Absonditus Metus - Hidden Fear Part 3

He first saw her when walking to his Physics lecture on Tuesday morning.

Not that he'd known that he'd seen her, but he had seen her none the less.

It had been a relatively nice morning, cool and a bit breezy, but for late September in Gotham, that was nice weather. He'd worn his scarf, an article of clothing he never seemed to leave behind in this dreadfully bleak city, so that his neck would stay warm through the holes that lined his jacket's nape. The wind never seemed to die down when he was outside, and it was for that reason that he'd started taking the very path that he was on now. At least the trees blocked a bit of the weather out, if only just a fraction.

It wasn't really bothersome anymore, just habit really that he'd started walking through the park-like side of campus during this time, ever since the wind had picked up and the fall season had slowly progressed further and further into the oncoming winter. The trees and shrubs blocked out a good portion of the elements, so keeping warm was easier for him in this element than it was on the hard cement walk ways and mental lined trails that littered campus. It also didn't hurt that he found the odd trees and the foliage calming and beautiful.

And besides him, there were few others around now.

Jonathan knew that others were aware of his…antisocial tendencies and often times odd behavior. He was perfectly fine with that, actually, since it allowed him space and time to himself, as well as significant breaks from the bullying intentions of his roommate and his idiotic friends. (Lance Hastings and his jock friends never saw fit to give him even a moments bit of reprieve, and Greg, his other roommate, could only be there to stop so much.) It was for this reason that he often didn't stick his neck out, in a manner of speaking, to talk to other people in his classes. In the end, they were more than likely to reject him anyways.

In fact, if someone were to ask him about it, he would have responded with his common cold glare, which, of course, meant he was beyond content and overly ecstatic at the prospect of a night alone to scourer the library's contents. Alone…all alone, even when he'd made the taxing effort to befriend others; and still walking to school by himself. It couldn't be any better than that, not in his opinion.

Until the noises started, that is.

They were low at first, just a soft murmur of movement and noise within the branches above his head, something he could pass off as a squirrel or a figment of his recently over active imagination. But as he continued to walk, his ratty bag swung over his shoulders tightly, he could hear them grow louder…and closer. And even if he wanted to ignore them he could not, because they were familiar to him, so ingrained into his brain that he was quite sure he'd never forget them. No, these noises weren't a figment of his brain…and they weren't pleasant.

Because he knew what they were.

He'd always know what they were…

A flock of birds…very large ones too, if the noises were anything to go by.

But he couldn't stop here, no, not in the center of the potential flock of birds that was threatening him unseen from the tree tops above him. He couldn't stop somewhere he had no control, no say, no defense. It would not end like it had so many times in Georgia…he would not allow it. He'd beaten it there, and he was going to beat it here too. Birds be damned.

So he increased his pace swiftly, feet striking semi-damp pavement in the early September morning, wanting nothing more than to be someplace else on campus…his room even, with or without Lance or Greg. Bullies he could deal with, had dealt with, but birds…he'd never really been able to face them before. At least, not out in the open like this. Not with a fighting, or in this case running, chance.

Not that he'd ever gotten the chance, because at the exact moment that he started to move along the path again, something large and dark swooped down towards him, aiming itself directly at his face. Whatever it was took firm hold of his glasses in its passing arc and stripped his face of them, leaving him temporarily blind and more that a bit disoriented. He couldn't see much without those stupid things, as his vision was fuzzy at best, so he couldn't quite see the culprit or where they had gone too. But, he could hear clearly the sound of skittering, like bird's feet, across the pathway before him.
Jonathan froze as his eyes found the dark, blurred shaped blob on the path before him.

It was a bird…a rather large bird.

A bird that had his glasses.

He could faintly make out the glittering form of them as the bird moved, the lightly catching the large and round frames easily, as if mocking him. He was more than certain that whatever sort of avian pest this was, it was larger than a common sparrow or finch. No, this monster was at least the size of a parrot, if not larger…and he was fairly sure he wasn't exaggerating.

It was a large, dark bird then, with the Hell-bent intent of making his life a walking, living, breathing nightmare. Did the birds back home somehow migrate with him to Gotham? Certainly not! That was just…preposterous, right? No, Jonathan refused to believe that his brain had come up with such a childish explanation to an entirely common problem, and that this bird was out to get him. Normal birds didn't just attack people out of the blue and steal their glasses! In fact, he'd almost bet that the bird hadn't taken them, that it had nearly knocked them off his face and was now sitting by them. Yes, that was it…

So slowly he got down to his knees to pat about towards the bird, hoping to scar it off with his movements enough so that he could relocate and collect his glasses once more. But every time he seemed to get close to the bird, it'd hop backwards, taking the shiny form of what he thought were his spectacles with it. That flying feather duster had indeed taken his glasses!

"Give those back! I require them to see!" He snarled at the thing, trying anything within his limited, visionless power to do to get them back. But the bird didn't seem to want to release them.

He tried again.

"I said, give those back!" This time he followed through with a lunge after his shouting, which only seemed to get him a nice bed in the dirt and absolutely nothing to show for it. "Blast you, those are mine!"

But it didn't matter anymore what Jonathan had said, when he heard the cawing from around him in the bushes as well as the trees. They weren't alone anymore, and without the aid of his glasses, he most certainly couldn't see to defend himself.

Needless to say, he was out of the park faster that he'd have liked to have been, his face still without the adorning set of glasses it usually wore.