It’s sunny. It’s a sunny morning, a sunny afternoon, and oddly enough, a sunny night.

I’m prancing along the ally’s long, gray pathway like a free gazelle when I stop. The sun stops shining on my shoulders and it’s cold and dark. There’s something behind me. I can feel it on the back of my neck- hair sticking up. My body tenses and I feel some kind of a pull, and I scream. I tear my vocal cords out and present them to the heavens, for they are dead. The thing had hit me somewhere in my throat and disabled it. This thing is skilled. So skilled I’m beginning to think this thing isn’t a thing, but a person. 

I turn and the thing is a man. He covers my mouth and says to be quiet. I am not quiet. I try and try to scream but the sound never surfaces.