Day 721

It was that weird time of day when it's not quite sunset but the sky is tinged with orange. He was coming home from his last shift at the hospital - 5am to 5pm - and exhaustion filled his every pore and made his every move sluggish and ape-like.

Thankfully the walk from the hospital to his home wasn't too arduous and contained only one steep hill for him to lumber up and even then he could still cut through the woods. Sometimes there would be dog-walkers along there and their happy faces never failed to brighten his day after facing twelve hours of complaints, minor injuries and other people's bodily fluids spilling everywhere without so much as a "sorry!".

Usually 5pm was the peak time for people to be out and about around the hill area but apparently not today. The whole area seemed utterly silent save for the sounds of birds coming from the forest nearby but even they seemed muffled, like he was hearing them through glass or water.

The hill felt too empty, too exposed for him to want to walk his usual route to the top and along to his home so he chose to cut through the forest. It might not save him time but it felt safer. While he was debating this a stranger approached him from behind, leaned in and muttered "The air feels weird, doesn't it? Please say it isn't just me."

He confirmed that there was definitely something strange in the air but maybe it was just the time of year or the weather? The stranger shook their head and explained that the'd been having the same nightmare all week. "Somebody floats towards me, down the hill. She's this tiny little girl but she's hovering a good three foot above the ground and racing at me heck for leather like some tiny she-devil! I don't know what she'd do if she got to me - I wake up when she's close enough for me to see the whites of her eyes. The air feels the same now as it does in my dreams."

Glancing behind the stranger's shoulder he could see a black blob at the top of the hill and it seemed to be floating a fair distance over the pavement. He gave himself two options - warn the stranger and hope that they both got away from whatever that was safely or stall the stranger, let them finish their dream and hope that the floating thing didn't come after him next.

Choosing to be a coward he bid farewell to the stranger, insisting the air felt fine and it was such a lovely day for a long walk so he was going now, have a lovely day and good bye. The stranger looked a tad confused at his sudden change of opinion but said a shaky cheerio. He glanced back as he headed towards the woods and noted how sad the stranger looked.

Had be just condemned them to die by the hands of some horrible creature made to look like something so innocent as a child or was he humouring the delusions of a complete stranger?

The rest of the walk home was eerily quiet, he got to the stream by the middle of the woods when suddenly everything went deafeningly silent. The same silence that had permeated the hill. Perhaps this silence followed the floating creature and now that it was done with the stranger it was after him.

With this thought at the forefront of his mind he put his exhaustion aside for long enough to dash back to his home in record time. As he reached his front door all sounds returned to normal, birds sang and he saw people walking along the paths, their feet firmly on the floor, he noted.

He didn't find out what happened to the stranger until the following day's newspaper arrived. Their eyes had been gouged out, tiny red thumbprints ran all along their body that matched the small handprints bruised onto their neck - allegedly the cause of death next to shock and blood loss.

As he turned the page he noticed how loud the paper sounded compared to the utter silence around him.