:Section Eight:

Few people bothered or cared to be bothered to talk to a lone teenager wandering around aimlessly in a rainstorm. I had no issue with that; I did not want to be acknowledged. That was managed easily enough, since no one cared anyway.

Or perhaps they were all too unnerved by me, since no sane person would sit in a “park” and stare at the road in the middle of such weather.

I bit out a grin, for no real reason. The deluge had soaked clear through my jacket within the first half hour, and by now I was thoroughly drenched. I took a slight, perverse pleasure in submitting myself to the mercy of the elements, shivering and huddled in a pathetic black bundle. Perhaps I figured I was doing penance, or maybe I just needed to remind myself how worthless and small I truly was.

Or I was just extremely masochistic. Yes, that sounded about –

“James! I told you to put it in your pocket!”

I looked up, and stared in mild disbelief at the mother and child walking briskly down the sidewalk, under a battered umbrella. It was the child from before, his eyes fixed on my face, who then looked down. I looked down automatically as well, to see a small rubber ball not a metre from my foot. Oh.

I tried not to acknowledge the mother, who radiated hostility and drew her son closer to her, as I walked over and handed the child…James…his ball. He accepted it gravely.

“Thank you,” the mother said, stiffly, and pulled on her son’s hand. “James, let’s go.”

He, with all the seriousness of a six-year-old, said, “When you don’t listen, you lose things.”

He appeared to be waiting for a response, so I gave a jerky, hesitant nod. Satisfied, he tugged on his mother’s hand. “Right, Mom?”

“Yes. Now come on!”

I watched them go with the same vague unease, only made greater by the odd coincidence that I would meet the same child. Thunder rolled suddenly, so strongly I felt it in the ground, and broke me away from my thoughts. I glanced around to see the downpour increase.

I hated this place, so bleak, so grim.

You chose this.

Yes, I did… The lesser of two evils.

Exhaling, I shouldered my sodden bag and made my way towards the street, praying to whoever might deign to listen to me that Raelyn would cooperate today, or I might just pass out from the splitting headache that throbbed in lovely symphony to the drumming of the rain. I would let her see my apartment today, my pathetic excuse for an abode, and perhaps she would be quiet, for a day.

A/N: I know. It's ridiculously short, but.