All paths are black. Not literally mind you. This part of Suburbia is still lit by the yellow glare of tired lamp posts. Nevertheless, all paths are black.

Seren does her best to push raspy breaths out of her tired lungs and ignore the pain in her feet. Flat boots are definitely not meant for long distance running. She also does her best to ignore Milo although this is getting more difficult by the minute.

“What the fuck… Is wrong… With you?!”

“I told you I saw someone”

Milo starts to ask questions but Seren ignores him. Once the way to their rented house had switched to black, she had turned around to reach the main road going south to Atlantic city and the relative safety of cars passing by. On her way, all paths had darkened faster than she could run. Black has been the color to avoid since she started seeing paths two months ago. Black leads to hard men with hungry eyes, drunk drivers, falling things. Pain and death. Now all paths are dark and that can’t be good, even if the sound of their footsteps is still the only thing breaking the silence.

Think.

If she cannot get to the main road in a straight line then she needs to think outside the box, because all paths means that either someone is after her, or a meteorite is about to flatten five blocks of New Jersey residential area. The October night is clear so apparently the district would not be renovated just quite yet.

Seren switches her focus, looking for another option. A lighter path appears on her left just as the beginning of a headache hits. She ignores the inviting way ahead and runs along a low wall to a small garden gate. Behind it she can see tall trees and a two stories house. No lights. She pushes the handle and the gate opens, just as she knew it would. Her peripheral vision catches movement before she rushes in, dragging Milo behind her. To his credit he has stopped bitching.

“I saw it too.”

Glad to know she is not hallucinating. Very comforting. They sprint past a locked front door, feet slipping on an unkempt lawn and a garage locked tight. There would be no sanctuary here. Finally, the back of the house. It’s a dead end, there would be no egress either.

No, focus.

The paths leading back were black but a clearer one went over another low wall topped with a wire mesh fence loose enough that it could be scaled. She uses her momentum to jump on it, her arms reaching the top. Her feet make a little dance until she finds a hold and with a supreme effort, she hauls her ass over the top, spreading the content of her handbag on the ground in front of her. As she falls, the screech ripping fabric sounds the requiem for her all-time favorite bomber jacket. Dammit.

She turns around to see Milo hesitate. He has his cell phone in hand which is emitting a pale light in the darkness. If blood was not rushing in her ear, Seren was pretty sure she would hear a calm voice asking her about her emergency. Milo must have seen the desperation in her face because he puts the phone in his blazer and launches himself. Milo who has a sharp wit and good flexibility. Milo who she can beat in an arm wrestle even though the only iron she lifts is in her fencing foil. Milo grips the metal wiring and struggles up, his face a mask of pain and effort. She has to help him, to do something! She reaches to him, placing her finger under his feet in a pitiful attempt to lift him, the only result being more pain when he crunches them against the unyielding metal. She looks behind him and sees the frame of a man walking calmly to them. Adrenaline floods her systems, she bangs her fists against the cold barrier, powerless. Milo slips and falls back on the deserted lawn.

There is no time left.

He turns to face the incoming threat. Slow as a dream, a man of small stature wearing a black leather jacket opened on a lean chest walks to them. Seren watches his pallid face, black eyes and ugly smirk as he approaches, then the impossible happens. With incredible speed, the man grabs her loved one by the throat, and in a lazy motion, rips it out.

Just like that.

In a single instant.

Seren sees her reality shatter in a geyser of arterial blood. Milo’s eye are fixed on her, uncomprehending. This is a nightmare. It can’t be real. She hears a scream and only barely realizes the voice is hers. Horror and shock fill her. Death is on TV, it does not happen to normal people just like this.

It happens to other people.

Milo’s eyes glaze, he falls. His killer puts a hand on the fence.

“No!”

Seren turns around, panicked. Milo’s blood has splashed on her hand. No time to do anything. All paths are black as night and the reason for it stands in front of her. There is a second man, or is it a man? He looks disfigured, grotesque, something out of a dark tale. She is done, she would die here on the backyard of some rich asshole’s summer home, and cops would come in the morning to poke her cold corpse over doughnuts and coffee. This is a nightmare. She will wake up any minute.

No, fuck that, she would not give up, not give the freak show in front of her the satisfaction of an easy kill. The doughnut cops would see signs of struggle and say that she did not lie down without a fight. Yeah that’s comforting. Seren only has a few seconds to act, she rakes her addled brain for a solution. She stands in the back of another cozy house, on her left lay the foundations of a small building, possibly a garden hut or something. There is no rocket launcher or tank handy though. The grotesque man takes a step forward. All paths are still black. But wait, she is no longer trying to escape, she is trying to fight.

Seren switches her focus again, the slight headache turning into a head-splitting migraine. There, on the side of a cement mixer, a few tools. Seren jumps back, the creature following her slowly, sure of its power. She reaches for something to use and her hand find the blade of a circular saw. She grabs it. It is heavy and cold in her hand. The path becomes clearer. She waits, then throws. The blade goes slightly off and the thing sidesteps it easily. It was so close. In desperation, she grabs for something else, anything. Intuition guides her hand to a solid and heavy shaft. She swings with all her might, putting her fear and anger in the strike. It occurs to her that she had found a pickaxe when the tool catches her opponent mid head.

With a sickening crunch, the pick penetrates flesh and bone and then stops. The thing howls in pain, its hands clutching its right cheek where the metal has been buried. It recoils and Seren loses her grip. She has to take the chance, use it while the thing is down. She grabs something again, her headache becoming almost blinding and swings. This time, a shovel connects with the thing’s shoulder, she hits again, and again. She screams her rage, her grief and her will to live. On the third blow, the creature moves forward with blinding speed and backhands her.

Seren feels herself moving backward, then to the right after the small of her back connects with the cement mixer, then she hits the wall. Pain would be coming then, anytime… Anytime. Blinding agony sears her back, her left shoulder, something warm and liquid drips down her neck. The area around her left ear is just a massive spot of hurt. She tries to scream, to release it all, but only a raspy moan comes out. She should move, but she can’t. Nausea overwhelms her and she leans to the side to heave. Too much pain. As the thing angrily extracts the pickaxe from its face, she comes to the bitter conclusion that they have been playing with her, that from the beginning she hadn’t stood a chance.

Poor Milo, he hadn’t stood a chance either. Oh God it hurts so much. And her jacket is ruined, and her bag. They were two of the last precious things she had left. An angry face comes close, black blood trickling lazily from a huge hole on the side. Terminal case of the uglies on this one. Another face, pallid and cruel, comes and says something in a guttural voice. The angry face retreats. She had an emotional attachment to that jacket, it had cost a bit under a thousand bucks, a gift from Mom. Is her shoulder broken? It feels broken. Poor Milo. As the cruel face grabs her under the armpit, she finally faints.