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I’D JUST EXITED THE TRAIN where I’d filched a few measly bills from a crippled old woman’s unsecured handbag when the heat of someone’s stare struck me like a slap in the face.
As I moved along the train depot, dazed by this strong sensation of being spied on, I was approached by two Sisters of the Sun.
“When the sun returns, we’ll all be free!” the women crooned.
They wore their standard uniforms: hooded black robes that stretched to their feet, only their hands and faces visible. Each Sister had her head tilted back, face pointed up toward where the sun would have hung in the sky if it hadn’t been blocked from view by the thick layer of smog that continuously shrouded the City. Not that it mattered, because the Sisters would not have been able to see the sun anyway. Their eye sockets were two empty holes, their eyes gouged out in a brutal religious ceremony that I wanted no part of.
“Repent! Repent!” the Sister nearest me hollered. She stepped toward where I stood, stretched her withered hand in my direction, grasped for my sleeve.
As I moved away from the hag’s reach, I craned my head to the left and saw a person standing pressed against the wall of a dilapidated apartment building. It was a young woman. We were separated by a hundred feet. Her eyes were fixed on me, and when she saw that I’d spotted her, she didn’t divert her gaze. Instead, she looked at me with even more urgency. Like I said, it was a woman, but not any type of woman I’d ever seen before. I sensed something almost supernatural about her. The waves of heat that visibly rose off the pavement somehow magically skirted around her. But there was also a contradiction, because although she gave off a peculiar vibe, her physical appearance was ordinary. Even from the distance that I stood, I could make her out clearly. She wasn’t tall or short. Her face and lips and figure were nothing to write home about. That’s not to say she was hideous or off-putting in any way: not at all. She was just average, not the type of woman I’d typically notice walking down the street. Even her clothes weren’t remarkable. She wore a tan robe with a slight V-neck. The robe hung a few inches above her ankles. She did have one distinctive physical characteristic: her hair. It was coal black, with straight bangs, and cut short so it resembled a helmet.
So her hair was striking. But other than that, raw sex appeal wasn’t her calling card. But let me tell you this: although on the surface she may have appeared average, she wasn’t average at all. Nope. There was something deep and meaningful and atavistic at work.
We stood our ground, sizing each other up for a minute or so, although it seemed much longer. Time stood still. I couldn’t pull my eyes off her. Yeah, it sounds sappy, but it felt like she had reached her hands inside my chest and was playing a soft tune on my heart strings. As my heart skipped to that catchy melody, I pegged her as an angel or the Devil Himself or a sweet mixture of both.
Then these words hit me: We’ll escape together. It was as if they floated from her unmoving lips, across the space that separated us, and burrowed into my forehead. They struck me with such force that they were effectively tattooed across my brain, written in ink so purple it was black, and letters so thick they would forever be impossible to avoid. And here’s the thing – I knew right then that I’d follow her, wherever she might lead, no questions asked.
As these thoughts flashed through my head, a large man walked directly in front of me, and when he passed, the woman had vanished.
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