It’s hard to remember how exactly I ended up here: my face resting on the grimy, wet, pavement of the alleyway. The most obvious cause was probably the behemoth-of-a-man standing menacingly before me. Though my senses were scrambled — being hit clear across the alley, colliding with a rather unyielding brick wall then sliding limply to the ground tends to do that.
I remember I decided to cut through this alleyway because I was running late — and remarked to myself how eerie it all was. I remember walking past a very large homeless person — an abnormally large homeless person in fact. I tried to pass by him unnoticed, but as I walked past he dropped some of the garbage he was going through and gave a grunt in my direction. Uneasy, I sped up and suppressed a shudder while I tried to walk on.
After that, however, everything just sort of blurred together into something else. I heard a loud crash behind me which now that I think about it was probably the garbage can that the homeless person was rummaging through as it collided with the ground or a wall or something. Startled I begun to run only to have a large, putrid hand come up on my left and swat me off my feet and into this brick wall.
In hindsight, the absurdity of what had just happened — me being flung through the air like an old discarded rag-doll would seem hilarious if this were a TV show or movie. But in reality, the impact was painful as all of the wind was knocked out of my lungs, I gasped to get more air yet it felt as if hot pokers were stabbing my sides. The hulking, foul-smelling, mass of a man was upon me before I could get to my feet. He reached down and grabbed me, lifting me by the throat. I could feel myself struggling for air, hear the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears, and could see my vision going blurry.
I knew this must be the end because there was nothing I could do. All of my strugglings was in vain as my vision was going black as I saw a faint flash of light — it must have been that tunnel everyone always talks about at the end — although no one ever mentioned it would smell like urine mixed with rotting food and rodent feces.
Suddenly the ground came up to meet me and I crumpled into the dirty wetness of the alleyway. The shock of being free and the rush of air that filled my lungs brought the whole situation into a whole new interesting focus: there was someone else here.
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