Rabbit
She lay dead at his feet, and seeing her crumpled body limp on the cobblestones, arms and legs at disturbing angles sent a wash of sorrow through the core of his chest making him feel sick. Discordant church bells echoing through the manmade canyon between the old brick buildings of the narrow alley seemed apropos to the sadness that welled inside him. Yet something was wrong.
It was her hair he decided as he tilted his head studying her, ignoring the sudden awareness of pain in his left shoulder. Her hair wasn't supposed to be that long nor that colour. She was supposed to have shorter black hair, not long and brunette. Although a flash of her as a blonde skittered across his mind and was gone as quickly as it appeared.
And she wasn't supposed to be dead. It was impossible that she was dead, and a small helpless sound came from his throat as he remembered that he loved her. He couldn't remember her name, but he knew that he loved her.
The pain in his shoulder was getting worse and was now matched by its twin in his left hip.
What was her name?
He grimaced as his pain increased, the arhythmic tolling of the bells annoying him now as he searched his memory for her.
The last thing he remembered was a dream; running across a grassy meadow in the moonlight, chasing a playful rabbit.
Rabbit. Was her name Rabbit?
He shook his head.
In the dream Rabbit could talk.
"Hurry." Rabbit had said, "Hurry or we'll have to jump."
And he ran as fast as he could as Rabbit pulled away from him, her long legs sleek and sure in the darkness, her feet light on the grass. His own feet clumsy, his legs weak and growing tired quickly. He was about to beg her to slow down when she fell.
They both fell.
"Who are you?" he whispered to the dead girl, lowering himself painfully to one knee, his hip screaming with pain, his hand trembling as he reached out to touch her.
There was blood on the back of his hand. It was scraped. Behind him the church bells were growing louder, drowning out the humming traffic on the streets at either end of the alley. It was becoming surreal, like a bad European student art film.
The skin of her cheek was pale, as soft as silk and still warm.
"Who are you?" he asked again, "I can't remember."
He felt tears begin to well in his eyes, blurring his vision. How could he not remember her name?
"Run." said Rabbit in a barely audible whisper that caused him to pull his hand back, startled.
The girl's lips, slightly parted, hadn't moved but the voice had come from her. Then he realized that lips didn't have to move to form that word – it was all in the tongue and the breath.
"Run!" Rabbit hissed louder and he felt a cold rush sparkle up his spine and over his scalp.
Those weren't church bells.
He turned to see two men clamouring down the old fire escape on the building behind him, their pounding feet making the metal rungs sing like badly pitched bells. One of the men clutched a pistol with a comically fat extended barrel.
Not a barrel – a silencer.
They were coming to kill him.
He looked down at the girl, his chest hitching at the thought of leaving her that way, but he was alive and needed to stay that way.
"I'm sorry." he whimpered, and ignoring the pain in his left hip he rose and ran down the alley away from the men, zig-zagging to make a poorer target. He heard the hollow 'chunk' from behind him and saw the limestone dust kick up from a cobblestone two meters further down the alley where the bullet skipped.
They were definitely trying to kill him.
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