The Things that Lurk in the Night

The glow of the moonlight sets a lambent ambiance about Central Park.

Millie tightens her scarf close around her neck with the rising wind that brushes against the leaves, making them sound off as natural windchimes.

The frigidity of the night are chills her beneath her skin, to her very soul.

This is the first time in months she had emerged from the cavernous subway transits and subterranean hollows that made a city beneath a city, one which she called home.

She rubs her hands together, stomach tightening like the pressure of a can opener against a seal.

There is nothing good to come out of Central Park. That is the ultimate rule. Nobody ventures past dark. For the park belongs to those who roam the night. To call them predators would be an understatement, possibly even a compliment.

She is so hungry, she would murder for food.

A choking cough escapes her opened mouth, billowing out in a draconic cloud of frost.

Eyes are on her. She sees them sparkle between the breaks of branches. Watchers of the dark, pressed to snatch up the oblivious, inspect her every move.

A twig snaps behind her, and a whooshing sound arcs up toward the boughs ahead, which bob.

Those eyes stare down at her, shining from a gaunt body slouching in the darkness.

She breaks for it, running across the desolate path as the sounds of others sprint and scramble in the shadows.

She knows nothing of them outside of the stories told. That there are creatures who hunt after innocent people as wolves to lambs, feeding on them... oftentimes dragging them into the darkness to endure terrors unimaginable while disappearing off the face of the earth.

New York City has a lot of missing persons cases, almost eclipsing cases grown cold. It is the concrete jungle others deem the city to be, and one has to be aware what territory to cross and be educated of the rules pertaining.