RUNNER¹

Letting fresh air run through his nose, the young man smiled and handed a box of sweets to the sweet lady infront of the counter desk.

"Thank you for choosing us; hope you have a nice day!"

"You too!" Young lady replied.

As soon as the costumer left, Lucas' ears jumped hearing a familiar bicycle bell. Were the strange magazines back?

Looking behind the glassdoor, he noticed a magazine on the side walk, right next to the door. As weird as it seemed, he always looked forward to the magazines' release date!

Every four months, on 25th, strange magazines titled "Zed, the dead eastern" were released.

The magazines contained pictures of a handsome South Asian or middle Eastern boy wearing glamorous, expensive and newly released costumes.

But what drawn lucas' attention, was not the charm nor the expensive clothes!

Almost Four years earlier, on a sunny Sunday, the entire town witnessed a shredded body of a teenage boy being taken out of a bloody dumpster. It was not every body, it was the same body you could see in those magazines!

Still, Lucas could not make out wether it was the dignity of the dead boy's amber eyes or the insanity of his warm breath which Lucas could feel by touching the magazine papers; What was so special about ZED?

Maybe it was the unbelievable story behind his life?

The dead boy's open, amber, dead yet painfully alive eyes spoke many words of his violating death and unpleasant life. His torn body, ripped arms and legs displayed the agony of human kind in one movement; The movement of not moving anymore!

That day, the fetid day of ZED's body discovery, Lucas became one of the unlucky people to observe a perished corpse's carriage to a police van. He watched and studied human nature in the dead boy's flesh; yet after all he witnessed, and all those years, it was ZED's miserable amber eyes he couldn't get out of his head!

His eyes seemed to be the mirror of human's agony, human's history and the mirror of human's terrific existence! Or maybe a door from Midgard to Gehenna!

Although the polices confirmed that all pictures on the cursed magazine belonged to times before ZED's death, every seeing eye could see the growth of his body through all those years; and even beyond, none of ZED's costumes were older than his death date! Therefor Lucas was rightful to think that ZED had a twin brother, who somehow managed to stay alive and become a famous model! Or that it was all Photoshop, which the polices had already denied!

The strangest surprise about ZED's story, was his identity! As he seemed to have none! No past, no family, not even a name or a picture before his death! Even the polices closed his case soon after they buried his body!

Lucas, back from the wondrous world of his thoughts, stepped towards the door, hoping his boss wouldn't see him. The humped back mentally forzen douchebag always mocked Lucas for his interest in those magazines!

Opened the door stepped out of the boring confectionery shop to bend over and grab his favorite magazine; but when his fingers were only a second or two apart from the magic papers, a runner bumped into Lucas and they both fallen on the ground.

Lucas' blue eyes finally looked away from the magazine, to meet the runner. 

A second later his brain cells had frozen! He gasped, but could not move; The familiar face on his "attacker's" head wouldn't let him think!

He had to close his eyes just to reopen them and see if he wasn't actually hallucinating. But the attacker, as Lucas called him on his mind, had already disappeared!

A sudden mass of disappointment started storming all through his mind. Looking around with tremor and tension, he saw a runner clothed fully in black.

It was such a relief to know that he was at least hit by someone and it wasn't all imagination! But knowing such fact only embraced his curiosity.

He got up and ran thoughtlessly towards the staggering reality.

"Zed, the dead eastern boy! It's really you, isn't it?"

The runner who was by then, only a few steps away from Lucas, turned his head around and made a fearful eye contact with his follower.

Unlike when he bumped into Lucas, he had a red bandana covering most of his face; still it wasn't a hard task to notice his red eyes and wet eyelashes.

Now Lucas was sure of the runner's identity! There were no needs for him to run with such deep fear if he wasn't ZED! Not at least on Lucas' mind!

Not a second had passed before the wild amber eyes changed their prey to someone behind Lucas; someone who's terror made ZED run even faster than before! It seemed to Lucas as if the wildest eyes could have the fiercest hunters!

Again, just like before, but this time with more thoughtlessness, Lucas ran following the boy he believed to be ZED; even faster than before!

He only needed to discover the truth! Guessing could never satiate and satisfy his curious mind.

Both Lucas and his miraculous runner, ran and jogged breathlessly through streets, alleys and paths they never knew existed before! None were physically strong enough to run for so long, but both had convenient reasons to!

About fifteen minutes passed and Lucas' lungs could hardly function anymore.

Entering a new alley, he decided to shout ZED's name for a chance; only to explain that he had no intentions of harming him! Unluckily though, there were no humans but himself in the alley. Lucas was sure that the owner of those amber eyes had entered the same alley!

His golden bunny ears moved as he heard a few footsteps from behind. "Finally!" He thought.

Took a deep breath out of comfort; didn't he have the right to see the eastern boy after running all the way?!

Turned around and opened his mouth for some new words, other than what he had been saying the last twenty minutes! "Stop eastern boy!" Or "I promise not to hurt you!" But before he used his vocal chords, a heavy object hit him in the skull.

The last picture to visit his eyes, was the terrifying frown of a brunette stranger.

-You dug your own grave!

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