Aberrant: 2011 - A Snake In The Grass

[Percivald]

Even in small towns in Scotland you'd definetly think twice about going to investigate strange noises coming from a dark alley after midnight. In New York, and probably especially where I used to work, you shouldn't even be thinking about it. So, yeah, I guess I was arrogant that night, read too many comic books as a kid or something, the mojo went to my head. 'I'm a nova', thought, 'I can't lose'. I don't know about losing, because there was really no games going on that night, but dying? I think I realized novas could die just fine.

So it was a girl, screaming in some Slavic-sounding language. She was probably a prostitute, or maybe just someone who'd made the mistake of not being important enough at the wrong place and the wrong time. Like I was about to do. The small man, who was basically just a smaller silhouette from where I stood, grabbed her by the neck and lifted her off her feet. Really, that was the first warning, a guy his size shouldn't have that kind of strength, but then, it wouldn't be the first one I didn't heed. I let the power bubble up, filling my head with crackling energy. Maybe it was because it had been so long since the last time I'd let myself wake up like this, that's why the power went to my head, made me think foolish thoughts, do foolish things.

"Excuse me, what are you doing to the young lady?"

That was the first one. Cocky, full of hot air. As if the quantum roulette had given me the power to fight for justice. Hell, as if it had given me the power to fight at all. The exclamation served its purpose, though, it got his attention. He dropped the woman, who fell to the floor clutching at her throat, and I soon stopped paying her attention and, indeed, still haven't seen her again. He turned so fast it was unnatural, that was my second warning, and I could've still ran away. I didn't, but a chill ran down my spine. Something wasn't right. Then he moved, and I nearly didn't see him do it. I tried to catch him with my mind but it was ridiculous of me to try, there was no competition here, I could barely follow him with my eyes. He moved like a snake, before I knew it he was in front of me and I felt rather than saw his hand clasp my throat like a vice. That's when things started getting really weird. He looked straight into my eyes and blinked, and then... blinked again, with the transparent eyelids that closed vertically. He had snake's eyes, and they seemed to glint with a sinister light of their own as they burnt themselves into my mind. Hell, I still wake up sweating and screaming with those eyes looking at me.

Of course, the eyes were nothing, the terror that they produced was just a prelude to the pain that was looming in my near future. Yet somehow I didn't panic or lose my bladder and start crying for my life. No, from somewhere I found the strength to focus, and feel the tendrils of my mind wrap around an old garbage container on the other side of the road. Now, I'd never tried lifting something so heavy, never mind actually throwing it at someone, but I felt I had to bloody well do something instead of just stand there slowly dying from lack of oxygen.

Surprisingly enough, it seemed to work. I found myself on the floor gasping for air instead of in that monster's constricting grip. I still believe I could've just turned around and ran. Flown, probably. But, instead, I turned around to look up and see how bad it had hit him, to see him crushed into the pavement by half a ton of metal and refuse. Except, of course, he wasn't. He was standing there, looking down at me, while holding a slightly crumpled metal container in mid air with his hand. He'd released me to block my desperate attack, I'd bought myself no more than three seconds, and had promptly wasted them. He blinked in that disturbing, alien way again, and that's when I knew there was no more warnings, and no more clever tricks. No more aces up my sleeve.

I was told later I'd made quite the mess of a car in my fall but, really, I blacked out the moment his foot connected to my chest.