Thunk

He’s outside now. The red uniform clings to him in wet folds, though it’s not really red any more. Sleeves clotted with mud. Knees the same. Grass stains decorate the ankles of his trousers, soaked and heavy. Bare feet . . . crusted in dried blood, rust-brown, cross-hatched with scratches like something tried to climb up.

He’s on an overpass. Not at the top yet, but high enough. He looks down over the railing.

Thunk.

Swing.

Creak.

“Please!..”

His breath catches. Shoulders tighten.

“No!..”

He looks up.

The asylum is just a silhouette in the distance. Floodlights sweep from the two guard towers, slow and lazy, as they do every night. But . . . no sirens. Do they even know he’s gone?

Silence.

He turns away, the building slipping from view. Waits. He sways a little, like a branch deciding which way to bend.

A sound swells out of the quiet until . . . a car slices past. 

Amber headlights stretch the shadows long across the tarmac. Then gone. Sound swallowed by the night.

Silence again.

The shadows stretch once more, but this time there’s no engine, no beam of light. They swim and skitter across the sidewalk, pooling thick at his feet before spilling forward . . . thinning, reshaping. Long, starved shapes crawl along the edges, restless.

The street light above him dies with a flicker.

Then the next one ahead.

He understands and begins to walk, each step carrying him higher up the overpass, each step widening his view of the sleeping city. He heads toward the dark. Behind him, the street light flares back to life, chasing the shadows away.

He keeps climbing. Near the top, the next lamp shudders and dies just before he reaches it.

The darkness moves with him, shielding him, clearing the path.

He reaches the crest.

Far ahead, something glows in defiance of the black city around it. Tall white concrete walls, framed with steel and glass. Lit like a beacon. Red and blue lights wash over the entrance as ambulances come and go.

He knows what he has to do, if he ever wants to escape.

The next street light dies.

He walks on.

Every step taking him further away from the asylum, and closer toward . . . the hospital.