She trudged through the long grass. The fine prickles were sticking to her legs, leaving little bumps and scratches. Her skirt got caught several times on the cat tails swaying to the lonesome whistle of the wind. Winding her hair again and again around her finger, she trudged on. Head bowing, and eyes releasing slow tear drops, she walked holding her stomach, like she once held him, as the pain of what she just did overcame her. The detachment she felt from the world was causing her overbearing pain, as yet she continued to trudge, childless, through the tall grass, on the hill. Hands empty, she couldn't find a way to hold her arms without feeling incredibly awkward, so she stuck her hands in her pockets and found a small card. Reading the words that reminded her of her terrible fate, she began sobbing. She lay down in the field, stuck with the prickles of the grass, but not caring as she heard the words of her mistake echo through her mind. “Trade another's life for your own
immortality.” How she longed to see him grow up. She closed her eyes while the tears drowned her once beautiful face. She closed her eyes, never to wake again.

I straightened my tie and took one last glance in the mirror. Pulling on my blazer and top hat I began my walk to work. Each morning I drag myself off my feet and, lacking motivation, I arrive to work at City Talk magazine at 6:45 sharp. I am not a writer. I'm not an editor. I'm not an assistant. I'm not even the secretary at the front desk in the lobby. I am the doorman. I hold the door for the “too-busy-to-say-thank you” working men and women of City
Talk. I wish that the tip of the hat and the simple gentleman-like gesture was still the high chivalrous action as it was before, but sadly, it is not. I come home after a long and oh-so-tiring day of holding the door, without the simple luxury of driving. Instead I walk. Who would have thought that a job like mine only payed enough for food and a place to live? Cars are overrated anyway. I honestly enjoy putting on my headphones on full blast and listening to my favorite band, Cage the Elephant, as I make my way home. I live in a crappy little apartment
in Chicago, on the worst floor; the bottom. You always hear the coming and going of other
residents in the building, and even worse, my neighbor is the elevator. When I finally arrive in
my apartment, 4A, I feed my fish, Gerson, and order some Chinese food, and sit on the couch watching Netflix until I have to go to sleep. But sleep isn't really the correct term for my usual nightmare.

I feel hot and sweaty trying to open my eyes, to make it stop. It's like I'm awake, but not in my apartment. I'm being pulled away from something or someone. I can feel the tension on my limbs. My skin itches. I feel like I'm standing waist deep in prickly grass. There's screaming and crying and more itchiness. Then the distant outline of a woman
against tall blades of grass. I wake up as my alarm sounds, beginning another dreadful day of opening the door.

On my walk to work, I think about writing. Sometimes I think my life would make a pretty interesting story, but every time I try to put any thoughts down on paper the only ideas I can conjure up are boring. Well, except one interesting thing about me, but I don't think it is as interesting as it is terrifying. I am being followed, but I don't understand why. My life is a constant cycle of droopy eyes, beaten up sneakers, sad music, and under appreciation. Following me is leading you down a tunnel of despair. I turn around and see no one there, but I know there's something behind that plant. There's a man waiting inside that awning, and
worst of all there's a driver in that parked car. I don't want to be followed. I want to be left alone, instead of being pursued through the stormy cloud hanging above my head. Sometimes I get in a taxi, and without explanation, I am dropped off in the wrong place, and when I knock on the divider between the driver and I, suddenly I find myself parked and alone
in the backseat of an empty taxi. Every time I eat out, there's always that one mysterious man with his hat tipped down sipping coffee. I never liked coffee. Every once in a while I wake up with a terrible headache lying in the alleyway next to the record shop. It's routine now. I'm always being chased, but it's hard to run away, when you don't know what's chasing you. Part of you wants to disappear into a safe state, while another tells you to let it catch you to quench the curiosity burning in your stomach. An unknown being following you, it could be
somewhat flattering right? But just a little too close. Now, does that make you want to run or wait to see what it is? I expect these weird things to happen because I have stopped running from my stalker and have decided to accept the inevitable fact that I am doomed to be followed whether I fight it or not. Recently, it's been bothering me more than ever. I usually wake up somewhere other than my apartment. I'm disheveled in a slump somewhere else. I don't want to let it scare me, but I fear that I am letting in this apprehension. I also feel them
getting closer. It is terrifying to feel like someone is following you, but even worse is knowing that they want something.

Arriving at my office, in other words, my spot at the front door, I realize how plain and sad my life is. It's hard to imagine how things could be different. What if I was rich and chief editor of City Talk? What if I had dogs and birds in a mansion instead of one measly fish in a ground floor apartment? What if I had a personal chef and bought designer clothes? What if I could happily cruise through the streets with the top of my Corvette down? Would I still be
followed? What if I was living a completely different life somewhere else? Somewhere happy. What if there were two of me and one lived a great life, and the other lived a tragic life of hopelessness. I would be Jeckle and Hyde, choosing between two egos. If so, which life am I living now?

I left work late tonight. The sun already set and I tried to walk especially fast. My fear was growing worse with each step. Was that breathing on my neck? I just couldn't seem to turn around. I put my headphones on. Maybe it's only the wind? I played my favorite song and started walking even faster. “It's always something, before the late night, around the corner there's always something waiting for ya.” Okay, that was a bad song choice, next song
please. I spoke to myself, hoping that my thoughts could guide me through the eerie loneliness. No one was around, I found it odd, because I wasn't the only one coming home from work, was I? Nonetheless, I wanted to get home faster than I could run. I wanted to shut the door, lock it tight and sit on my couch, comforted by the safety of my pillows. For some
reason I thought of my dream again. I feel like that woman and I have met before. Was my dream really just a memory? What if it was another me from an alternative universe trying to tell me something? Maybe the dream was just meant to trick me. If so, then who's behind the trickery? I was staring at my feet hoping that if I watched them I wouldn't trip. I looked up and, standing before me, was my worst fear.

My follower became my attacker. His hands reached out grabbing my neck. As I felt his fingers tighten around my throat, I realized that any second my last breathe would escape from me. In the last thirty seconds of my life I saw nothing and heard only the lyrics to the song playing through my headphones. It was another Cage the Elephant song, “Another ain't no rest for the wicked, money don't grow on trees, I got bills to pay. I got mouths to feed, there ain't nothing in this world for free. No, I can't slow down. I can't hold back, though you
know I wish I could. Another ain't no rest for the wicked until we close our eyes for good.” It
was as if the killer spoke these words directly to me through my music. I lost consciousness, only to wake up a second later with my hands tightened around the neck of my own lifeless body. Another ain't no rest for the wicked.