Painting Stars (FIRST DRAFT/ ONGOING)

Chapter 24 (It's A Banal's World ) Safira POV

I'm dreaming again, although as I become more unconscious the realisation evades me.

I stand in the middle of a busy city street. I mean , I can't say it's busy now but it's filled with empty cars in the worst traffic I could have ever seen. I look up at the clock on the screen behind me. 5:30 it reads. But something tells me it isn't anymore , despite how the sky seems to fit the time my instinks say differently. The world... It's stuck. Frozen in time at 5:30.

I don't understand, having no clue how it's possible to how I know it's true, but do. I'm standing on a time paradox, some times with my thoughts I think i'm one myself. I have no idea where to go , so I move the only direction I can when i'm in this situation. Forward. I shuffle past the frozen cars on the road, in utter silence. A silence that leaves chills that curl their away around my bones and back. It's unnatural, disturbing how the only thing I can hear is but my own steps, and the slam of doors as I close them to continue my path. I follow the road up and turn a corner.

Maybe the best next step is to look for other people , ask them what's going on. I turn left down the street to the walking path. Sure to get off the road. Noting how the placement of cars looks like hey were all in a rush , almost like they were running away from something just before the time stopped. As if they were scared and that leaves me with the same feeling that spreads ice through my stomach , but I ignore it and keep walking. Well knowing Banal's if they couldn't make it safe on the road then surely they must have done the next best thing and hide out of the open. So I make my way to check the streets. I pass a boutique with a pink and black curled sign that reads 'Miss Aue-Claire 'and press my ear up the door. Knowing with my werewolf hearing I'd easily be able to hear even without going in directly, I'm grateful , it be a pain if I had to break all the store windows and would attract to much attention and I doubt the kind I wanted. But I can't hear anyone now , I knock still no sound, no movement or whispered voices on the other side of the door. I move on and do the same for the next twelve shops until I pass the grocery store, almost given up I almost pass right by it, but my ears pick up something a shuffle , a scurry like rats sniffing danger. Then I feel the eyes pierce my back they wouldn't be able to see me well , but enough to know I was there and looking for something in the stores. I reach for the door handle and turn it noting that I can't open it not to my surprise , I consider other ways to get in, knowing that even if pick locking was my thing -which it wasn't - I didn't have the tools on me to pick the lock so naturally I did the next best thing. I leant down a picked up the first thing I found lying on the ground and threw it through the window , smashing the glass.

I hear screams in surprise as I smash the window. With what turns out to have been a small pram. I make my way in , stepping over the window frame and dodging some shards of glass that remains spiked but unshattered at the side of the window.

Inside a Banal family sits on the ground in what appears to be in shock. A mother clutches a young girl to her chest as she cries into her mothers shoulder, the fabric of her mothers shirt muffling her sobs. Thick and muscled arms of a man I expect to be the child's father, embraces them protectively and he raises his eyes to meet mine. He doesn't pull back from my eyes like what would be expected of someone who just scared the crap out of you as they broke in through your stores window. At least I assume it's their store... Rather he glares at me looking up and down me as if taking in information, cautious and untrusting .

"Shhh." I put my hands up in a gesture which practically screams ' white flag'. But the man doesn't lessen the harsh suspicion in his eyes. " I'm not here to hurt anyone, I just want to know what happened here that's all." I tell him honestly my voice smooth. He stares at me a long time before replying."We were attacked." He tells me, looking back at his crying daughter as if unsure how to continue. He pauses shifting his eyes back on me unsure. Debating how much he should reveal to the strange teenager girl who broke in through the window with a pram and keeps asking too many questions. He must decide it's okay to tell me because he continues on keeping it vague " We got caught up in something big."