Glistening, Floating And Ready To Disappear

Excellence Award in the 'Read Write Repeat 2015' competition

She was a mess.
A brilliant mess; of brilliant blonde hair and brilliant green eyes and a brilliant little smile.
And a brilliant panic crinkling her face like a piece of cellophane.
“Sam?” She repeats breathlessly.
She turns sharply behind her, the once smooth plane between her eyebrows creased with uncertainty.
She is lost, and she is terrified.
There’s a brilliant fear lighting her eyes and a ghostly trace prying goose bumps on her arms. Her once soft footsteps seem as if the earth shakes beneath them, her faint breath a swirling hurricane.
Everyone she passes seem to have a leering glint in their eyes, she is adamant that they are snarling beneath their blank and placid faces.
The buildings loom over her and obscure the scant layer of light the sun struggles to provide.
She might be crying, but everything is jumbled and hard to discern; everything is blurring and spinning yet perfectly still. Her forehead is slick with sweat and she pushes the hair back from her face, not taking any relief from the cold wind.
Her heart is beating, so loud, beating and beating, it’s a wonder no one can find her. It’s hammering against her ribs and the faintest whisper of her wrist.
She feels panicky and jumpy like a cat. Like a five year old with one hand caught in the cookie jar. She’s filled to the brim with sharp and stifled uneasiness.
She stumbles into an alley way and collapses into a wall, the disturbed shadows swallowing her up and dust drifting around her sobbing figure.
She’s suffocating on the last bit of panic she’s got in her, clinging to her lungs and scraping its way up her throat with a last cry and-
It’s gone.
She exhales softly, half-lidded eyes watching the sun burn its way across the sky in a last stand with streaks of fire and tracing pink.
“Sam,” she’s saying to the clouds, soft and delicate. “I’m cold. And scared.” A bubble of giggles erupts from her, glistening and floating and ready to disappear. The cold caresses her like a hand resting between her shoulder blades.
“I don’t like hide and seek anymore.” She whispers in a voice that is hard to resist, especially hard to resist when it begs to run wild among the city of sleeping individuals.
She buckles under the weight of the night and her head lolls.
There’s a clatter and a shout but she is too far gone.

Because he was a mess.
A brilliant mess; of brilliant blonde hair and brilliant green eyes and a brilliant little smile.
And a brilliant panic for the tiny little girl that slept under the stars.
“Grace? Oh god, Grace, I’m sorry, I’ve got you, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
He gathers the flickering girl with her brilliant blonde hair and brilliant green eyes into his arms.
Sam kisses Grace’s forehead and her brilliant little smile is a beacon.

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