Chapter Text
Just keep running, keep breathing, keep living.
Three simple tasks that anybody should’ve been able to undertake and in this set of circumstances, this was certainly no special person. It was the average joe, the usual punk that got yelled at, just a few more times and in a few more ways than others but it wasn’t anything special, nothing worth bragging about. He could run, he could breathe, and he could live, albeit miserably but living was living, no arguing that. One day he would die and while that day lay far off for natural circumstances, he currently ran from the creeping reach of an early demise.
Run.
Breathe.
Hide.
The only good things creepy ship docks were usual for was for playing the most horrifying game of hide and seek. Any other reason was pointless but for the moment he had of being free from the gaze of his pursuers, he ducked behind a stone wall, squeezing his body between the chilled cement and almost slimy texture of what he could only assume was a cargo box. He kept sliding further down, trying to make himself as small as possible and seriously regretting all the times he had skipped a morning jog before the sound of voices made him freeze not only in fear but well, he was stuck.
“Where’d it go? No way that freak ran far enough to be away from us.”
“Why don’t we—“
“Shut the fuck up and start looking for it.”
One, two, four pairs of feet split off running into different directions and he sucked in his stomach even more, pressing to the cargo box despite one of the grooves digging something fierce against his shoulder blade. Not even his tough skin could protect him from how the curve seemed to fit perfectly against the grain of his body, sorely prodding him and acting as a reminder that he had to leave. He had to escape.
How. How did he get into these sorts of situations?
Sure, he had been on the edge where his ‘kind’ weren’t tolerated, as if they were anywhere, but just grabbing a quick sandwich at a gas station shouldn’t have been this eventful. It shouldn’t have led to him running the first marathon he never wanted to run and now he was hopelessly lost, scared, and trapped like an animal in a cage. He just wanted to go back to his apartment, throw on all the lights and lock every possible entrance. He wanted to hide and he wanted to die. It didn’t help how the bitter cold of the winter night nipped at his bare body. Those boys, those terrible humans, they had taken his clothes from him. Or did he lose them? When would he have stripped to be naked? What happened?
Run. Breathe. Live.
Ah, right. They had been at the gas station. He remembered paying and barely taking a bite and he didn’t remember much after. Mainly a blur of colors he couldn’t process and then everything hurt. Everything stung. Did he cry out? He couldn’t remember anything, couldn’t even remember how he had lost his clothes but he knew with his clothes he lost his wallet and all of his cash for food for the month. Stupid. Why had he had all of his money on him? Why—right. He had wanted to go grocery shopping when there weren’t as many people at the store. Damn. He barely caught himself from throwing his head back onto the cargo box in frustration, flexing out the ends of his digits before he risked a gentle sigh. Using the slimy surface of the box and his own slightly slippery body he had managed to wriggle himself to a position where he could sneak back out from the nook he was hidden in but the thought of running into his attackers gave him reason to hesitate.
He couldn’t hear anything, certainly couldn’t see anything but was it worth it? Besides, how long could he run before he ran over something sharp or tripped? How long could he keep running before he could be considered safe? He didn’t know the neighborhoods near the docks, didn’t know if they were friendly towards his kind and it probably wouldn’t be worth the risk to search for a friendly human. Still…the cold was getting to him and he knew he couldn’t stay hidden for the entire night or he would end up dead from the cold. Just a little scoot further towards the entrance of his hiding spot and he waited. Waited for what felt like ages for any hint of a sound.
Nothing came.
He ran.
He didn’t even realize how loud the slapping of his feet against the partially wet ground was until he heard the sounds of yelling behind him. Far enough behind him that he wasn’t in immediate danger but that didn’t stop him from trying to pick up his speed, ignoring the searing pain in his side due to his lack of exercise but by the gods he was not about to die because he was a lazy ass. He was going to keep running, blinking as many eyes as he could to try and prevent the tears that blurred his vision in half of his eyes. He had to focus on the ground, on the space in front of him, on the attackers behind him and any landmarks he could spot. He had to focus on it all and he had to keep breathing. He had to keep living. In fear, perhaps, but he had to keep living all the same.
Where was he? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He was home, yes. It felt like home. The carpet felt good against his palms and it felt like home. It felt safe and it was in this safety that the tears fell freely and he shook in the small pile he was on the floor. He let the silent tears turn to choking sobs that racked over his entire body and he shook. It hadn’t been the first time he had been the victim of the prejudice carried against monsters but that never made it any easier than the first time. He swore he was a good…creature. He did his work honestly, he helped old ladies cross the road and he did his best to be polite despite the glares he got and the pointing fingers that always seemed to mark out his body as a massive flaw.
Twelve eyes, four horns, a flattened nose, a mess of jagged teeth that fit together like a twisted puzzle, purple skin, green dots, claws, and the issues down below but that was normal to him and normal to his species. He couldn’t say he was like any other human but was it so wrong for him to be different? Was it so wrong for a species other than a human to possess intelligence and the ability to function in a society? Why did it matter so much just because he looked a little different? Maybe some other monsters were small and some were large but what did it matter? They had feelings and lives like anybody else so why were they shoved aside so much?
The crying continued as he rolled onto his side, curling his body tightly into a ball and trying so hard to squeeze all of his eyes shut. He would get up, eventually that is. For the time being, he wanted to be miserable, wanted to be sad in his own home that well, wasn’t really his own home. He had become so paranoid in the past months that he no longer used the door to his apartment but rather left the window cracked just enough he could slip inside. How he managed to open that window in the state he was in wouldn’t have been a mystery to him if he could only realize he had blindly slipped into the open window of an apartment building that vaguely looked like his own.
He just, he didn’t care. He didn’t care. He was so cold and he felt so empty.
He wanted to die.