Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Renewal of the Forgotten ❯ The Stalker ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
The lamp posts that lined the street sent an eerie yellow glow over Emma, her dog, and the sidewalk on which they were walking. Somehow the eerie glow was both comforting and unnerving to her. She was visibly the only one outside at this time of night, but she always got a little paranoid when she went for her nightly walks with her dog. The thought of being abducted lurked in the back of her mind since she had heard so many cases of it on the news. But she usually shrugged off the paranoia because of the fact that her dog was a large, although a somewhat fat, dog. A German Shepard/Rottweiler mix to be exact. And no one liked to mess with someone walking a big dog. However, no one needed to know that this dog was probably the friendliest dog you would ever meet and the most dangerous thing on her was her tail.

Emma had desperately needed to get a breath of fresh air. She had been filling out college applications all day and it was starting to get to her. All the things she had to fill out. Financial aid forms and such. She had been looking up college web sites. Looking up requirements and due dates for applications. Housing and meal plan forms. It was all too much. She was starting to have a nervous breakdown. Of course if you knew Emma well enough you would know this was just part of a cycle that she always went through when she was faced with something difficult. And this was the reason she was out walking her dog at such a late hour.

Emma breathed in deeply as she listened to the rhythm of her footsteps, her dog’s footsteps, and the jingling of her dog’s collar. They had gone most of the way around the block by this point and finally made it to the street going uphill that went back in the direction of home. Emma continued to take in deep breaths, enjoying the night air, and the frail wind that was trying to rustle her hair. And the rhythm...which didn’t sound the same as it did a minute ago. The steady CLOMP, CLOMP, CLOMP of her sneakers, the some-what off beat, scratching CLAK-CLAK, CLAK-CLAK of her dog’s claws going over the pavement, and the constant JINGLE - JINGLE - JANGLE of her dog’s collar was now added to by a rapid click-click-click-click-click-click that would start and stop in small bursts.

Emma listened a bit longer to determine if she really was hearing something else before she paused and looked behind her. All that could be seen were the eerie lamp posts that lined the sidewalks of the perfectly kept cookie cutter houses. Emma and her dog began walking again. She paused again when she heard the clicking noise and turned quickly around. Nothing. She stood still as a statue scanning the street with her eyes while her dog lazily wagged its tail. Everything seemed to be in place, but Emma was starting to get that paranoid feeling again. She was about to turn around when a rustling in the bushes near one of the cookie cutter houses startled her. With her hand over her heart she told herself it was just a cat and continued walking. But no more than a few steps later a shiver was sent through her, the kind you get when you realize your worst fear has come to pass. The kind that sends chills through your heart. Was she really being followed?

She quickened her pace a little and urged her dog to hurry. The clicking from somewhere behind her quickened too with the pauses farther between. Emma came off the sidewalk and into the street since she was nearing a row of large arbor vitis behind which anybody could be lurking and waiting to pull her through. She quickened her pace again and told the dog to ‘get the cat’ which was the only way to get her dog to walk faster. She always fell for it and would immediately start walking faster in hopes of catching the ‘cat’. Emma glanced behind her and to her horror noticed a small dark figure following in their path. At this point Emma unhooked the leash from her dog and bolted, yelling for her dog to ‘get the cat’ as they turned the last corner on their way home.

The dog raced along side Emma thinking she was playing a game. Emma continued to run down the street, eager to get home to where it was safe, her heart going faster than she was, not once remembering the cell phone in her pocket. But then again who has time to call 911 when they’re running for their life? Her feet thudding on the asphalt echoed quite loudly in the empty neighborhood...until a flash of light from behind her and a noise like a generator exploding made her stop and spin around. The dog spun around too and after a second’s pause began barking like mad. The shadowy figure that had been following them, now much bigger, had jumped into the air...and spread its’ wings! It hadn’t been a man that was following Emma, but a great bird with a 20 foot wingspan, possibly bigger. It flew swiftly towards Emma and her dog. Emma threw her arms across her face to shield herself as the great bird flew towards them and over them. The force of wind created by the birds’ wings was enough to knock Emma to the ground. Her elbows scraped the pavement, but they kept her from falling all the way back and hitting her head. She immediately jumped back up and watched the bird in awe as it flew away from her, down the street, over the houses, and up and over the apartments on the far hill, before disappearing over the trees.

Her mouth was open, her eyes were wide in shock and confusion, and her heart was beating so fast she could hardly breath. Her dog danced around, her tail whipping back and forth wildly. Something soft brushed past Emma’s cheek. She slowly raised her hand to touch it before she realized where she was and what had just happened. She glanced down in time to see a feather land on the ground in front of her. There were two very large feathers lying on the ground by her feet. She slowly bent down to pick them up and she ran her hand down the spine of one of the feathers and thought for a moment. Slowly she stood back up and called for her dog to follow her home.

She examined the feathers in her bedroom. Two large feathers, both about 2 feet in length and burnt orange in color. ‘What kind of bird gets that big’, she wondered to herself. It was one of the many questions she had. She had no explanation for what happened. She decided to go tend to her scraped up elbows at this time.

Now that she was inside in the light you could see what she looked like. She was approximately 5'8" with ash blond hair that came down to her shoulders. Her hair was the slightest bit wavy and a little messy, it would never do anything she wanted it too. She was quite slender, especially if you compared her to the population of her school, most of which who were quite the opposite. Emma’s grey-blue eyes cringed back at her when she looked in the mirror. The soapy water was stinging her scraped elbows. But at least they were clean now. She dried her arms on the towel behind the door and headed to bed. She laid the two feathers next to her bed before she went to sleep. But how could she go to sleep when her mind was reeling from what happened earlier. ‘What in the world was it?’, she asked herself for the tenth time before she finally fell asleep two hours later.