It Has No Pulse / It Has No Limits [Red Pyramid]

The water was running pink again, red swirls dissipating into a mockingly pink tint as it gurgled down the drain. Despite the stinging in his hands, Max continued scrubbing frantically, as if he was trying to rinse out the thin streams of blood that rushed to mend and clot up the self-inflicted wounds. Fingers trembling, he eventually gave up on the fruitless effort and turned the faucet off, careful not to leave dribbles of red on the aged yellow porcelain. He dabbed his hands on a towel and meticulously wiped away any wetness, backing up once done and pressing the terrycloth into his shallow wounds. His cuticles were torn out halfway up his fingers again and it stung sharply, but the pain from that was cancelled out by the cracked and ripped nails on his opposite hand. The pinpricks of blood from the scrapes on his palms were barely noticeable, he was too busy trying not to sprinkle blood all over the floor to notice.

They were back. The smell of bleach and bodily waste was thick in the air, despite the room being scrubbed spotless. Max glanced at the bathtub he had just finished scouring, his imagination momentarily filling it with bleach, blood and the fat man's cottage-cheese legs as they floated just under the surface. He shook his head violently and swore under his breath, shakily drawing the curtain shut and glaring balefully at an offending crack in the old apartment's tiling. With several quick steps backwards the tall man backed out of the room and flipped the light off, shutting the door sharply and glaring down the hallway. It was a small house, in awful condition, but it had been cheap and the utilities worked. Everything smelled like stale cigarettes, though. The smell had seeped into everything, including the warped and scuffed wood flooring that Max had spent a good portion of the day scrubbing.

The towel still wrapped around his more injured hand, Max paced his way down the hallway and grimaced at every crack and hole in the wall. It fit him, but each pinprick of darkness brought up images of fingers desperately trying to pull them open, the voices of the dead jumbling together and tripping over each other as they tried to reach out and grab him again. He could taste the death in the air, it clung to him no matter how many showers he took nor how badly he burned himself from scrubbing all the ingrained filth out of the walls and flooring with bleach and cleaner. It had gotten worse, he knew. No matter how many miles he put between himself and his kills, he knew the dead weren't bound by time and distance. They were judging him right back, but this time they knew his filthy secrets and taunted him with them, calling him weak and hypocritical for what he carved them apart for.

But... he tried to reason it out as he glanced at the clock and pulled on his coat, for it was 4:57 and he had to get out until it was safe, but they deserved everything he did to them. They deserved worse, even. You just don't talk to cashiers that way, you fat fucker... You don't stare at little children at the park like that other young man did.

The thoughts and half-formed excuses rattled around in his exhausted skull as he picked his way across the overgrown sidewalk and skirted furtively around the shattered mirror he had destroyed in his side yard. He hadn't slept in nearly three days and it was taking its toll on him, he knew it. Perhaps if he walked down the center of the road, a car would hit him and he could rest... but no. The minute he died, they would all rush in and tear him to pieces. Max sighed raggedly and hunched his shoulders against the sudden biting wind, staring bleakly down the unkempt expanse of road that he lived on. An overpass nearby roared with the evening's traffic, but the creeping grayness of an early fall night seemingly dulled the noise. He wandered for a while, venturing into the grassy, debris-strewn area under the bridge. It was a quiet night in his dilapidated neighborhood, he was maybe one of three residents still living in the block. Apparently it was slated for demolition soon, but he didn't care. He wouldn't be in this town for that long, a year at most.

Looking up at the dingy concrete above him, Max inhaled the mixed smell of gasoline and wet earth, attempting to calm himself while he waited for the time to pass so that the shadows were at their safe positions again. His nerves, however, continued to hum and his hands still stung, but at least the hissings of the dead were slowly being blown away by the wind. He just wished that the quiet would last.

There were sounds.

Something rustled and hustled in a place unseen.

Perhaps an empty box was kicked to the side, perhaps a trash container fell over.

Then "it," came round the corner of one of these structures.

Seemingly unaware, or uncaring, of the only other sentient being still wandering these streets, "it" walked. With a gait slightly burdened by the weight of an object it dragged behind it's wake, it took powerful strides toward an undisclosed location. Deep thuds from it's every step failed not to remind it's every listener that it was near, and nearer still, nearer then any would care to think, and with every step given it seemed to tremble the soul.

When at last the entirety of such a sight was seen it was no wonder why it chose now, this time of quiet and serenity, of all hours to walk forth from whatever place of slumber it had taken refuge in. All the while, the corpse of an overweight human being followed behind being dragged almost pitifully by that powerful right arm.

For a moment it ceased it's steps and it turned.

Indeed, it's very presence, that pale skinned and death-sickly image of malicious excellence turned face toward the only other entity that wandered these streets and it simply watched him. Yet such a gaze sunk deep, and deeper still, into the man's soul, as though a gaze of condemnation, no, something of greater consequence. It was a gaze more felt then seen, as this being, having neither eyes nor a face unhidden behind that metal chamber cast such a burden upon the man he beheld here in these streets.

Yet it did nothing more.

A moment's passing and it continued upon it's course yet again as though it had grown bored of this man's sight. Indeed, such an image made itself known in such a way and yet only one pair of eyes would come to behold that menacing and pillar-like image that left naught but it's memory in it's wake.

And yet that corpse being dragged would prove vaguely familiar to this man as though seen in a dream or in a fantasy or an extra in a film or an inconsequential face he had seen walking the streets and yet it was neither of these but perhaps in many ways it was and yet still it was not.

Everything stunk of stale diesel and rotting garbage as the wind shifted, prompting Max to dig through his coat pockets and locate a crumpled box of cigarettes in an attempt to ward off the smell with something slightly more comforting. His battered fingers eventually found a lighter and carefully lit one of the cigs, cupping a hand around the end to shield the flame from the wind. He looked up once it was burning steadily, glancing at his watch momentarily before scanning the horizon. He hadn't explored this section before, and it was the desolate kind of landscape that he had always been eerily drawn to.

Urban decay was a special sort of ruin, he always thought. It was different from the watchful silence of the forests and hills he had grown up in, though the parallels between rotted wood and weedy covering were noted in each. There was always that stillness that suggested that there should be living things, but none were to be found. He looked around absently, always casting a wary glance into the shadows and back over his shoulder. Nothing was there, of course, but he always worried about the possibility. Another glance at his watch told him that it was nearly safe to return home, but as he was turning to either head back or wander the streets a bit more, a sound made him stop and listen.

A scuffling noise echoed from a hidden corner, perhaps something falling. He would have chalked it up to the wind, but the light breeze wasn't capable of that. It was either a stray or a person, and curiosity took over. He didn't approach the source of the noise, simply watching it for a moment, but when neither a figure or shadow appeared, he wrote it off. The overpass traffic above was starting to lessen, but the occasional car drove by with loud music blaring. A deep bass thudded through the concrete walls, but Max paid only minor attention to it. He eventually turned in order to head back the way he came, but something was off. The wind hadn't shifted, but there was a difference in the air, a slight hint of nausea and a trace of fear seemed to poison the fluttering wind.

Max narrowed his eyes when he realized that the slow thudding bass had still not passed, though it should have been long gone. It was getting louder, in fact. The man glanced back in the direction of the earlier noise and took a few cautious steps forward, dropping his cigarette and grinding it under his heel as he went. The thudding sound slowly settled into the more recognizable rhythm of footfalls, he noticed with a bit of confusion. Nothing... Nothing should be so loud. He peered into the growing darkness, seeing nothing. Perhaps he was just hearing things, a product of his active imagination and a lack of sleep. He shook his head and looked the other way, but in that second of inattention, a looming figure melted into view.

The blood in his veins came to a crawling standstill when he whipped his head back around, that old, familiar feeling of paralyzing terror solidifying his bones into concrete as he stared at the impossible being that stood not quite five yards away. It lumbered past as a specter from another reality, dragging a fairly fresh kill behind it.

The monster was gigantic. Max could only stare in abject horror as it slowly walked by. He was convinced that it was a hallucination until he noticed the little details, the drags in the dirt from the fat corpse of a man he vaguely recognized, and the stench of fear and rot that hit like a wall of bricks the moment he remembered to breathe.

He didn't have time to take even one lurching step backwards when the being's head slowly turned. Rooted to the spot as if by some magnetic force, all Max could do was stare into that rusty, eyeless metal cast and imagine the workings behind it. He looked back, unable to make eye contact, but he knew that it could see him as well as he could see it. He wanted to cringe away from the gaze that stripped and weighted and judged him, but movement wasn't an option. So he met it with stony eyes that were all too well trained at not showing the true emotions underneath.

The nightmarish creature finally lifted its curse and turned to move on, leaving Max to finally stumble backwards and stare after it, the tension in his humming nerves not allowing him to run away just yet. His startled brain churned against itself, and he heard himself speaking in a rough voice, a testament to how rarely he spoke.

"You.... you aren't real..... You aren't... "

He stopped to swallow and wet his dry mouth, a cold feeling pouring down his spine as he came to a certain revelation. "You didn't kill me." The unspoken, one-word question hung in the air like a ragged flag, with Max staring at the beast that could or could not be real even as he took a few slow steps back. Morbid curiosity kept him from running like hell, despite the terror that rattled through his bones. He wanted to know if it would answer, or if today was the day he died.

Silence permeated.

There was nothing more to behold in the midst of a cooling evening accompanied by the usual dimming of the setting sun and yet this evening was far from ordinary. Should Max cast his eyes closer to the ground where that corpse was being dragged by such a mighty hand he would find no trace of dust disturbed for the earth remained as though untouched and yet the fiend, that great entity of origins unknown, was far more real then words could tell.

Suddenly there was a break.

The silence was thus shattered by the shouting of a young girl not far off. The distress in her voice was obvious; "Get away from me!" She shouted, "Leave me alone!" and "You bastard!" Though certain tones and the manner of which such spoken words were given made it clear that it was no fiend she had been yelling at for such a person of any saner mind would not think to brave such determined yet distressful words to such an entity as that greater being and yet the possibility remained.

In that place where she stood between the brick wall of a building long abandoned and her adversary there was much turmoil. A large man holding in his hand a gun and such an instrument of destruction wrought only fear and terror in the girl's heart. Though with no other option but to shout in this place of silent desolation for whatever reason could be reached in his maniacal mind, the girl found herself at a loss for therein were only two options; submit to this man's animalistic urges or submit to death.

As suddenly as the horrific being had appeared, it melted out of existence. Max found himself staring wide-eyed at nothing more than a dirty patch of ground that was littered with weeds and tire shreds- there was no trace left of the beast or its victim. The man shook his head and shuddered, tasting bile in the back of his throat when he came to the realization that this could very well be his imagination acting up, not anything physical he witnessed.

His insomnia was going to murder him, wasn't it? He was seeing things far too vividly, even smelling them, and that... that was going too far. Eventually his manifested ghosts were going to rip him apart, that was true, but they would be crafty and use his insanity to make him take his own life, wouldn't they? He shook his head again and forced his thoughts away from that disturbing track, casting a shaken and wary look around once more before starting on his walk again. Nowhere was safe now; for all he knew the monster would reappear inside his house where there were more weapons to use against him and more ghosts to goad him into his downfall. No, it was best to keep moving and see if anything else appeared.

He managed to make himself move forward as he scanned the area with focused senses. The light was getting worse, but he was used to hunting at night. The hum of traffic overhead was a slow, comforting sound as wheels would roll over the pavement above, but it faded into white noise as he slowly trekked across the wasted ground. Brown grass crunched underfoot and small, previously unnoticed puffs of dust fanned out around his feet when he hit a dry patch. Max noticed these things and stored them away for later clues on how to differentiate reality from his psychotic visions, but silently kept wandering on. He had vague plans to explore the outer reaches of his neighborhood, but those were really an excuse to keep walking until his panic wore off.

A shrill, distinctively female cry bounced off the pillars and walls of the decaying neighborhood and caught Max's attention. He froze again, but this time out of the attentive stillness of a hunting dog. The cries came again and he angled himself to search out the owner of that young voice, his gaze greeted quickly by the sight of a bulky man with a smaller female cornered against a wall. Max's movement was automatic. The man shifted direction and kept his eyes trained on the commotion, steadily moving closer with his robotic gait. The panic from his supposed imaginative breakdown had taken backseat to the situation at hand, but he was still skeptical. They could very well be figments of his imagination, too.

The fact that he carried no weapon as glamorous as the little firearm of the aggressive male did not matter to him. He had a knife and he had his hands. That was all he had needed before, a petty man like this was far more likely to be a quick kill. As he stepped closer, he took practiced care to be silent in his approach. He was thankful for the shadows that partially hid him, but nevertheless he took care. Slowly and steadily he approached the duo, until he was a scant couple of feet from the man, but currently out of the view of the girl. He watched for a short time, waiting to see what the man would do and when was the best moment to speak or strike.

The terrified girl briefly reminded him of Kinni, but the young face did not carry that air of suspended amusement that the former young woman had. Innocent terror laced the expression and voice of the girl, a typical reaction to the burlier, impulsive man who was pointing the gun at her like it was a magic wand . Max watched them in silence, studying and waiting, once again slipping into his role of the higher predator.

"You think you can run away from me?" A maniacal scowl shot forth from that man. The closer Max's steps took him, the more apparent it became that this man's intentions went beyond a simple satisfaction of lustful desires, "You think you can run away from me? Huh!?" Closer and closer the man inched slowly toward that young girl who stood terrified for her very life. Perhaps she knew the state of this man and the intentions he held but with no other option but to helplessly tremble, the girl simply stood fearfully complacent as eyes wide with wickedness were cast upon her.

"You will never get away from me," Nothing stood between these two but a paper thin layer of air, "Never!" A greater oddity stood in that as close as Max had now been standing, neither seemed to acknowledge his presence. To them, Max was as one of the Watchers watching silently from a place unseen and yet he was not but he was. All the while there was a subtle pull tugging at the back of Max's mind bringing forth memories of memories and somehow, someway, these two would perhaps appear more familiar then strangers as though seen in a dream or in a fantasy or extras in a film or inconsequential faces that had been seen walking the streets and yet they were neither of these but perhaps in many ways they were and yet still they were not.

"Don't you understand?" A low voice; a nightmarish grin, "You and me... we belong together." The man raised the gun upward and impressed the tip of it's barrel to the girls head; she trembled. His intentions were obvious now. The inexplicable insanity that coursed throughout his voice, throughout his movements, and even in his eyes all gave credence that he was about to release death upon this girl and yet Max would not see such a thing.

There was a loud sound.

Something heavy, something metal, something quite large, and something thick scraped through the concrete ground behind Max and accompanying such a sound were those deep thudding steps. Should Max turn he would see that image yet again; that fiend standing taller over him as though a menacing tower yet his eyes would see only this for but a second of a second for he had been struck. The force of that large and heavy object pressed upon Max's chest like a larger stone forcefully hurled toward him from a place not far in distance and yet a momentary glimpse would show the blunt edge of a great knife.

Max was taken aback and cast unto a piling of garbage and refuse. Should he stand he would see that the man who had come upon the girl and the girl herself would no longer be in the midst. A logical explanation would be that the two simply ran in compelling fear, in terror, in great fright at the sight of such a fearful fiend.

Max could only watch in growing unease as the events unfolded before his eyes. This was no typical rape he was ready to interfere with, as became apparent from the man's psychotic words and actions. His fingers searched for the knife he kept tucked in the folds of his jacket, hoping that if he jammed the blade through the back of the bastard's skull, the gun wouldn't be fired and that at least one life would be spared this night.

He kept his movements minimal so as not to attract attention, but his eyes narrowed in uneasy wariness as the words slipped from the man's mouth. They seemed strangely full, yet hollow, and while the insanity in them was thick, the sparked strange half-memories of his own. He had heard these words before, but the context was all wrong. Max pressed his lips into a thin line and closed his fingers around the hilt of the blade, trying to block out the crawling feeling he got when he looked at those two. This was just another predator going after the weak, he told himself, these people were not who they reminded him of. The girl, for all her staring, was unnerving him- he was right there and she did not see him. Perhaps the fear clouded her vision, or the man was too much in the way, but whatever the case, Max went unnoticed.

The gun raised and Max slid the knife from its holder, aiming to slide it between the man's vertebrae as he had done to plenty of others before. It would be quick, it would be relatively clean. He just didn't want the girl to get shot. He silently, carefully lifted his arm and aimed, eyes cold with the intent to bring death to this man through the cold burn of metal severing nerves and tendons. But he wouldn't get to do that, for some strange reason the man's words rang emptily against the rotting concrete walls and Max's limbs froze as that unmistakable hint of nausea tinged the air around them.

The world seemed to hit a strange chord that rang reality like a stuttering bell when that loud metallic scrape was heard. Max risked a glance behind him as a forbidding shadow rose up from where he could not see, and time seemed to slow down to a sickening crawl for the moment, accented only by the deep thudding steps of a creature that knew it could take its time with whatever it wanted. The murder-to-be forgotten for a small moment, Max slowly turned to face the beast, but barely caught a glimpse of the rusted and bloodied being before something hard and impossibly heavy rammed into his chest.

Air fled his lungs as he lost track of what happened next, feeling rather than seeing or understanding as he hit something hard, stars bursting in his skull when he hit what he would later come to realize was a wall. Stunned into silence and inwardly panicking at the pain in his chest and head, he stared sightlessly upward until his vision cleared and his senses crept back. His first thought was that the man had seen him and reacted, but once he found that he could use his arms again and scrabbled his hands over his chest and found no bullet wound, that fear abated. He slowly pulled himself up, fingers digging into scraps of concrete and ragged trash bags. He was shaking, a hand rubbing at the back of his head and instinctively checking for blood as he looked around in stunned observance.

The couple was gone. Had they fled the scene or been gored by that fantastic weapon the beast had carried? He saw no blood nor signs of a struggle, not even footprints in the dirty gravel. Where... where was the beast? A quick scan brought up nothing at first, but then again, his vision was still occasionally blurring. He blinked slowly, daring not to shake his aching head, and hunched warily, unsure of if the danger was over yet.

"Stop right there!" From the silence sprung a loud voice filled with authoritative command. The mere sound gave credence to her status; a police officer exercising her authority and power and despite the roaming and menacing presence of a being beyond that of this world, she seemed to be simply "doing her job."

"Put your hands behind your head and turn around slowly!" She kept enough distance between herself and Max as to remain within the reaches of safety and yet her words stood boisterous as though she were close enough to strike. Should Max indeed cast his own eyes upon her, he would see a youthful brunette woman aged about 27 years, delicately tanned skin, and that black 9mm Glock held skillfully in his direction.

She had apparently been in some sort of scuffle.

Patches of brown dirt adorned her darkest blue uniform and her her slightly unkempt hair sat on her head as though rebellious to it's own roots. On her face was a scrape; sometime before arriving to this place she had fallen to the ground by some means yet unknown. Perhaps she was clumsy, perhaps she had engaged in a physical altercation with some uncooperative criminal, perhaps a menacing being was to blame.

Garble words over static were spoken from a radio resting in it's place upon her right shoulder.

She didn't respond.

Her focus remained upon Max.

The evening air was unnervingly still as he straightened up slowly. He listened for the sound of receding footsteps and heard nothing but the thudding of his own heart against his bruised chest and the blood pounding past his ears as the pain from the dual blows made itself known. Max briefly closed his eyes as he sought to compose himself further, only to be startled by a sudden voice shouting from behind him.

"Stop right there!"

It echoed through the empty street and had the desired effect of making him freeze, though his thoughts raced and he could not for the life of him figure out where the officer had come from or if she had seen what had happened. His knife had clattered away when he had been thrown into the garbage pile, so he was at least weaponless now. With a pained grunt, he calmly obeyed the order and raised his arms, using the moment to feel the back of his head to make sure there wasn't any blood. His chest ached terribly and he knew that there would be an impressive bruise there soon, but now was not the time to peer down his shirt and check.

He turned about slowly and leveled a confused and injured gaze back on her, wondering silently to himself whether he was completely flipping his shit and if she had been there all along or if his hallucinations had been real after all. Had she seen the man and the girl or the monstrous creature with the knife? Most likely not. Insomnia was a bitch, and now he'd have to figure out a way to not sound like a raving lunatic who needed to be locked up.

The woman looked like she'd been in a fight herself, but against what and why she was alone, after him, was unknown. Had he thought she was the monster? But he hadn't hit anyone today. If she had been in a scuffle, why was she after him now, alone, not calling for backup or anything of the sort? Max kept his mouth shut and stared at the woman, silently asking what was going on here.

She seemed less aggressive thereafter, when her eyes saw his face, that he was not familiar, yet caution remained in her grasp, distance, and a lack of timidity. For there to be vagrants between these walls was a common matter but this man, this Max, had not the look of a wandering vagrant and therefore suspicion arose greater still within her as to what this man was doing in such a place as this.

The woman stared at him for a few moments, and also after, when she asked with a confidently boisterous voice, "Wanna' tell me what it is your doing wandering around these slums?" And that gun remained held forth toward Max. For having been in some form of altercation, the woman seemed composed, though perhaps it was simply a part of her conditioning as a police officer to remain in such a state in times of duress. Regardless, the situation was as it was; he and she were there in that place between old towers and walls.

Garbled words muddled in thick static shot loudly from her radio and yet still she did not respond. Her focus, her tenacity, her strength was upon Max at this time, at this hour, and yet even if she did respond she would know no words of which to speak for even the words coming forth were unheard as if held back by a thousand hands of white noise.

All was peaceful.

All was not.

A semi truck roared past on the overpass nearby, but the air seemed strangely thick and muted, despite the screech of rushing air and rumble of eighteen heavy tires speeding across concrete. Max watched the woman in bewildered but composed silence as he tried to put the pieces together. The questions whirled around in his head like a swarm of flies kicked up by the opening of a garbage bin, buzzing and reeking of something not quite right.

Where was the squad car?

Why was she ignoring her radio?

Why was she here alone?

How did she get here, from behind him, when everything had been completely vacant before?

He kept his eyes trained on her and studied the gun she held, the way she held it, and what he could possibly have done to put her on edge like this. He'd been thrown into a wall, he had been holding a knife. But if the duo whom he had tried to interfere with did not exist, then he supposed the only thing she could attempt to pin on him was to possibly kill himself. The evidence for that, however, was sketchy at best. He kept still and only allowed his eyes to move, for the most part keeping his eyes on the gun as was expected of someone in his situation. She asked a question and it took a moment for him to register the meaning of the words, then he slowly nodded, keeping his hands behind his head and gaze curiously glancing at the woman's face.

"I live here and I was taking a walk." His voice was hoarse from disuse and the words scraped together like rolling gravel, but he seemed more confused and annoyed than scared. He coughed to clear his throat, then continued with his short explanation. "I wanted to wander around my neighborhood before it got too dark out. Can I ask what made me suspicious to you?"

He leveled his vision on her and waited, silent once again and wondering, not for the first time, if it was the officer who was the more unbalanced party here.

For the time being she believed him or, at the very least, his words though there remained doubt in such a belief.

She was never one to trust so easily, not in and of herself nor of her profession but given the circumstances they both seemed to be in, she had no choice but to prevent the creation of an enemy. After all, the things she had heard, the things she had seen, and the things she had experienced had already become a greater enemy then this one could ever be and making one of him would simply be an added problem.

The gun was lowered yet she reserved caution still as she held on to that weapon with both hands as though prepared to raise it upward once more should the need arise.

"Whats your name?" Her tone was considerably less authoritative, yet still just as strong. It remained unclear as to whether or not these questions were asked in and of her own self or her profession but without at least a name, there was no connection besides the general knowledge of Max's existence.

Her eyes never left him.

Like a looming ghost, her scrutiny pressed on him without relent. For her it was simply caution though she did not consider that such a pressing gaze would perhaps spell a meaning differed to him. Nevertheless, she remained standing there, assuring with her stance that she meant him no harm whatsoever though she was unsure of his motives.

His questions unsurprisingly left unanswered, Max met the woman's gaze and relaxed slightly as she lowered the gun. She had the look in her eye that he figured he shared with her. It was that look of confusion and wariness and the question of sanity that he was starting to get to know all too well. There was common ground there, even if neither of them would recognize it. She asked his name, and perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he heard the faintest tremble in her voice. With a slow, careful movement, he cleared his throat and spoke, the words staccato roughness in the chilly night air.

“Matthew Jones.”

His words grated against his disused throat, but they gave away the quiet nervous almost-panic that accompanied the event of staring down the barrel of a gun. He continued to focus on her, however, those dark eyes of his betraying little more than a wary confusion and the occasional flick that spoke of his notice of the little details in her appearance that had the possibility of telling him more than perhaps she wanted known. In that moment, two predators on opposite sides of the spectrum studied each other, trying to gather what they could that might solve a larger, but far less addressable, question that they both seemed to have. For all her solid posturing and intense staring, he could tell that she was shaken and that he’d best move carefully.

“Do you need my ID? Right jacket pocket.” His eyes neither left hers nor did his hands lower, not wishing to tempt fate with a scared cop with a possibly itchy trigger finger before him. The silence filled in between them once more, accented only by the faint sounds of breathing and the ever-constant hum of traffic overhead.

“Do you need my ID? Right jacket pocket.”

"That won't be necessary." Those few words went forth slowly as if constricted by an unseen force that influenced her mind despite her wanton unwanting. In her mind there was a confusion that was held at bay by whatever "order," she had grown accustomed to in the years spent living. Making sense of the senseless was not an easy task for a mere human being and she thought to herself once more that perhaps this gun should not be in her hand in such a senseless situation. Nevertheless, she assumed this man was as scared as she was or, at least, as confused.

"We'll go over the formalities when we get out of this mess."

"This mess." An accidental wording that she she did not take note of until the words were well in flight and in her mind she further hoped that it would rouse no further alarm or question within this man standing before her. The last thing she needed was a series of questions directed in her direction in regards to answers that she could by no means present, let alone understand.

"We received reports of gunfire about two hours ago. My partner and I got," There was a subtle pause in between these words, "... separated." Was this a lie set forth to mask a truth she did not want known? Nevertheless, it had an apparent response to his previous inquiry that had yet been left unanswered until this point.

"..You out here all by yourself?" Her tone softened. Perhaps it was the presence of one still sane, perhaps it was simply the presence of another human being, but the police officer's demeanor lessened in aggression and drifted ever so slightly into a more formal tone.