Nights ends so much quicker than the days did | July 3, Ada
Ripley’s solace is the woods. It’s always been her favorite place – even as a child. She loves to be outside, to get dirt between her toes and under her fingernails. Weekends were for trips to the parks where trees grew taller than ten of her. They were for pretending she was a knight, lost in the magic wood where she would rescue her brother, the disappeared prince. She would cry when her parents would take them home as the sun sank lower in the sky.
But these days Ripley’s the most dangerous thing in the woods. The night does not scare her anymore.
She tugs her jacket closer around her shoulders. It’s several sizes too big, picked up for ten dollars at a thrift shop, large, black and leather it’s the only belonging of hers she would try to save from a fire. It was the first thing she bought with her own money after she left home. The early summer night isn’t as hot as it could be, nor is it cool enough to really warrant the jacket but she’s not one to leave it behind. The tall grass and short bushes catch at her bare legs, the scratches in the skin heal just as new ones form. It tickles.
She’s not really paying attention to where she’s going, absentmindedly following her nose and wandering. She has had a long time to get used to the way her heart rate quickens, the way her head tilts when she catches a scent, the way every sound is so much louder. While it’s habitual, instinctual now, should she chose to focus on it, she might be consumed with the anger and hurt that rides just under her human skin.
Which is when she hears a crack, someone stepping on a branch. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end. “Hello?” she calls out.
