The sounds of laughter, of many kinds, echoes through the alleys and streets of this end of town, intermingled with the sound of fearful running feet and panicked breathing only broken by the occasional yelp of fear at a movement in the shadows surrounding her.
She knows she's being herded, being pursued by many - she can hear their laughter, cruel and taunting and all around her, not just two or three, but maybe as many as ten, lean, leering figures that had seized her from her sleeping lair in a ramshackle affair that could be called a shack on a good day.
From the shadows at the entrance of an alley, a grating, jeering voice screams, making her shriek with fear and bolt, tripping over her own feet and sprawling on the hard ground. "Run, rabbit run!" This is followed by laughter from shadowy figures on all sides, followed by variations on the same.
"Run, rabbit, run!"
"Run, run, little rabbit!"
"Keep running, rabbit girl!"
She does as the voices say, scrambling to her feet, heedless of the pain of her scraped hands and gashed shin, even as their laughter and taunts grow closer, echoing from all around like a pack of hyenas.
Presently she turns down an alleyway and bolts into the shadows, seeking someplace, any place, to hide, a hole, a trash can, a pile of filth or perhaps a sewer hole.
But there's nothing, and as she runs further down the alley, her eyes fall to her dismay on a sight that makes her wail in despair.
Dead end.
The laughter grows louder around her, catcalls and taunts closing in, and all the girl can do is scream back at them. It's been no use calling for help - she'd tried that for the first hour she was running, and there had been no one to answer her pleas.
"Why are you doing this to ME?!" she shrieks at them, tears running down her cheeks as she stands there, fear and exhaustion consuming her. In a kinder light, cleaned up, the dark-haired girl clad in rags might pass for twenty...in this dim light, frightened and dirty and unkempt with her hair a wild nest of tangles and bits of trash, she looks closer to fifteen. Hard enough for herself to believe that just a short while ago she had been minding her own business, tired and hungry perhaps, squatting in a home that was little more than a flimsy lean-to, but not facing her own death, at least.
From the shadows melts a number of tall, lean, hungry figures, all of them clad in what looks like grey dragon hide jackets, sporting various improvised weapons - baseball bats, lead pipes, boards studded with nails, one or two swinging chains whose rusty links clink with an almost perversely cheerful sound.
The leader of this ragtag assembly sports the same grey coat, a number of scars on his face, and no weapons at all, along with a leering grin. "We're doing it 'cause it's fun, little girl."
More laughter greets this remark, and the girl starts to cry, her voice small and hitching and stumbling. "P...p-please...I...I just wanna go home..."
Nothing greets this plea but more cruel laughter, mocking voices echoing and taunting again.
"I just wanna go home mommy!"
"Auntie Em, Auntie Em!"
"There's no place like home!"
And all the while they keep closing in around her.
Until the sound comes from the shadows behind her, the subtle whistling sound of something falling from the sky at high velocity, followed by the sound of something impacting heavily with the earth with enough force to make the earth tremble under their feet.
The lean figure that steps from the shadows a moment later is ordinary enough in appearance - lean, almost lanky, clad in black jeans, and a t-shirt of the same color, dark hair in windblown disarray on his head as topaz blue eyes regard the scene before him with a calm, thoughtful expression, tinged perhaps by amusement. The gravelly tone of his voice mixes oddly with the musical lilt of Irish as he speaks into the sudden stunned silence.
"Tha'll be 'nuff o' this game, boyos. Get tae runnin' 'long, 'fore some'a ye end up gettin' hurt."
The leader looks around the alley and his group, twelve strong not including himself. Turning his arrogant gaze back to the dark-clad figure that had stepped out of seemingly nowhere, he sneers. "Nah, punk. I think you can't count. See, we was already gonna kill this b*tch. Now we get two for the price of one." Snapping his fingers, the leader gestures at the pair, the girl scrambling already back behind the new player into his show.
"Beat that @ss 'till he ain't breathin', fellas."
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