GitL [revised] 1

Feet pounding with the unsteady rhythm of fatigue, the woman ran. She ran until she could breathe no more, and then still continued to push herself well past her limit. The bucket she carried swung madly at her side as she moved. Even in the cold weather, fat drops of sweat ran down her face, dripping into her eyes and causing her to stumble. Her pursuers were fast, but she’d been able to keep a good gap between them for a while. Eventually, her pursuers began to close in, but the woman still did not give in to her fate. She came to a stop and swung the bucket as hard as she could. Making good contact several times, the woman managed a few thumps on these beasts but a mere bucket wasn’t a weapon capable of saving her from them. One woman against at least six of them was no fair match, and the woman clearly recognized that. One could almost see her physically deflate as her energy quickly faded. Her swings became less powerful, less angry, less determined. Her fight was beginning to fade, and she still had a way to go before her fight was finished. The distance between her and safety was too great and she soon gave up, as unwilling as she could be. Her six pursuers finally managed to subdue her enough to carry her away back to their lair. Still far from death though, the woman’s body hung limp in the arms of one of the monsters. They marched in a special formation, with the one carrying the woman in the middle and the rest surrounding it in a sort of pentagonal shape. Opening her eyes one last time before the fatigue washed over her in its entirety, she saw the bucket she’d used as a weapon lying abandoned in the dirt, what water may have been in it, spilled across the land.

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Juilliard awoke with a start, small beads of sweat dripping down his forehead and his breath shallow and quick. He’d had the nightmare once again. He could never get away from it. Although he didn’t know exactly what had happened that day, he knew it would haunt him for as long as he lived. He always blamed himself for it, even though there was never a single thing he could have done to change it, or to stop it. It had been nearly seven years since that day, but Juilliard still remembered exactly what he had been doing and how he’d felt when she didn’t come back that day, or the next, or the next. He knew there was nearly zero chance she’d survived whatever had really happened to her, but there was still always that little tiny sliver of hope that one day he’d see her again, that one day he could hug her again, that one day all would be well again.

The nightmares always left an impression on Juilliard. His moods thrashed about violently, constantly swinging between spite and despair. One minute he was pacing the area in an angry, determined march, the next he was lying still in the dirt, silently crying. He couldn’t get past it. He constantly pondered over what would have happened had he just gone with her that day.

This particular time was worse than the others though. Maybe it was because the anniversary of her disappearance was closing in once again. Things always seemed to be worse for Juilliard around that anniversary. It had always been said that time heals even the worst wounds, but this wound just reopened at the same time every year.

Every time these mood swings came on again, Juilliard would make it his mission to find a new place to stay. Besides being a good idea to keep moving, he found it relaxing to be moving around. It was a distraction to him, always having to keep his eyes and ears open to his surroundings. And in a way, moving again was kind of like moving on from his past. A past that could haunt almost anyone to their breaking point.