Stalked By Medusa

Gauhar's POV

The sky was a depressing shade of grey, wisps of random clouds were streaked across the sky making it resemble a wet street streaked with mud due to too many vehicles marring its smooth surface.

I blew out a long breath as I rubbed my hands, the weather had suddenly turned chilly and it still surprised me how unpredictable it was here, despite living here for more than half my life I couldn't understand what mood mother nature was in for the day. 

It was when only yesterday when I was dreading the possibility of the entire city getting flooded in the sweat of the poor souls of London, and now I was dreading the equally likely possibility of everyone drowning in the ruthless cloudburst that seemed to be looming over us.

Ah there was no respite for us poor souls in this city, was there?

I wrapped my arms around myself, my back bent due to immense weight of education and late night assignments that I was carrying on my back. Courtesy of an amazingly crappy History professor who knew more about the art of torturing students than the subject he was supposed to teach.

As the crisp wind blew through the leaves of the trees surrounding the street, I couldn't help but entertain the thought that I must be looking like a turtle to potential bystanders and stalkers. The unexpected but highly welcome likelihood of me looking like a member of the ninja turtles filled me with immense happiness.

All I needed was a bandana around my eyes and they'd have a brand new hijabi addition to the team, one that's super cool albeit slightly unskilled.

Walking in gloomy weather like this required one to be immensely brave or stupid, depending on your point of view. Especially when one didn't carry an umbrella with them. Since weather here is as predictable as you winning a game of gambling when you have no knowledge whatsoever of cards, I had decided that the weight of education on my back was enough for today and the additional weight of an umbrella would cripple me.

The possibility of getting drenched in the rain and having to untangle my hair after taking off the hijab filled my fragile heart with dread, I closed my eyes to ward away the painful memories that filled my mind when I had demonstrated the presence of my superior intellect by forgetting my umbrella during omnious weather like this. But I quickly opened them to focus on where I was walking, because no matter how scary those recollections were, falling face first on the ground and breaking my nose was also possibility that I had no intention of making a reality.

I felt a sinister chill run down my spine, making me curl my toes in my black sneakers. My superior senses indicated the presence of another individual behind me who seemed to have been there for quite a while now. I hugged myself a little tighter, not enjoying the eerie feeling of being followed by someone. My impeccable ninja senses went into overdrive as I registered that the unpleasant feeling of the person walking behind me had increased in intensity, indicating that they have gotten closer to me.

The proximity of the unknown human off putting.

 I urged myself to walk faster, forcing myself to look straight ahead although the urge to look behind was overwhelming. I didn't want to acknowledge that individual's presence. To take my mind off the soft sound of rubber shoes tapping on the asphalt behind me, I forced myself to imagine the image of an angry Mrs. Abercrombie glaring down at me for coming late.

That efficiently increased the pace of my sluggish feet by a factor of fifty, I marvelled at my ability to block the unwanted sounds of the fastening footsteps behind me. I was amazed at how oblivious I was to the exhausted panting of the individual behind me, how I managed to ignore the strong grip on my shoulder.

How I absolutely failed to catch the words spoken by the angry voice directly into my ear.

"Gauhar Abdullah Siddique, I demand that you stop power walking this very instant. It is making the other people on this street uncomfortable. That gleam in your eyes is so murderous that it is even scaring the birds away."

Upon the mention of scaring poor little aerodactyls, I stopped trying to push through with my failed attempt of ignoring my stalkers words.

I furrowed my brows in vexation, did I really appear murderous? I took a deep breath and forced my traitorous face to assume the straightest expression that I could muster. I firmly pushed away the urges of murdering any person whose name might start with the letter 'W'. Not only did I have irritating company, but my own perfidious body never bothered to comply with my demands.

To dispel any expression off animosity from my face, I placed a smile on my face. Feeling much more satisfied with this method of approach, I walked ahead confidently. The smile hurt my cheeks, but that was a small sacrifice that I was willing to make to hide the thoughts swirling inside my head.

Surely nobody would be able to see through the façade of faked geniality and gaeity, right?

But this confidence was tragically short lived as my ears picked up on the words of the little girl standing on the opposite sidewalk with a woman who looked like her mother "Mommy, why is that lady baring her teeth like that? I- Is she angry? O-or does she want to eat someone?"

The kids conclusion that I would prefer eating someONE instead of someTHING was alarming to me, there was something terribly flawed with my methods. So I decided to make my approach a bit more aggressive.

I flashed a smile her way, determined to make her believe that I was actually very harmless. But the shrill scream that permeated the silence of the afternoon caused me to nearly jump out of my skin "M-mommy!!! W-why is she looking at m-me like that? Did I d-do something wrong?" the fear in her large blue eyes that were peeking from behind her mother's generous behind, instantly made me feel guilty, though I knew that it was not my fault.

I had only wanted to make the child feel more comfortable, how did that backfire so badly?

The child clutched at her mother's dress as she hid her face away from me. I could see the apologetic gaze of the mother, the kind but slightly scared smile on her face managed to act like a balm to my wounded feelings.

I sighed in defeat as I shook my head to myself, feeling dejected at the fact that even full blown adults were afraid of me.

The loud peal of laughter that erupted behind me made me stop in my tracks. I clenched the hands on my sides into tight fists, trying to maintain the breaking illusion that I had absolutely no idea about the immensely annoying person stalking me.

"Why would scare the little kid that way? Don't tell me you were trying to 'reassure' her, because even I find that difficult to believe." I sucked in a calming breath, desperately trying to remind myself that killing this immensely annoying individual would prove the suspicions of the little kid right and scare her even more.

Not that I minded proving her right at this very moment but apparently life is quite hard in jail and I didn't look forward to spending any part of my life with people who enjoy bloodshed and get high on burnt rubber.

I slowly turned towards the annoying person who was doubled up in front of me, her grey eyes watering as she tried to control her laughter. Her dirty blonde hair were flying into her mouth as the wind blew onto our faces causing her to choke.

That finally managed to soothe my burning anger a bit as I felt a reluctant smile form on my face. It didn't take long for her laughter to turn into wild coughing, and no matter how sadistic I believed myself to be, watching her eyes water due to anything but laughter did not sit well with me. I quickly walked towards her, smacking her back with strong precise hits, focussing on delivering both pain and help with each hit.

Once the death like choking had stopped I handed her the hair-tie that I wore on my wrist, silently demanding her to pile up her hazardous hair into a pony tail. Once I had made sure that she felt fine, I resumed my journey towards the café. But now I could no longer force myself to act as if she didn't exist and that I didn't know her. My recent display of concern had efficiently made sure that the façade had been successfully broken.

Damn my kind heart and gentle soul.

 "Quit ignoring me you moron." I felt her bump my shoulder with hers, causing her hair to tickle my nose. I couldn't help the sneeze that followed, feeling my eyeballs nearly pop out due to the sheer force of the action. 

This woman never failed to remind me exactly how terribly dumb I was to adore her so much, but my reason always seemed to wear a sleep mask and enjoy an amazing slumber when it concerned her.

Once I had managed to gather my bearings, I turned towards the 'real' moron walking beside me. Fixing her with my narrowed eyes I grit my teeth "With your hair independently attempting my murder, there is no chance that I can ignore your presence no matter how annoying it is."

"Whoa whoa easy there tiger." She placed her hands in front of her, correctly reading the anger in my eyes and bracing herself for the impact "Stop painting me out to be medusa, my lovely hair are extremely harmless. Stop being paranoid will ya?" she lovingly ran a hand through her hair, making me suspect even more of the crap we had been fed about hair being made of dead tissue and hence not having any life of their own.

I rolled my eyes "Cut the crap will you Wilhelmina, I think that you have acquired short term memory loss or early onset dementia. Get yourself checked, will you?" I pointed out in the driest voice, hoping she understood the gravity of the situation.

Instead of taking my advice seriously, she furrowed her wispy eyebrows looking at me with a gaze that clearly suggested that she thought it was me who needed the mental help "I have no idea what you are trying to imply here Gauhar, I perfectly remember what happened a few moments ago. You gave up on ignoring me and were finally forced to acknowledge my presence."

I pulled at my hair…almost, I quickly moved my hands away from my head as I remembered that I was still wearing the headscarf around my head, feeling a pang in my heart as I realised that maybe I DID need help. Shaking the unbidden thoughts from my head I focussed o the idiot at hand