#b: protectmypeople

[kylo-wrecked]

@protectmypeople ://

—☾—

The crowns of ancient maples are wet and black under the scratched mauve hull of sky. A sky ruled by the dark moon. The underbrush holds its breath. The wind howls with wolves, and blows through the open window of a stolen 1994 Dodge Ram Van, where the unconscious threat bound to the scaffold of a deconstructed car seat stirs to gold dice clinking on the rearview mirror.

Tang of rubber and pine, stale wax paper. Piles of books and yellowed, mummified gazettes, husks of flora suspended from a wire stabbed and stretched across the foam ceiling. The emptiness and fullness of a stranger's makeshift living space; the foam board and sleeping bag rolled into the shape of a body and folded into the backseat to make room for his.

The way the stranger hunches, his broad yet hollowed shape, he could be an iron fixture built into his vehicle. Only his scleras seem visible, the hard black shells within them, glinting out from the dark like the slightly upturned blades of bowie knives.

Many minutes pass before his mouth moves, and the stranger's voice is a molasses, a low and gentle timbre that drips between great pauses. Yet his interrogation begins without ceremony.

"What was your car doing parked outside this trail for three nights?"

The threat can't answer gagged. Makes muffled sounds the stranger seemingly deciphers.

"I know." The stranger pauses. "You weren't pursuing me. You have no idea who I am. Agent…"

He jimmies the badge. Brown gloves, stained thumbs—"B-E-L-L-A-M-Y. Special Agent Bellamy Blake. Issued in Washington D.C.."—and drops it onto the crease between Blake's thighs.

"What were you doing, Special Agent Blake? You have no jurisdiction here."

'Here' could mean the van or the dark of the woods. By the furor lurking under his stoic face, the stranger refers to something far beyond the laws of man, let alone New England.

"We're interstates." He lifts his head, parting his lips to lap at some potent, arcane power in the stormy air. A long pause. "Between New Hampshire and Massachusetts. An old college friend of yours lives there. The Ren told me. Hm."

His belief is so strong and permeable, this Ren seems to form in the small, cold pit of the van, dangling its hooked arm from the driver’s side window. With a strange, stilted gulp, the stranger sifts through rubbish. His hide-brown fingers pull a map from its contents, point to a speck of green among a topographical lexicon of tiny hand-drawn symbols.

"Mm." The stranger leans to expunge the balled-up t-shirt and tape from the mouth of the threat. His body musky and warm, his waffle shirt somewhat tacky to the touch, ripe with the earth, as if he'd clambered out of a shallow grave. "You have to answer my question now."