Run

He ran. The darkness in front of him receded quickly approaching the flickering streetlight. The muffled sounds of his feet pounding into the ground echoed deafeningly through the rush of his heartbeat on his eardrums. The streetlight flashed brilliantly against his dark-adjusted eyes and vanished behind him, leaving his retinas flashburned and unable to see the next stretch of roadway.

Listen... Listen...

He blinked and stumbled, his eyes beginning to readjust to the blackness. Turn left here! His shoes slipped and skidded as he veered around a corner, almost falling on the slippery ice that still clung to the curb. He threw a glance from the corner of his eye down the road he'd just come down, but he could make nothing out aside from the glaring light of the streetlamp.

I hear the sound of a heart from the shadow in the dark, waiting for the poison to hit its mark...

The pain in his side lanced up further into his ribs. His steps faltered as he tried to draw a stabbing breath. Clutching his side tightly, he gritted his teeth and pushed his legs even faster than before. His vision narrowed to the pavement ten feet ahead of him and focused. Keep moving, gotta keep moving.

I see the darkness around, the shape on the ground, the killer straight up and the body facedown...

Another streetlight flashed by overhead. A screaming sound broke through his focus. It took him a moment to recognize it as the distant siren of a police car. In that second of broken concentration his feet hit a crack in the pavement. His head hit the ground with a crack! as his body threw itself forward and down.

I hear the death of a scream, the sorrowing stream, the smell of farewell and gasoline...

His initial cry was cut short as he bit down on his tongue. For an interminable moment everything halted but the rushing in his ears. Then he gasped in a breath. Suddenly he could taste the blood in his mouth, feel the shattering pain running through his head. He lay there on the ground for a moment. Trying to hear through the haze of pain and the sound of his own panting breath, he strained to make out the sound of footsteps from behind him.

I see a heart set free by a legacy, hear a voice from the shadow that is beckoning me...

His muscles screamed as he shoved himself up and off the ground. The first few running steps he took awkwardly, body strained to the limit and showing. Slowly his balance returned and he kept running, weaving back and forth across the road. As the quiet darkness of the night reclaimed the broken silence, only a patch of blood shining on the ground and the fading sound of his desperate panting breaths showed he had ever been there at all.