You might call this a bad day, Adam thought, as he ran down the tracks of the L line in nothing but a white silk blanket.

Adam Smith had never seen himself as a risk taker or a rule breaker or, for example, the type of guy who would run down subway tracks, let alone be on them in the first place.  He followed the script of life.  He woke up at 7 AM every morning and went to bed promptly at 11 PM.  He was always ten minutes early.  He actually separated his whites from his colors and his socks from his underwear and Weekday clothes from his Weekend clothes.  He was rigorous in his cleanliness, sweeping after the smallest dust bunny and wiping at a spot on the counter until it was rendered lifeless and non-existent.

This was all well and good until she showed up.

Adam screamed at the top of his lungs, hoping that someone might hear his fear and come to his rescue.  Who?  He had no idea.  Who did you call in a moment like this?  Did the Ghostbusters handle psychotic, blood hungry witches on their weekend shifts?

Adam was an average 26 year old.  He was thin with brown hair that, luckily, fell in a good spot on his head.  He had an air about him that said ‘I tried, but not too hard.’  Black glasses adorned his face, which hid several little freckles.  He had fair skin and a good smile but nothing that would make you turn your head twice if you saw him on the street.  In fact, chances are, you have seen him and you didn’t give him a second thought.  That was just how run-of-the-mill he was.

Maybe a bad week, he contemplated.  The blanket blew off of him, leaving him running in only his tight white underwear.  Of all the days to not wear the Calvin Kleins.  A bad month?  If Adam really thought about it he might conclude that it had been one bad night, followed by a string of bad choices, culminating in this one truly sucktastic day.

On the ground behind him, purple tendrils, like snakes, slithered towards him.  They darted along the ground, silently hunting their prey.  They were jagged and fierce.  Bands of color, with a mind of their own.  Somewhere in the tunnels behind him, the low note of a guitar string echoed, like a bat waiting for the reverberations in order to make its next move.

And then there were lights.

In front of him, Adam could just make out headlights.  Two beady little spots, signaling that the L train was, for once, of all days, on time to it’s stop at Bedford Avenue.

Adam whispered a curse under his breath, aimed harshly at the L train.  The train approached even more surely, as if offended.  Adam stopped in his tracks, looking in front of and then behind himself, contemplating which death was the lesser of two evils.

There was always the moment he could have walked and she could have just been the girl who got away.  Always the moment, he could have avoided all of this.  As the train barreled down on him and the jagged serpents of color raced up from behind he remembered every moment of it; every bad choice that had led him here.

She said witches didn’t get love stories and now, he realized, she was right.