A Glimmer of Light (Chris)

[q]

As he stumbled to his feet, the recent memory of the fall hit him again. It wouldn't do, this falling business. Accidents were never really accidents, he reminded himself. They were fluctuations, accumulations of noise or more measurable quantities; worse, it could be a sign of something worse to come. "Hmm," Chris said, already back in his own science world. Without the garbage bags, things might have ended worse for him and his face. Quite concerning, really. Maybe it was distraction, maybe something else; but it wouldn't do to have something like that happen in a situation where he'd be concentrating on more than one thing. Was his flow off? Brushing himself off with one hand, he held his other hand up to his eyes, inspecting the thumb and index finger. Sidestepping the garbage, he continued to watch the two fingers intently. The homeless girl was now just another blip on his radar, of definite interest, but not the current centre of his focus.

Chris touched the two fingers together, separating them slowly. Several small sparks flew from fingertip to fingertip, dancing through the air. He repeated the motion for other finger combinations, muttering to himself, pacing across the width of the alley. Suddenly, he stopped, clapping his hands together. A shower of sparks rained down.

"How odd..." he muttered. "Very, very odd." Everything seemed to be okay. So why had he fallen? Distraction seemed like too easy a thing to blame, and it didn't feel quite right, anyway. Unquantifyable nonsense, these feelings, but not ridiculous.

"What's wrong?" he asked suddenly, looking up from his pressed-together hands to the homeless girl. "I told you, I'm okay. Really." He paused. No, that didn't seem right, did it? It had already been established that he was fine, the fear she was showing seemed excessive for an event already passed. And she wasn't really looking at him, anyway. He followed her gaze, brow crinkled in concentration. He saw nothing. Strange. It couldn't be a wall she was scared of, surely?

"What is it?" he asked. "What's there?"

[cage]

Leslie watched the guy wander awkwardly around in the alleyway, his hands placed out infront of him, his fingers outstretched in an odd way. For most people this would be the off putting thing that made them weary of this alleyway, however Leslie's fears were somewhere else entirely. When they decided to appear, the Shadows, it seemed that Leslie could see them clear as day, and yet little did she know, they were not acatually there. Just like her other personalities that she had created to cope with the world around her, the Shadows were only figments of her imagination and nothing more than the tricksters of her mind that caused her to get into constant trouble in her former place of residence. These things were not real, not real like the oddities of golden crystals and guardians that really did manifest for all to see. What the young girl didn't understand, nor did she even comprehend the difference, was that people could in fact see those objects, but not the Shadows that haunted her, or the voices she heard.

She watched frozen in horror as the man fearlessly waltzed about the very realm that her fears existed within. They could sweep him right up and Leslie was admittedly far too afraid to even attempt to do anything about it were that to happen. Even after the kindness he had shown her, Leslie was still too afraid of the dark. Before she realized it, the man was right next to her trying to follow her eyes, asking her what she was seeing. Well the truth was nothing yet, but she was sure that she would. Leslie knew because it was afternoon and she felt cold. The shadows always appeared when she felt cold. Leslie looked to the man and stared at him, her lips pursed for a moment while she carefully caculated the consequences of the words she would utter.

"I don't like places that dark." Leslie lied weakly.