The Strangeling Part XII - (Freewrite 146 - monkey)

Greetings fellow Steemians! Here is my 13th "5" minute* freewrite. The prompt is "monkey".

*Not 5 minute this time, 90 minute ;)

This piece is a continuation of yesterday's freewrite, and the thirteenth installment in an ongoing story. Let's see how long I can keep this up, using the prompts provided!

Part I: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/freewrite-129-fingernail

Part II: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-ii-freewrite-130-wasps

Part III: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-iii-freewrite-131-solitude

Part IV: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-iv-freewrite-132-gardening

Part V: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-v-freewrite-132-the-attic

Part VI: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-vi-freewrite-132-plaid

Part VII: https://steemit.com/weekendfreewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-vii-weekend-freewrite-3-3-2018

Part VIII: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-viii-weekend-freewrite-3-3-2018-apricot

Part IX: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-ix-freewrite-137-witches

Part X: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-x-freewrite-138-syrup

Part XI: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-xi-freewrite-139-artichoke

Freewriting is a daily practice for most poets and fiction writers, designed to loosen up and get things flowing, like stretching before exercise. Visual artists, especially those who draw or paint from life (figures, landscapes, still lives, etc) do something similar in "gesture drawings". After reading several of @poetrybyjeremy's freewrite posts, I got excited to try these again. Many thanks to @mariannewest for hosting this daily freewrite! https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-146-5-minute-freewrite-wednesday-prompt-monkey

https://pixabay.com/en/medium-psychic-female-fantasy-woman-goth-1726601/

Was it?

Now I wasn't sure...

Sunlight slanting across cement housing development walls. Walking fast, I focused in, slowed my breathing, calmed my racing thoughts.

I knew what they were, and where they came from. But why were they following me? I'd thought we were on the same team...

Not that I'd ever even seen these guys before, but I knew their maneuvers by heart. I'd started out as one of them. A Collector.

I turned my thresholds way down and my senses heightened dramatically, spreading to encompass everything within a two block radius.

Three of them. One on the ground, just ahead. Now gone. Poof. Up a fire escape above where he he'd been standing. That's what state of the art performance enhancing drugs and endless hours of training can do. Oh, and a bio chip, just like the one under my own skin, only mine had been reprogrammed countless times over the course of the last three years. Mods aren't made overnight.

They must have known what I was, what I was capable of. I could tell by this one's body language, heart rate, neural activity: he didn't expect to ambush me, at least not by dropping down out of the sky. He expected me to follow him.

Another one. Just around the side of the building, hugging the wall, dart gun in hand. A trap within a trap.

I pretended to take the bait, walking straight to the very end of the fire escape, as if I hadn't noticed its occupant, before jumping to grab the bottom rung of the ladder, flipping and twisting my body so that he and I would come face to face. Give the people what they want, right? For an instant we were frozen in tableau, the world around us moving of its own accord. An orange flash from the late afternoon sun reflected in the window. A jetliner tracing silently through the sky, leaving contrails in its wake. The indignant chatter of a squirrel in a nearby tree. The clink of the tiny silver flying monkey charm on the man's wrist.

Then he moved. Fist raised to lips, fingers splayed, lips pursed to blow one quick breath, a cloud of dust particles dancing in the slanted light of the sun, as the dart left the gun beneath us, speeding toward my thigh, and the third Collector slid the sun-mirroring window wide to help walk me inside before I had a chance to collapse.

It was too bad. It would have been an almost perfectly staged maneuver, no struggle, no bloodshed, over in the blink of an eye. But I'd already watched the thing play out in my mind's eye, and I knew how it ended. They wouldn't like the ending.

Not that it was their fault. They weren't true mods. They'd been set up for failure. Drugs, chips, and training can only do so much.

Before he could lift his fist, I was standing behind him, my left forearm pressed against his windpipe, my back to the wall, not the window, a cloud of dust hanging golden in the sunlit air in front of him, the dart now winging toward his leg rather than mine. As the third monkey opened the window I shoved his freshly tranquilized companion at him, flipped easily over the side of the fire escape, landed in front of the dart gun wielder. He gave me a look, then turned and parkour-walked up and over the facing wall.

It was a toss up, but it only took me a split second to decide: I wanted answers. This guy was running, but none of his biomarkers indicated fear, only excitement. I followed him. As I landed on the lawn on the other side, he stopped mid-run, turned, winked at me, smiled. "Nice work, Chameleon!"

The breath escaped my lips in a long sigh, and I realized how worried I'd actually been. Relief flooded my body. It had been a test. I was still in. They hadn't sent anybody after me. Yet.

But... why was he coming so close? Didn't he know what I could do to him? Why did they keep sending these flying monkeys after me? So sick of killing.

The alleyway around us should have been dark, but even here, the pervasive streetlight haze of the city revealed the basic shapes of things. My eyes had already adjusted enough to see the expression on his face. And anyway, I could Feel him. Him and his friends. They were getting closer.

This one was looking right at me, cocky, overconfident, as if he had some kind of secret weapon, something I wouldn't suspect. I Felt him again. Nothing. He had nothing. Nothing except the mistaken notions in his head. He thought I was pretty. And crazy. He thought he was going to rape me here, in this dark alley, where no one would know about it but his fellow Collectors. Maybe his buddies would want to join in. Regardless, he knew they wouldn't rat on him, and he'd lie about it when he got me back to the Attic if I said anything.

I felt that sick exhaustion in the pit of my stomach. This guy had no clue. I wasn't going to let him get any closer. They had to stop, had to realize this wouldn't get them anywhere. I Felt the other one, coming full tilt down the fire stairs in the building I had my hand pressed against. The third waited in the bodega at the corner, pretending interest in canned chicken noodle soup and latex dishwashing gloves. The monkey in front of me took another step.

I lost it. Let myself lose it. Whatever. Everything I'd been working so hard to keep a lid on came pouring out of me, a tidal wave of monsters. I watched him stop, stagger. There was the stricken look on his face, the tears streaming down his cheeks, the strangled half-scream gurgling in his throat, rising to a full, broken-voiced howl of pain, loss, betrayal, agony. Always the same. I felt the tears running down my own cheeks, heard myself sobbing inconsolably as his eyes burst, blood pouring from the sockets, from his nose and mouth and ears. He fell, face down on the concrete, bouncing once like a rubber mannequin, then lay there, steam rising from the holes in his face where features had once been, a pool of piss and blood spreading out around him. His fellow monkey burst through the alley door, saw his friend's smoking remains, looked at me in horror, stunned, long enough for me to kill him once, twice, a thousand times over. I sent a wave at him, just a thin echo of the wave that had killed his friend.

He turned and ran, out of the alley and away up the street.

Ok.... this definitely wasn't me now.

But I couldn't stop it.

Foster home number... I didn't know, I'd lost count. His hand over my twelve year old mouth... if you tell anybody, I'll kill you. No one will miss you, least of all me. No one cares what happens to you. Your parents are dead. You have no friends or family. You're disposable.

Just finish and get off me, just finish and get off me, just finish and get off me, just finish and get off me...

Too numb to cry myself to sleep.

School the next day, trying to avoid the other students.

That one kind of geeky kid with the too-long bangs who always wanted to talk to me... It would have been nice, maybe, to have somebody to talk to. He was probably nice. It might have been good to talk to him, in some other life...

So hungry. How long had it been since I'd run away? Only a day or two. Shoplifting was getting harder the dirtier and more homeless looking I got. I needed food. There was a van outside the soup kitchen. It gave me a weird feeling. I turned and walked the other way. I could find food somewhere else, come back later...

I felt a prickling sensation on the back of my neck as the van pulled up behind me.

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