verb.
To fall back under pressure. To shrink back physically or emotionally.
noun.
The kickback of a gun upon firing.
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It takes a stubborn mind to cling to their humanity when the world seeks to strip it away.
It takes a desperate soul to reach f...
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A light mizzle of rain was reassuring. It fell over the small city like a shroud, lending a grey cast to the day and making the pavement underfoot shine in the weak light. It smothered the overwhelming scents of civilization and left behind a simple, clean odour that didn't weigh on his lungs like the fumes of cars did. People didn't linger in the rain, they walked quickly, kept their gazes low. They didn't make eye contact and they didn't look for it - they just kept going to wherever it was they needed to be. People always seemed to be in a hurry, everything seemed so urgent.
There were so many people in the world now.
The young man pulled the peak of his cap a little further over his ungroomed features, his shoulders squared against the weather and the world as he walked. A plastic bag swung from his left hand, the thin handles stretched by the weight of its contents, digging into the leather gloves that covered his hands in a way that ought to cut off the blood supply to his fingers. In a way that ought to be uncomfortable.
It wasn't uncomfortable. Not in his left hand.
He was grateful to even have something to carry though, when he had so often had to turn to more dishonest methods of feeding himself. The next step would be to find somewhere to stay that didn't involve squatting in an abandoned basement, somewhere with a lock on the door and not just a broken chair that he had wedged against it. But that might be tricker than simply earning enough cash to afford to eat - even in a place where it was so easy to pick up a bit of manual labour for a day and have a handful of złoty pressed into his hand at the end of it. You didn't need a name for jobs like that, you just needed to be able to put your head down and work, and the shipyard a little ways outside the city centre was always looking for extra hands.
Of all the places he had passed through, this was the longest he had managed to stay, without feeling that inexplicable urge to run. Whether it came in the form of fear he was being followed or recognised, or the sudden waves of hatred towards himself that came with the surfacing of some obscure memory, the urge usually came. If he was moving, he didn't have time to think about anything other than finding the next place to hide.
Even here though, he couldn't bring himself to feel settled. Not when he lay awake at night, listening to the footfalls of the legal residents in the building above him, the squeak and slam of the main door opening and closing and that awful few seconds as he waited for the patter of someone ascending the stairs to the apartments above. Someday, he was sure that the footsteps would come down to his door. He wasn't sure who he expected those steps to belong to, but he was certain that they would come. He just didn't know what he would do when they did.
Or rather, he knew what he'd have to do. He just resented the thought of it.
Though, part of him hadn't expected that day to come so quickly.
He was always careful not to be seen letting himself through the main door, but he knew how to walk like he belonged there in case he met any of the residents on the other side. He knew how to stand and pretend he was checking his mailbox as he waited for them to leave, but he hadn't prepared himself for what he would do if he descended the basement stairs and caught sight of someone sitting on the lower steps, just in front of his door.
