Focus

The lights were blending into one another. The spinning of the Ferris wheel made it so you couldn’t focus on one blur of colour for more than a second before you were carried away to another part of the fair’s scenery. The mixture of the festive music and the roaring laughter filled my ears, the cold metal seat I was clutching onto was the only thing I felt, besides the breeze on my face. As the wheel rotated, the smell of Farturas wafted towards my nose. I loved the taste of those savoury desserts, the thoughts of their sweetness contrasted with the bitter taste of blood in my mouth. Something that was slowly dribbling down my throat from biting my inner cheek. My senses were filled from a typical summer event, yet my chest felt empty.

This place wasn’t somewhere you’d find in the city, on the left was the beautiful ocean and on the right was a full-blown fair. I was at this fair alone and looking out at it, especially from this height, made me sad when I should have been having the time of my life. There was no one to share this experience with me and that fact wouldn’t change. There were probably hundreds of people here today, but I just felt… lonely. Peering down at all the people, I saw that they all had their own small groups. There was a huge one near the middle of the entire fair, cheering on one of their friends who was trying to win a gigantic stuffed animal. One man in particular seemed to ignore his friends’ commotion and stared up at the Ferris wheel, lost in thought. Despite not being surrounded by friends, I never wanted to get off this wheel. We were constantly moving in the same motion repetitively, it made me feel like time was still.

No, that I was stuck in time. Here, reality was the blur like the colourful lights and that was ideal for me.

Unfortunately, the wheel stopped and I begrudgingly slid out of my seat. I hopped off the raised platform which was on an angle and slightly stumbled down it. I had already visited everything I wanted to so I decided to make my way towards the ocean. As I got closer, the temperature of the air dropped. I held both sides of my blue windbreaker and tightened it around my midriff. It didn’t do much, but I hoped that just from the sheer act I would feel warmer. I tripped on some hidden rocks in the sand as I made my way down to the edge of the water. Against my better judgement, I sat on the grainy sand, deciding that I could clean the sand off my sweatpants later. My senses were now tuning in on my different surroundings. I saw the dark, merky, blue water before I closed my eyes, and then focused on the sounds around me. The lapping of the water against the shoreline was the most noticeable sound. This made it difficult to hear the sound of the people in the background. The bitter taste of my blood was slowly disappearing, and the remnants of the taste weren’t something I cared to focus on. Instead, I focused on the smell of the saltiness of the sea. Remembering how its salt tasted whenever it got into my mouth during a swim in the cooling water. I rested back on my hands and played with the wet sand, usually grainy, now clumpy and heavy. I began to dig a hole into the ground to see if the sand would cooperate or fall back to its original place.

I stayed like that, my senses now filled and focused on their own aspects of the area I was in for a while. It was so peaceful that I wondered if I would ever muster up enough will to get up and head home. Then a new sound entered my small atmosphere, a flapping of papers, a sound that didn’t fit in with those of the sea. It flung itself into me and I grabbed the set of papers before the next gust of wind could carry them away. I held the middle of the bundle and snapped them back to read the headline.

5 Bodies Found Within A Month, Workings Of A Serial Killer.

Now that was terrifying, I continued to read the article and felt my eyes grow wider. I was aware that my heart had started to beat faster and faster as I skimmed past all the pages. I dropped the newspaper beside me and placed a small rock on top to pin it there. The murders had all happened in this area, the women seemed to have no connection to one another, and the police didn’t have any leads. At that moment, I decided that being in my house with a locked door and some knives in the kitchen was a better option than sitting alone on the beach at midnight.

I lifted myself off the ground and dusted my pants off, it didn’t help since the damp sand was clinging on so I left it as it was. I turned around and saw that the lights from the fair had disappeared.. How long was I relaxing here? I didn’t see anyone else around and assumed that the fair had ended and everyone had left. At this realization, I quickened my pace and started walking towards my left to get back to the bus stop.

Stopping in my stride, I realized I had left the newspaper under the rock and looked back to see it was still pinned to where I had left it. I began to walk back, not wanting to leave litter on the beach. Picking it up and throwing it in the nearest garbage can was the bare minimum I could do, after all. The crunching sound under my shoes was actually a pleasant sound along with the waves and it made me wish I lived closer to the coastline. I had to take three buses just to get to the beach, so it wasn’t a trip I made often.

Simultaneously, I stuck my hand into my pocket and pulled out my wallet and fumbled to grab my change. In realization that I had nowhere near enough to pay for the bus, I changed course and made my incline up a nearby hill to go to one of the local shops to see if they’d exchange some euros for coins. I would rather get to the store before closing and get the newspaper afterwards than having all the stores closed and no way to get home because I chose the newspaper first. When I got to the top, I looked back at the sea. Up here I could see so much more and the peaceful view brought a tiny smile that tugged at the corner of my red painted lips.

That’s when I heard that blood-curdling scream. I immediately dropped down to the ground. A sharp pain filled my elbows and I knew that the force of hitting them against the pavement was enough to draw blood. Even lying down, I could clearly see the scene unfold. A man was aggressively pulling a girl around my age towards the water. She seemed so injured and helpless, yet she continued to fight her hardest, anyone could tell that from a mile away. To my horror, the man fisted a handful of her hair and plunged her into that salty water. He held her there until her ferocious fighting ceased. Tears filled my eyes and distorted my vision as I realized she was dead. The man walked off and vanished into the night.

After a few minutes I was still on the ground, frozen by what I witnessed. That’s when a fact dawned on me. The man had jumped the girl, coming out of some bushes. I was making my way past those bushes when I realized I needed coins for my bus fare. That was supposed to be me, not her….

I woke up with a jolt. I felt the light beads of sweat on my skin and I rubbed my eyes, trying to get rid of the tears that had formed there. That nightmare only made me want to leave the beach even more, the story in the newspaper had really left its mark on my subconscious. I started speed walking away from the spot I had fallen asleep at when I remembered the stupid newspaper. Like in my dream I didn’t want to litter. Meanwhile, as I walked back I dug my wallet out of my pocket to check if I had enough change for the bus. Surprisingly I did, guess that nightmare couldn’t predict everything.

I finished making my way to the newspaper and bent down to pick it up. As I stood up, so did the hairs on my back. My spine was filled with a tingling sensation. I didn’t just feel unsafe, it felt like I was in immediate danger. The tingling sensation stopped as soon as it began, in place of it was the sharp pain of someone digging their nails into my back. Another hand covered my mouth as I dropped the newspaper. I tried to scream but it was no use. I hated that I was experiencing such defenselessness so I made my move. I bit the hand that was covering my mouth, hoping that would work. It did temporarily, that action allowed me to release multiple shrill screams at the top of my lungs. Alas they were efficiently stopped when my attacker kneed the mid of my back, knocking the wind out of me. I slumped over and collapsed into the sand, feeling the rough texture against my face. By the back of my collar, the attacker lifted me from the ground and began dragging me towards the water. I swung at him with my right arm and managed to hit the right side of his ribs, practically doing nothing.

No, no, no, no, this can’t be, I thought.

Was my nightmare some type of premonition? I had never been this terrified in my life, I knew I was about to die and it was nearly unstoppable. Just nearly. I didn’t care how weak or how much pain my body was in, this was my life at stake. My would-be murderer and I were now knee deep in the freezing cold water. A different type of pain started to shoot up my leg, every individual cell of my body was freezing and stinging, even the parts of me that weren’t submerged in the ice cold water. I had remained still since my pathetic hit with my arm so I assumed that I could catch the man off guard. With all my weight, I planted my feet into the ground and thrusted myself into the man and we both lost our footing and fell. Momentarily, our whole bodies were beneath the surface, I was squirming on top of him which gave me a slight advantage. I lifted myself up by using my right arm to propel myself off his chest, not giving him the chance to lift himself up. The upper half of my body broke the surface and gasped for air, feeling the cold but refreshing air fill my lungs. Relief only lasted a second as my captor broke through the surface and stared at me. There was something familiar about him, I didn’t know him that much was clear to me. I slowly backed away from him, deeper into the ocean, trying to pinpoint his face in my memories. The numbing water had reached the spot below my navel, I looked down at how high the water was and turned to see how much of the ocean was behind me. If I kept going like this I would drown, but I couldn’t let the man get to me. I was in desperate need of the wet shoreline. I raised my head back up to meet the man’s eyes and that’s when shock consumed me, it hit me even harder than the shock of the piercing, icy water.

The man I had spotted from the Ferris wheel. He wasn’t lost in thought, isolated from his friends cheering at the booth. He knew exactly what he was gazing at on the Ferris wheel, me. In the moment, I had assumed he was zoned out, but he had actually been making me his target. His next target, as I recalled the newspaper’s headline. He must have noticed my shock because he smiled. Again, I felt a chill shoot up my spine, he enjoyed this, he enjoyed the fear I felt, how helpless I was. That’s when he lunged at me, the water slowed down both of our movements significantly, although he now held the upper hand. He tackled me and we both plunged into the water again. I felt a hard tug as he pulled me up once he regained his lost composure. Holding the collar of my shirt in one hand and my throat in the other. His nails dug into the sides of my throat, and I felt a liquid sliding down it but I couldn’t tell if it was water or blood that had been given an opening to seep out of. However, this was nothing compared to the building pressure I felt on the front of my throat, my head felt light, yet at the same time the beginnings of a painful headache was pounding at the back of my head, originating from the base of my neck.

I threw out my hands and tried to push him away. I switched from pushing at his face to grabbing his arms and trying to pry his grasp from me. The pain was building and it was becoming unbearable.

The stabbing, biting cold water that was probably giving me frostbite.

The bruises that were forming on my back from when he had kneed it.

The sides of my body that had been beaten down from slamming into the ground and the ocean’s waves.

My throat tightening from his sharp nails and the insane amount of pressure being put on it.

It was too much, it was all too much. Finally, I think he had his fun from watching me suffer and pushed me down beneath the water. It was pitch black whether my eyes were open or closed from the salty water that was pricking at them. Now that same salty water was entering my lungs through my nostrils and mouth. I was gulping down water, hoping that it would stop and I would get some air instead. Repeatedly, he kept bringing me up from the water and slamming me back down into it. It was the worst tease ever, the pain and exhaustion took over my body. The only thing I saw for the few seconds that I was above the water was his face. That face that disgusted me, a face that five other women saw before they met their demise. May that face rot in Hell from the day he meets his demise. These were my thoughts as he stopped the torture and left me underneath the surface, keeping me pinned there. My vision focused and blurred, my lungs burned and I could feel tears dripping from my eyes, but I couldn’t be sure since I was surrounded by water. If I was crying, my tears only mixed with the ocean, no one would know they were there.

I woke up with a jolt. My face stained with my tears, though other than that I was completely fine. There was no pain in my back, or throat, no blood, and most importantly, I was dry. I sat up and looked out at the beach I had fallen asleep on, it was a nightmare?

Oh my god, it was a nightmare within a nightmare. The relief that washed over my body might as well have been water that swept over me as I layed on a beach. I sat up and peered at the newspaper that was still pinned underneath the rock. I threw it away, grabbed the newspaper and made my way to a garbage can. That’s when a familiar chill was sent up my spine. Rustling came from the bush and out came the man. The man from my nightmare, he looked at me and gave me his chilling smile. I screamed and sprinted from where I stood by the garbage can. He chased after me and tackled me to the ground by my feet. He clung to my shirt collar and proceeded to drag me towards the ocean.

What the hell, what the- how?

As I saw the ocean getting closer and closer.

As I heard our feet dragging across the sand.

As I smelt the wet sand and salty water.

As I tasted the blood that had erupted from my mouth from biting down on my tongue.

As I felt the air breeze by my exposed hands and face.

I didn’t focus on what my senses were telling me, I focused on the one thought in my mind.

I was stuck in time, in this moment, and it was anything but ideal.