Recognition (Patreon)

Every time you glanced back she was there, drifting a few feet above the ground, her white hair lifting gently around her shoulders, her dark eyes fixed on you with an expression that was almost polite. You crossed the street to the bus stop and sat down hard on the bench and pressed your hands flat against your thighs and told yourself to breathe. When you looked up she was already there, hovering just beyond the shelter's edge, those wide black pants rippling in a wind that wasn't blowing. She tilted her head again. Then, slowly, she raised one long hand, sleeve trailing behind it like smoke, and pointed at you. Not threateningly. She spoke, her voice gentle “You can see me, can’t you?” She floated closer, close enough that you could see the shape shifting beneath the drum-tight skin of her stomach, that slow and desperate pressing from within, and her lips parted just slightly, and what crossed her face wasn't malice or sorrow but something almost like relief.