FSE

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I stand up again and place my mask back over my head and slip forward towards the edge of the building. The police have arrived to the scene, blues and whites amid a sea of yellows and blacks. This is very fortunate. They'll have expected me to either have long since vanished or decide to check in on my dirty work. If I can get down then I can get away without any hassle. Only problem is I have to get down and far enough from the building before any of them see me. They may think to look the roof as well if they cannot find any trace of where I may have gone but thankfully the snows haven't fallen yet. If that were the case I'd be completely out of luck as they'd immediately know exactly where I am. I silence the song within as I close my eyes and allow my ears to find the locations of each and every individual. They thankfully seem to be all close to the door I used though I can pick up in the silence of the night a call to set up a perimeter around the building meaning I have to move fast. I hoist myself over the edge and then with only a second to make sure I know how far I'm falling I let go.

To say I land gracefully would be a credit far beyond what I can actually do with this body. I don't break anything when I land but I do fall back and land hard on the abominable appendage, cringing slightly at the pain though I am grateful for it at the same time. The pain calms the song and the last thing I need right now is to have to fight off that desire at the moment. I grab my bag again and take off towards the shadows of the night, getting as far away as I can from the people there. It is a simple enough matter for me to get away. I stop running a block away and take on a more casual pace, panting slightly from the exertion. I would say I must be getting fat from how tired such a short sprint has caused me but I'd chalk it more to fatigue and how tired I have been lately. With the cold nights it is far harder than it was in the summer to find a safe place to get some decent sleep as best as I can manage and so I don't get much at all. I obviously can't try and go and find a hotel or something to sleep in. The last thing I need is such attention. Most office spaces are checked on by security several times throughout the night so they are off limits too. If only I had a more normal body finding a place to sleep in the cold wouldn't be so much of a problem.

The song begins to try and placate me again, soothing me with promises that if I were to just give in I'd have no problem being warm enough to get a good full night's rest. And though I'm thankful as well that I seem to have started to get tired enough that not even the song seems to intent on fighting for control of this body. It still rings in my head, urging me to give in but even with considering the promise it makes it does not surge and try to wrench my form from me. Sighing I decide to go ahead and go back to one place I've found lately that I have been able to get at least some sleep and decide to head there. I sigh, knowing that that is the last place I want to be given what I had just did. It always just feels wrong to me. But I do need sleep and it is nearby. About a mile away is a sort of old church. Too large to be properly protect and keep me from getting in and the pastor of the church, the few times he has found me is patient enough to not try and turn me in right away.

It is one of the things I use my money for, of course. There are many places in which I could never visit or spend money but there are also instances where having a little pocket change could be useful, especially when it comes to vending machines. Vending machines are nice in that they are indescriminant to who uses them. So long as the cash comes in and the right buttons pressed it will happily spit out the food. But whenever I stay at a place I know that is forgiving enough to let me in more than once I want to stay in their best graces and thus leave at least a few dollars as payment for letting me stay. I find the building easily enough, I could probably find it through smell alone and with the promise of sleep the song has quieted down even further to the extent that there is barely any recognition of it all.

I find my normal entrance to the building and slip in. There have been many times that I have entered this building many times, hiding in its confines for various reasons. The main reason I keep going back though is a sense of safety. Unlike anywhere else during the middle of the night I know I can come here and not have to be on guard all the time. And when getting used to the place I explored every inch of it thoroughly and have found a few places I can enter in without disturbing anything. The most embarrassing part of it all is that my first thought for a safe place is a church and yet I don't particularly care for religion. I've long since denounced any faith after what had happened to me and how I've been treated the few times I have been seen clearly. But this place is somewhat different.

I'm not sure what the pastor thinks of me but he's been more than patient with me. I suppose it's more of a sense of needing to reach out to those in need of saving and I'm sure I probably give the impression of needing saved far more than anyone else. And I'm also sure the fact I keep coming back has a hand in that belief, that somehow I want to be saved. He seems to have wandered off once I'm on the inside as I do not see him in the main area, or anywhere at all. I know he's somewhere, though; he always is. I reach into the pocket in my cloak and then pull out a few bills and leave them on a table near the big cross. I then tighten my grip on my bag before turning around and finding the stairs that lead to the upper levels, letting my gaze change to watch all the things watching me at every moment. A church is a strange place indeed, especially at night, for one is always alone and yet never alone.

From every angle I'm being watched by figures that will never move, never talk or judge me but are always there, staring at me and knowing full well what I am and what I've done. In the low light some of them seem even more imposing than usual. I find my usual spot along the upper decks, near the back wall where I cannot be snuck up on and close enough to an exit that if the need arises I can escape. I arrive at my own small little corner I place my things down and begin setting things up to make myself a little more comfortable. I keep my cloak on for the time being as I'll just use it as a blanket but I do remove the mask and place it to my side. I open up the bag and grab another bit of meat and begin chewing on it thoughtfully, not so much out of hunger but of a sense of obligation. The food won't last for too long and I should eat as much as I can before it spoils. On top of that the more food I have to carry around with me the slower I can move easily.

I cradle one leg closer to my body and reach around the length of my foot to the edge of the material. Finding it I begin to slowly unwrap the bindings on my foot, taking great care so that I don't ruin the material. Even with that I can start to feel that some parts are starting to wear down. They'll probably only last a few more weeks at best and that's only if I can manage to resist the song for that long. If it claims me then that time will be drastically reduced, if I ever find it again at all. Sighing once again once the wrap is completely off I take a moment to rub the length of the foot, trying to help massage it a little bit and giving my toes a chance to more fully splay out and flex. If only stealing shoes were an option I probably wouldn't have that much of a complaint, but this body of mine would laugh at the notion of making things that easy. My feet are far too long and in far too different a shape for a shoe to fit. If I was accepted in society I might have been able to try and commission someone to make a shoe that I could wear with a good enough fit and enough padding to make living and walking on them all day very comfortable. But alas that is not the case. I fight the urge to cry at my misfortune as I continue rubbing my one foot as my abominable appendage curls up along my leg as if trying to give me some consolation.

There have been days where I'd let myself cry myself to sleep but I've grown cold to my plight. Crying will no longer do me any good and will certainly not change things the slightest bit. If anything the song would grow louder to try and placate me once again. Sighing out loud once again I extend my leg back out before grabbing the other one and pulling it in, repeating the process after putting another bit of food in my mouth. As I don't really need my eyes to be on my enlarged feet to do this process I let my eyes wander about the room. In the darkness the room gives off a dark red hue to everything with shadows littering the area, an amusingly fitting place for me to hide. In the low light I'm sure I'd probably look even darker a shade of red than the area I'm in. I've even sometimes joked with myself how in the very low light and with my cloak I'd probably look like some sort of ninja or something but that joke had long gotten old and the thought no longer even brings a smile to my face. In the light, however, the rather thick hairs covering my entire body are such a vibrant red that it's almost like my body is trying to mock my attempts to stay out of eyesight and not be seen by everyone.

I know what others may call these hairs but I refuse to use that term, for even considering it thus would be a small surrender I refuse to make. Just as I refuse to call my abominable appendage by what it is, the white tip flicking up at me gently for a second as if laughing at me. Of course not all my body is covered in red. My front is covered in a more cream colored layer and my ears, arms and feet are more an umber color. I hear motion below and gather everything close, ready to bolt out of this place if the need arises. I certainly have no time to rebind my feet to provide a cushion of leather but the padding on it will serve for a short sprint so long as I don't run on anything particularly sharp.

"I figured you'd probably be coming here tonight," a recognizable voice shouts up from the location of the table I had placed my tribute.

That it is him that's here and not someone else I do relax a bit, but I also wrap my cloak tighter around my body and replace my mask onto my face in case he decides he wants to try and talk to me again.

"It is good to see you're still in good enough health," he calls out in a deliberately loud tone, letting me know exactly where he is so that I can tell he's slowly making his way up to where I am. "Given how cold it's been I had been worried about you."

He appears in the distance, standing tall and looking at me, his eyes accustomed to having to try and find me in the darkness. His figure is tall enough, taller than the average human by any means and still fairly young. Wearing a black robe with a white collar he stares back at me, my body tightening up a bit more as I stare back at him, my every muscle tense.

"Oh, don't give me that look. A shepherd worries about every single member of their flock, not just the ones that show up in the normal hours."

I continue to stare at him and inch myself closer to the exit, bundling everything up close to me as well as I can so that if I have to bolt I can do so without losing everything. The pastor sighs before sits down in a chair, his legs wrapped around the back of the chair while his arms rest along the back of it. One of his arms raises up and ruffles some of his soft brown hair. I do not answer him, just continue my staring at the man in black in contrast to the dark reds and shadow, a pillar among the black using robes far darker than the surroundings. He continues to stare back at me a moment before sighing.

"Will you at least talk to me this time? I'm sorry if I have ever said anything to offend you. I have made no effort to make me seem like a threat in any regard. I would have thought that you would have opened up to me at least a little bit by this time," he comments, his tone rather disappointed and a little sad.

As a gesture of good faith I reach my arm into my bag and grab a bit more food and place it into my mouth, chewing it gently, still not letting my attention slip the slightest bit in regards to the man in front of me. I'm not so much afraid that he'll hurt me. If anything he has proven that I am far more likely to be a threat to him than he to me. I doubt even seeing what I really like would put me in any danger. What I don't want, what I'm afraid of is more that when he does see me for as I truly am that his opinion will change, that he'll become afraid of me. Even still, the tension and adrenaline running through me on whether to run anyway keeps the song silent. It knows that the worst time for me to have to deal with the song, even if I do embrace it and slip into it is when every second counts as a single second wasted with the song at the wrong time could mean death.

After a moment or two longer he sighs again before standing up again. "I don't suppose I even need to ask where you managed to find that money or that food, do I? If only you'd let me help you. Oh well, if you need me I'll be downstairs preparing for tomorrow's sermon. I'll leave you alone."

The man turns around with his shoulders slouched over a bit and walks away. I wait for a moment or two after he's left before relaxing and bothering to take my mask off again. Among other things it is conversations like these that make me so reluctant to use this place very often. I know just how very much he wants to at least talk to me and find out about me but I have no means to say what I need to say to him.