Atonement || Charles & Asha
Panic consumed her as she ran and stumbled blindly through crowded streets, her eyes tightly shut. A voice, one of her pursuers, shouted after her, demanding her to stop– that they would shoot if she didn’t. She kept running. They would do much worse that shoot her if they caught her, knowing what she was. What she could do. A wave of sickness washed over her as every possible scenario flashed through her mind, pushing her to move even faster.
A shaky hand reached out to find a wall. Any sort of solid structure to guide her. It was too hard to focus, to think about where she was to wander the streets as she normally did. Her fingers scraped painfully across a sharp brick corner, and the rush of cool air and rotten garbage hit her nose. An alleyway. She dove inside, bloodied fingers now ran across the wall before coming in contact with what she could only guess to be a dumpster. Sirens began to sound and she footsteps were growing louder.
With little choice left, she forced herself to open her eyes and look around for witnesses before scrambling inside, careful to hold her breath, not only for the smell, but for fear of being caught. Seconds seemed to last hours as she waited for them to pass.
The sirens were deafening now, and the cops that’d been following her had stopped not far from her.
“Shit! Where’d she go?!” One of them shouted, giving a sharp kick to the dumpster. She forced herself to remain stone-still
Her eyes began to well up and her lung were crying for air. Finally, one of them suggested fanning out to search. The footsteps soon faded, and the sirens passed seconds later. Still, she remained hidden. Unable to hold her breath any longer, she gasped, the smell of rotten food and other such things made her gag. Quickly, she threw up the lid and climbed out, heading back the way she’d come, only to slam headlong into a passing stranger. This time, however, she kept her eyes firmly shut.
“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean– I–” she shook her head and ran, not even bothering to help them up before disappearing into the crowd once more.
Later that night, she’d somehow managed to find her way to a deserted park. The fear and panic from earlier that day had slowly begun to fade, allowing the realization of what she’d done to truly hit her. She’d killed someone. Not just someone, but a child. Someone’s child was gone because of her. It was her fault. Falling to her knees, she hung her head and retched, tears streaming down her face. She hadn’t meant for this. She’d never wanted to hurt anyone. It was why she wore the damned blindfold in the first place! Why did he have to get curious? Why the hell had she looked when he’d tugged it off? She wished that cop had shot her. She wished he’d killed her. She’d rather die than live with this guilt. To have that terrified face etched forever in her memory.
Perhaps that was to be her punishment, though, she thought. To live with what she’d done. To suffer with it. More than anything, she wished to go home. To lock herself away forever. Unfortunately, that was was not an option. They'd be looking for her. Waiting for her there. Resigning herself to the fact that she was now, for better or worse, homeless, she found herself a patch of grass and stared tearfully up at the empty sky.
