Cipa 1

I'M BACK!!!! -Satira

CIPA- Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis

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“Go!” a voice hissed behind Aphen, echoing her own instinct.

She ran blindly, ducking through the uneven streets and alleyways between buildings. Her hands, her ears and nose, burned with rough, dead air dragging at her nerves.

Run. GO.

She finally stopped at a dead end, leaning, gasping against two damp concrete walls. Almost sitting, but not quite.

“Hi.”

Aphen jumped.

She couldn’t see what the person looked like, other than that they weren’t full adult height, and that they were slim, lightly clothed. Bizarre, in this cold. The voice could have been indicative of either gender, and Aphen couldn’t read it’s intentions.

Judging by their height, the attacker was probably a teenager. They were the most dangerous, Aphen’s parents had warned her. Unpredictable, energetic, and, like most in this city, they usually traveled in formidable numbers.

Aphen looked around her and up, trying to scope a way out of the alleyway. But all she could see was the outline of the intruder blocking her path, standing eerily still, and the opaqueness of the three walls closing in around her. Up, up… the sky was dull and smudged with grey clouds. She couldn’t see the stars...

She was eleven years old, maybe still young enough to- maybe still small and quick enough..

Aphen ran forward, the long flaps of her hat streaming out behind her. If she was fast enough, if the person who had cornered her wasn’t as agile as she was, then she could duck around and escape, just barely, from this damned narrow alley.

She felt an electric shock in her chest as she past the motionless figure without stopping to glance at it, heading towards the dim brightness of a wider cobblestoned street. Free, free, freedom.

“Hey,” said the soft voice.

There was a yanking at the side of Aphen’s head as a hand grabbed hold of one of her ear-flaps. She screamed.

“Get off! Leave me alone!!!” She struggled to pry the hand away-she wasn’t escaping without her hat if she could possible help it- but even when she bit it, even when she tasted wet iron welling around her teeth, the fingers refused to move. That was strange, she thought. She had bitten hard. 

She would not leave without her hat.

Aphen stopped struggling and looked up helplessly, up the mangled, bleeding hand and too-thin, bandaged arm, past a cotton-covered chest- flat- and into a strained-looking face…

“What do you want?” she whispered. Her vision was blurring. With one hand, she tugged her one free ear-flap around her cheek and felt the soft, worn wool, and imagined the comforting deep blue that it was in the day, and sewn constellations that she knew were an exact reflection of the sky. She would get back there after now. She had had enough of this smoke-filled maze of a city.

The teenager’s hand loosened on her flap, perhaps in sympathy, or perhaps pain. But not enough for her to slip out of their grasp.

“Nothing,” he said, even more softly than before. “It’s just that you don’t look from here. I’m not either. And you’re only going farther into the city if you go the way you’re going. You’ll never get out. Please, I can help you.”

Aphen took a deep breath. Her heart beat against her coat like a bird against a glass window. He had to be lying… everybody lied in this place … but what were his motives?

“Get your hand off of my hat,” She said quietly, and to her surprise he let go, so suddenly that she thought surely his scratched, bitten, and bleeding hand would hurt him enough to at least gasp. But it didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” The boy said, holding both arms up sharply and showing off the tight cloth winding around them, tied in neat bows where his short-sleeved shirt ended. “Really, I am.”

Aphen stared at him. He didn’t look menacing. His stance wasn’t at all aggressive. He now stood a fair distance away from her, willing her to make up her mind. Willing very hard.

“I know how to get you out of the city,” he said again. “Where there isn’t so much fog everywhere. And it’s safe for now.”

When she didn’t move or respond, he added, “I also know where there’s food.”

Aphen felt her stomach turn at the mention of it. She hadn’t eaten since last night.

What could go wrong? her stomach told her.

She swallowed. Took in a shaky breath.

She needed food.

“I...I need to get out of here. If you touch me- I’ll get you back. I...I’ll… hurt you.”

“No you won’t.”

Aphen clenched her fists at her sides, so hard she could almost feel her knuckles whiten. “You think I’m lying? Just because I’m small doesn’t mean I’m too small to do damage. I could-”

“Kill me. You could kill me,” said the boy. “But you can’t hurt me. Nothing can.”

He broke eye contact from her to his hand, which he held in front of him. The little light there was glistened wet around his fingers and palm, and ran down to be absorbed by the fabric around his wrists, slowly, slowly.

CIPA- Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (with Anhidrosis)

Note to reviewers: I'm sorry if this comes across as annoying or condescending, but... 

Please do not nitpick this story. If it does not help my overall writing/storytelling abilities/the story itself, then it is not necessary to put it in a review. Also, I don't publish these works in chapters, but rather in parts, which are just chunks of a story that I put into the green room randomly when I need motivation. So anything related to my crappy plotting is irrelevant, at least for now.

thank you!