down on top of him...
He...had to...keep...running. Faster...!
Wait!
What was that sound? Footsteps?
Heero felt his pumping legs slow, then stop. He ignored the burn of sore muscles and the acid searing his lungs.
How long had he been running? How long?
Again! The noise...was it really there?
He held his breath...
Ignoring the pain.
Around him, the fog seemed alive. Heero listened.
Why had he come out here? Why did he have to run? Why couldn’t he have stayed, and listened when he was still back in the room, maybe let things happen? What was it that he feared?
There! Again! Was that a footstep...or had he been imagining it? But...he was alone! Right?
Heero strained his attention, focusing all his physical energy on the act of hearing.
Had there been someone there?
Was there someone else in the fog?
He felt a self-depreciating smirk find its way onto his face. He was listening now, but there was no one for him to listen to. Ironic. Fitting. Ironically fitting.
Now a tightness had gripped his chest, aching all the way down to the pulsing in his legs. He must have been running very fast for much longer than he had realized. How could he not have noticed? Was it because he hadn’t wanted to notice?
The cold night air was unforgiving, freezing down the back of his throat all the way down to settle like ice in his lungs.
He shuddered.
He wondered if Duo had closed the window yet.
Where was this horrible fog coming from? He couldn’t see where he was going, and he couldn’t see where he had been. He couldn’t see much of anything, come to think of it...
The damn fog.
An internal voice piped its interest in it, that gray swirl living in the black of night.
How strangely parallel, it said to him, that in a fit of confusion he should seek solace in a drift of fog. Metaphorical, even. Ha. The inner voice sounded a lot like Duo all of a sudden, its tones taking on sarcastic qualities that still somehow managed to convey concern.
He moved out of the muted streetlight and into a narrow alley between buildings. Why had he suddenly felt so exposed? He was wrapped in the fog, protected by its confusion...if he couldn’t see anyone, then no one could see him. That was how things worked. That was how things always worked.
Heero clenched his fists and looked up, hoping to see the stars or the moon. But there was nothing there except the heavy grayness above him.
It was everywhere. He sighed and leaned against the alley wall, reveling in how the hard bricks dug through his thin tank top and into his back. An anchor to reality.
It was dark in the alley. Black muffled with gray mist. Shadows that threatened to devour his body seemed frozen in a silent dance. Dark.
Heero could see barely see his breath puffing in front of his face, the cold air steaming it and making it one with the fog. An eddy of confusion, taking the evidence of his life away...
So now what?
He had stopped running. Or had he just paused?
Now what?
Heero listened to the silence around him...
What was that? Again?
No sound of footfalls...but another swirl in the milky darkness...a disturbance in the fog...
But...there was no one else out here!
Heero felt a stab of fear invade the gripping numbness that had settled over his body.
Before he knew what he was doing, Heero had started running again.
Into the fog. Confused. Away from the unknown specter in the mist.
He tried to force himself to take even, measured breaths and run at a steady pace to conserve his energy, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t. His fear latched on and took control, taking his training and reducing it to a distant, horrible memory.
Fight or flight. Those survival instincts found in all humans, designed to protect them from harm. His muscles smoldered with agony, and his lungs were on fire. The consequences of flight were painful.
Down the alley and around one of the school buildings, his body flinging itself on pumping legs, fear of the unknown thing in the fog urging him to escape.
Heero ran. The sarcastic voice was back, and it wondered what the hell was wrong with him. Why was he running from a swirl in the fog? Why? He was a soldier, a trained killer. There was nothing on the school grounds that could hurt him.
Heero agreed. He knew this. He really did.
Logic. Logic. Logic...does nothing when you’re running scared, he decided.
But what was he afraid of? What? Damnit! What?
...What was that?
There were definitely footsteps behind him.
Oh God.
Faster!
No! He had to stop! He had to make a stand! He couldn’t let whatever...whoever...do this to him! He could have some sort of control, even if he didn’t understand.
Damn fog.
Heero halted and threw his back against the wall of a building, hiding himself beside stairs swathed in shadows. His eyes searched the dull gray that wrapped itself inside a circle of streetlight directly in front of him.
Something was moving, just on the edge of the light. Heero held his breath, despite his body’s protests.
Silence.
He was such a fool. He was alone.
Of course.
So why was he disappointed? Hadn’t he been afraid because he had thought the contrary? How confusing...
Heero slumped to the ground, not caring that his breathing was coming in great gasps or that his body was flooded with pain. He bowed his head, ignoring the fog.
The unmistakable sound of boot heels clicking on concrete alerted him.
Heero looked up and saw Duo.
The other boy had halted in the circle of streetlight, head cocked to the side, eyes squinted. He was looking at Heero with a perplexed, slightly worried expression. No smile.
Duo stood very still. Instead of having his hands on his hips or his arms crossed, Duo’s posture had lost its normal cocky attitude. His arms swung limply at his sides, fingers twitching...and then Heero noticed that Duo was fighting to control his breathing, too.
The unmistakable sheen a sweat glittered his brow.
Had...had Duo been running?
But then...how long...had he been following Heero the whole time?
Why?
The fog, which had opened up to allow Heero an unobstructed view of the other pilot, now began to invade once again. It began to take Duo away from him.
Duo tensed a little, as though he was about to walk forward. Then he stopped, obviously holding himself back.
His voice carried through the fog clearly. It was a bit shaky. “Can I come over there and sit beside you, or will you run away again?”
Heero considered. He looked at the encroaching fog.
What had he been afraid of?
“I’m through running.”
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