92. Austra “Hate Crime” Feel it Break [Domino]
“Don’t wanna sympathize with the darkness.”
The shadow ebbed away from the sidewalk as soon as she turned the corner, although she was nearly certain that it was there just a second ago. It was one of those strange days where it was completely light out, even with a blue sky in patches above, but the rain came down sporadically in sheets and the air felt like a cross between a water park and a Turkish spa. She closed up her periwinkle umbrella for the fifth time that afternoon while the rainclouds seamed up yet again for surely not more than another handful of minutes or so, but as the metal rods slid together she unwittingly pinched her hand and yelped audibly. About to curse, her gasp instead filled the silence as the shadow came back into her view the instant the pain went away. She hugged the brick wall of the building most adjacent and wrapped the tails of her raincoat as close to her as possible, as if smaller the space she inhabited the less likely she’d be visible, despite the unusual clarity of the air. When the shadow grew larger and larger, she clasped her feet together, slowed her breathing, and waited. For so long she had been the one followed; now she was going to bear the brunt of being the follower.
