Running Scared

After April had gone around the area outside of the nightclubs, April discovered that her decision to leave the Box was a good idea. 

Apparently, her interest to enter the box to sell her sex toys was outweighed by her goal to lessen the harassment of the clients towards her. She thought that her sanity was much more important than her stressful encounters with overbearing customers inside.

In addition to that, the effect on her sales was great because it sold out soon. 

With a satisfied feeling, April left the busy street for a much more peaceful part of this place. She walked towards the park located on the other side of the district. She didn't mind walking a little bit more, as long as she got the peace and quiet she needed.

When she finally reached the open park, April sat on one of the wooden benches there to count the money she made for the day. She squinted a little bit to see clearly the bills she was counting. Since the lamp post beside the bench was slightly dimmed, she took a while in her counting to finish.

After a few minutes, she smiled in satisfaction upon discovering she really had a good sum of money from the merchandise sold for this day.

Next to this, she did a quick inventory of how many items of her merchandise to sell she had left.

Due to the incidents that took place this evening, she was now having second thoughts if she would get some more of these sex toys to sell or quit selling them altogether. But she was debating with herself because she earned money rather quickly, selling these kinds of stuff. So, in the end, she just decided to do her business someplace else to avoid trouble at the Box.

From a little bit far away, a pair of cold eyes looked in her direction. The person who was observing appeared to be concentrated on April's every movement.

Quickly, April also noticed this in her line of sight, but she pretended that she was unaware. She wanted to make sure that whoever was observing would not get any ideas to approach her. Besides, she was planning in her head where to run to hide or where to go for a speedy escape.

Slowly, April packed all the remaining merchandise in her bag, then made sure she had tucked her hard-earned money into the backpack pocket.

When she was done, April abruptly turned her stare towards where this pair of eyes were.

From such a distance, she realized that it was Vincent. This caused her to panic. 

Why was Vincent observing her? What did he want from her? She felt herself tremble.

With these questions plaguing her, she quickly fled. April ran as fast as her legs could carry her. She didn't even bother to look back to where she spotted Vincent. She didn't care about that. She just wanted to get far, far away from him as possible. Who knew what he had in his mind, all planned up to do to her.

Behind her, not far behind, Vincent also chased after her and called her repeatedly. 

"Hey, April, come back! Where are you going? Stop running!"

Vincent shouted these words as he continued to run in pursuit of April.

She kept running, without paying attention to Vincent's shouts.

Their chase brought April to the area where a public swimming pool was located. She planned to hide among the locker rooms and bathrooms there.

Unfortunately, in her alarm, April slipped because of the wet grounds. Consequently, she was about to fall into the deeper part of the swimming pool. Before she lost her focus, because of her sheer horror for she was not a good swimmer, she acted on the impulse to throw her backpack at the poolside. Her concern was to save her backpack. The money is there, as well as her toys to sell should not get wet or destroyed. It didn't matter if she drowned by then. What was important was what was in the backpack; the money that she earned today.

After she saw her backpack had safely landed on the ground, April found herself slowly moving downwards in that pool of water. This made her panic even more. She had nowhere to hold on to, to stop herself from sinking further.

In between the sound of water sloshing in her ears, she heard the sound of a voice calling her name.

"April! April! Where are you?"

The words came out garbled from where April was. Her eyes were blurred by the water and she felt her lungs having a hard time breathing.

"April! April!"

She heard her name again but she was too submerged in the water to be able to reply. She tried flapping her arms and legs but they all felt like iron bars dragging her down farther, instead of making her move upward towards the water surface.

At that moment, she felt that she was not going to make it. Her body felt so heavy and tired. She didn't attempt to resist the water claiming her to go deep down the pool. Finally, she totally gave up on moving. It felt like the water surrounding her would engulf her wholly.

From deep inside her, April felt a shortage of her breath and she was feeling that her brain was about to shut down too.

In addition to that, her emotion seemed to follow the direction of her body and mind to give up. A certain surge of hopelessness spread throughout her being.

She was going to drown. She was going to die and there was nothing she could do about it.

April thought to herself that this was surely the end for her. Here in this dark water, all alone and helpless. Somehow, she regretted her actions earlier. She felt ashamed for running away like a scared coward, instead of facing Vincent head-on bravely.

She was not supposed to be scared of him anymore. Well, that was what she thought. But she guessed she was wrong.

Tragic, such was her life...tragic!