Author's Note: Very rarely will I be submitting to the Whyville Times, so if you are interested in reading more of my work, it would be quite nice if you visited www.storywrite.com/Rekanele .
There were two of them, and they watched rain slick the sides of the broad library windows. Crystal beads were forming on the exterior, dribbling away the muddy excess clinging on to the glass; the sky roiled and churned in restraint as its clouds swept back. There was a moment's pause before the foggy miasma gave way to a small beam of light that eventually ate its way to Earth.
There were two of them, and they dropped their books as soon as they saw the sun quiver into sight. The short boy flashed a smile to the tall girl across the table, who returned it in earnest.
They ran out of the library into the brief shine of light. Already everything was beginning to close up again, the universe settling into grayness that bounced and wavered along the tops of buildings and houses. Quickly they wiped the seats of their wet bicycles and threw their limber legs over and rode. It was sprinkling, dotting their hair with droplets and dampness?but they laughed anyway.
They rode and rode and rode. Time tipped into a standstill, blurring lines and borders as the rain lapped at their faces and clothes and hair, their bodies sponges and the whole world a sink.
Then there was the clink of metal against pavement, and the boy swerved suddenly from the road. It was a busy street, cars honking and screeching and cursing at the adolescent amid the crush of traffic. The boy hopped onto the sidewalk and wheeled his bike away to avoid being trampled by an angry mob of motorcyclists.
His companion followed. "Matt," she said. "Matt." Her voice was hoarse and deep, as if she'd smoked a thousand cigarettes in a day and quit. "What are you doing?"
"My key. I lost it," he said. He pressed the back pocket of his trousers. "I heard it fall on the sidewalk. I swear."
The rain was spilling onto the ground now, oozing into sewers and drenching people bare of coats and umbrellas. It was a barrage of water-arrows piercing skin and flesh, only it was needles of cold instead of pain.
Silence, then: "Find it."
They scoured the cement, peering between lines of feet and the patter of shoes on the floor. They searched for the sharp glint of copper, or the short hint of a gleam, but they resurfaced with nothing.
Matt pinched himself until his skin was raw and red and a tiny shock of pain wormed into his flesh. He held his breath, then let go, smoothing back sopping brown-blonde hair off his forehead. "I can't, Tess . . . I can't go home without my key," he panted.
"Maybe someone took it," Tess suggested. She squinted her eyes and stared at the sky. The rain had ceased, but the clouds still stirred restlessly in their haven.
Matt's vision wandered around, picking out strangers and familiar faces in the milling crowd. He couldn't see any suspicion, couldn't see anyone who wanted an ordinary house key for any reason.
Then he saw a gnarl of copper engrained into someone else's back pocket, and when he saw his own key swinging about aimlessly, his arm snaked out and wrenched it from the person's possession without thinking. When he lifted the key to his face, he realized it was his key and that the person had taken it, probably.
He grinned at Tess, but Tess was frowning. He tracked her gaze to the person he had taken his key from - a man with wisps of hair trailing over his face and sallow skin - and saw the man glaring at him with hardened interest, brown eyes flickering back and forth and roving across Matt's face.
"You took something from me," the man said in a reedy tenor. He extended a hand and wriggled his fingers expectantly.
Matt's eyebrows furrowed. He inhaled, scrutinized the odd man, and shook his head. "I didn't," he said slowly. "It's mine."
"Give it back to me." The man took a step forward and scowled. "You're mistaken. Really mistaken."
The sidewalk was strangely vacant now, and Matt wrestled back the floundering feel of helplessness evacuating his head into his body.
He looked at Tess for an answer, and Tess nodded affirmatively, like it was the only thing that mattered.
"It's mine," Matt said finally.
Then there was a rift in the air as the gap was shut between the pair, and suddenly Matt was staring into the man's glazed eyes, nose to nose and in such proximity that he noticed a ring of freckles etched into the man's right cheek, a little mole weighing against the rim of his lip, a crease on his nose where there shouldn't have been one. The front of his shirt was straining under pressure, wedging itself agonizingly in the man's grip.
Suddenly everything was real, and Matt wanted out.
"Listen," the man hissed. His voice was a honeyed baritone now, sliding easily into Matt's ears with peculiar, clean-cut perfection. "The key is mine. The key is not yours. I think you should give it back. You think you should not give it back." The man's thick lips slithered into a smile. "So why don't we reach a compromise? You keep the key, and I take something of yours . . ."
The man laid a gentle hand on Matt's chest, and his smile stretched wider and wider until the corners of his lips tucked into the rounding of his cheeks.
All the air in Matt's lungs was expunged. It went somewhere else, was pushed away into some confines of an oxygen-deprived physique. His chest tightened in protest; a rising scream bubbled its way out; a digging spear shoveled in and he issued a soft, aching wheeze as he was purged. It was a horrible feeling, a sickly, slimy thing that weaved in and out and in again, and then out and out and out . . .
The missing air rushed back in rapidly, as though there wasn't enough time to fill Matt's lungs, and the man dropped Matt from his iron clench. Matt's body slapped onto the ground, and Tess hurried over, only to pull back when the man reeled onto her.
Matt opened his mouth to speak, then gulped more air when he couldn't. There was a chink in his chest that shifted and coiled and blocked his voice from emerging. Something was locked in place, and as he urged his words to trickle out, a small keening sound climbed from his throat instead, pale and weak and shaking.
The man chuckled and knelt to whisper to Matt. This time when he spoke, he spoke in a mixture of voices Matt couldn't even begin to fathom. But there was something intimate in the voices that Matt could recognize, and abruptly he swallowed a swell of dread shooting upward from his stomach.
"Hear me?" the man whispered softly. "I am you now. You have my key and I have your voice." He smiled again, a smug little smile that Matt hated. "A very fair trade."
The man righted himself and strode away, leaving Matt and Tess alone in the empty street.
