[ WP ] You are a `` normal '' person trying to fit in in a world where everyone is a psychopath .

I'm running for my life and dying of hunger. The small patch of sweat that began as a tickle on my nape has crawled down my back and spread its cold dactyls across my torso, cotton shirt clinging fast to my body like a wet hide. Heavy with supplies, my rucksack jumps about wildly from my shoulders. I've never much enjoyed running, but yield daily for the same reasons I defecate. Today, I am chasing a bullnecked adolescent I confronted in the supermarket parking lot just as the sun's last, thin crescent fell below the horizon. His black tattered jumpsuit flutters in the wind some ten strides ahead of me, an easily surmountable lead, as if outrunning his own shadow. Fortunately, my legs-to-torso ratio is favorable to that of the thickest figure scuttling into the darkness before me. Suddenly fearful I'll be late, I check the timer on my watch only to find I'm making great time. Letting out a sigh of relief disguised as a winded pant, I continue the chase. 
 
 The wheezing ahead has grown steadily thicker with each of his thunderous steps, and I almost do n't notice the measured patter of a woman's feet behind me. Trying my best to ignore the cursed brute's racket, I focus my attention to the sounds of my pursuer. The loudness of her footsteps tells me she is either of small stature and extremely close, or large and far, neither of which I particularly prefer. The irregular rhythm provides me equally ambiguous clues; she either suffers from a limp or is carrying something quite heavy. However, her breathing indicates that she is both in great shape, quite unlike the fellow now dry-heaving before us, and approximately ten strides behind. 
 
 I risk a glance over my shoulder to find that my estimates were not far off, briefly meeting eyes with a bespectacled woman clad in a filthy wedding gown, which, even through its several layers of once white fabric, does not conceal the disturbingly gaunt figure underneath. And while a limp would have been a nice break, she is wielding something about the size of my entire arm in her left hand. Since I glanced between streetlights I could n't see how the object reflected light, but I assume it's a machete or bat of some sort. She screams something just loud enough for me to hear but not understand over the cacophony being produced in front of me, composed by the burly lad one steep incline away from cardiac arrest. I swivel my head swiftly to send back a breathy `` what did you say?'' A disembodied voice responds with either `` I'm going to fucking slice you,'' or `` I'm going to fuck and slice you.'' I weigh my options, but decide the slicing is a deal breaker. 
 
 Impatiently, I check my watch again, discovering that maintaining my ten stride distance with the now-surely-knocking-on-death's-door youth in front of me, who had slowed drastically since his initial sprint from the supermarket parking lot, has left me half a minute behind schedule. I'll give him one more minute before I take matters into my own hands. Looking back a third time, I see that the conjugal skeleton is a mere four strides behind, so I speed up a bit until I'm about seven strides from both. I wonder who is chasing her. Whoever it is, he or she is my friend, the foe of my foe. Likewise, so are bones-in-a-gown and the moribund lump allied together in the pursuit, both grazing the boundary between life and death, but on opposite sides. I wonder where that leaves me. 
 
 I check my watch one last time, confirming more than a minute has passed, and begin the final stretch home. Lengthening my stride, I catch up to the fluttering youth, who I was certain would not make it half this far when I approached him in the parking lot, in a few seconds. He looks up at me as I pass him, sobbing silently between gasps, and, for a fleeting moment, his expressions seem human. Sincerely human. And in this moment, I think maybe I'm not the only one left, the only one that understands, that *feels*. Something foreign emerges deep within me, a small twinkle of hope perhaps, just before I break his ankle with the rigid sole of my boot, sending his dark form rolling across the crumbling asphalt. My timer begins beeping, alerting me that I have no time to look back and take a last look at the young fellow, who had so profoundly moved me, before the sunken-eyed bride falls upon him. Instead, I take a right into the darkness, sprinting as hard as I have in recent memory. 
 
 Several minutes pass until I'm finally at my back door. I make short work of the various keys and combinations fastening it shut and burst through, running to the kitchen. I set my rucksack upon the counter and unzip it, frantically rummaging through its contents until I finally find the bag of shredded cheese. Placing oven mitts on first my left, then my right hand as I turn around, I open the oven and remove the steaming lasagna. Throwing the oven mitts on the counter I rip open the bag of shredded cheese and sprinkle it generously atop the lasagna, doing nothing to conceal the smile forming at the corners of my mouth as it melts into a thick, yellow layer. I take a fork from the drawer at my waist and scoop a huge bite from the corner, a bite a lesser fork would have bowed down to. Blowing on it for longer than I wanted to wait, I finally insert the seven mouthwatering layers of steaming lasagna into my dry mouth, pleased I had decided to make the last-minute trip to the store.
