A hot and dry afternoon made an amazing time of the day to go on a walk with open-toe shoes, a tank top and a light colorful short, with by best friend, Delight! This Afternoon's sun made its presence overly unmissable, it was big, it was bright, it was radiating in its space, lighting up the whole sky like an over-saturated object. At that moment, it felt like a whole market with tons of people, shoppers, etc., all squeezed into an oven heating plate and then baked, melted to bits.
About our little stroll, we took a bus to some place with a really long and complicated name, and at that time, the sun had dimmed, the clouds had turned a bit greyish, the sky darker blue, preparing for nightfall. The change was really notable even to a lesser attentive person like Delight who commented on the sudden transition and the need to hurriedly return home before sunset. In reality, we just were too infatuated with other things to notice the night falling before our very eyes. Amidst our game, Del nudged on me with her shoulders, which initially I smacked off, but her repetitive nudging had caught my attention and mildly angered me.
"Yo, WHAT?"
"Just shut up and listen, there's a guy.... he keeps looking this direction, forward right, middle sit closest to the front door of the bus, sagging black jeans and a red hat, you see him?"
Alerted by the situation, I quickly tightened my grip on my phone, loosened it, and put it in my pocket, looking up yet still acting oblivious.
"The one that looks 30. Hands in his pocket and playing with a lighter with his left hand?"
"Hmm" Delight sounded softly, "He keeps looking over here, moving his hands in his pockets, licking his l-".... there was a pause, Del suddenly motioned to me as if engaging in a conversation, "We have to go back home now."
"What's.... what's the rush? Is.... he-, looking over here? Why are you so frightened?", for a moment, I interpreted the situation as a joke, as something so present in series felt so unreal in reality when it did happen. "He looks creepy.... hit the yellow tape, we're getting off at the next stop."
"Call your mom right now, before you do so, tell her to accept the call and be quiet, and begin recording incase anything were to happen, as evidence" Delight's tone of voice had changed, she seemed more pushing to go home and cautious, giving orderly instructions as if something dangerous was coming.
I was shocked, and more, a sudden rush of fear had hit me all at once, I did as she told me to and waited, "Is something.... going to happen?"
"No, hopefully not.... but just in case...."
The next stop had soon come, and we got off seemingly normally, hiding the fear and rush within. Coincidently.... or not, the sagging man had followed us out the bus and onto the now almost quiet and lonely road in the near night. We cautiously crossed the street to the opposite bus stop, to which he followed distantly. Our next bus was visible from the distance, while the questionable and dangerous man wondered around, seemingly to make sure the road was lonely and quiet as he might... need it to be. He then routed his way towards this bus stop, at that time, the next bus had arrived, and we both boarded with caution, with the weird man behind us, the ride was as unpleasant as it was dangerous.
Upon the disembarking of passengers at the Bus Terminal, the man still managed to follow us up until that very moment, being a total of about an hour and a few minutes since my mom had been listening in through the phone, an unpleasant one at that. If I wasn't quite sure what was happening a while back, it's sure is more than clear now, the dang hoodlum was trying to do something to us, and it wasn't good.
Upon getting off, he might have realized we understood the state of the situation, therefore proceeding to flashing a pocketknife, attempting to instilling fear in us, which in fact it did. We stepped out of the bus and went home together, he followed us distantly and watched our motion, trying to anticipate our next steps. The direction to our neighborhood consists of five intersecting streets, that although helps in confusing one who isn't quite familiar with the place, were usually patrolled with thugs and a single cop car that either almost always gets lost or is too scared to even dare penetrate the intersection starting point. But the middle point was a dark alley that smelt of sewage and was as quiet as night, the only street alley that had no roamers, but a creepy place as so could be our possible way to escape that weirdo, and so, we ran through it together.