Lura was ten minutes behind on her trip home when she found herself in danger of being murdered.

It was a deceptively cold day. When she had first walked outside, it hadn't seemed so bad, but since then the wind had been biting at her fingertips and her entire face was starting to feel numb. She was walking hunched over, as curled as the leaves on the trees above her.

Probably, she should have taken the shuttle back to her neighborhood, but the traffic was terrible today. Even with her shuffling pace she was passing cars that inched along on the street, barely a foot apart but never making much progress. 

She was too distracted by thoughts of warmth and chocolate to pay much attention to the world, until she rounded another corner and finally found the source of the traffic jam.

A man was in the middle of the intersection. At first glance he appeared to be shaking from the cold. His hair was neatly trimmed, like an office worker's. He was wearing an expensive coat.

He was surrounded on all sides by peace officers.

Lura lingered at the edge of the crosswalk, sheer curiosity keeping her from moving on. Something about the man made her uneasy, even without all of the officers. They appeared to be trying to coax him out of the road, but the man was refusing to move. 

She felt the band around her wrist tighten ever so slightly, and obediently turned away. She had one foot resting on the road when a loud, jarring sound echoed through the intersection. Looking back, she saw that the man was holding a gun.

Her breathing dissolved into sharp little gasps. The band tightened again, and buzzed lightly, but it felt as though the cold of the day had finally frozen her feet to the pavement. Nearby, a man in a car was trying to see over the temporary barricade to find the source of the noise. He looked confused but not really alarmed. Lura stood, wide-eyed, and watched the man with the gun shake.

A couple of officers had drawn weapons. The man appeared to have fired his first shot in the air, but was now waving the gun wildly between threats. 

"Drop it!" someone yelled.

The gunman looked rather desperate. Suddenly, Lura felt sure he was looking at her. He had dark eyes. And then, as her heart skipped one, two, three beats in a row, he pointed the gun at her chest. 

Her band vibrated more and more urgently, begging to be noticed. The sound felt louder than the gunshot had.

The man in the car was looking at her, frozen in fright, with some measure of concern. 

A few seconds seemed to pass in complete silence. Neither breathed. The gunman's eyes met hers. Just as slowly as he'd raised the gun, he lowered it, and then snapped it up against the base of chin.

An officer dove forward and knocked the weapon away, pinning the man to the ground. The guy started to flail around, hitting the peace officer twice in the face, before they managed to get an injection to him. The fight seemed to slip away from him, and he went nearly limp.

The barricades were already being moved out of the way. The man with the neat hair and the nice coat stood. Someone said something to him, softly, and he ambled serenely toward one of the vehicles on the corner. People packed up, and cars started to move forward, and that was the end of it.

Lura realized she was shaking along with her band, just slightly. A single peace officer, crossing the intersection to get back to his car, seemed surprised that she was still there. 

"You okay, girl?" he said.

She blinked and considered the question. Nothing had happened, after all. It had been a near thing, but nothing had happened. She just needed to get something for the fear and everything would be fine.

"I think so."

"It's alright. He's going to get the help he needs." This last sentence was said with a hint of irritation. "Is there a booth on your way?"

Lura nodded. "Two blocks down."

The officer smiled and reached into a pocket. He handed her a cylinder that looked like it was made from a thin plastic. Little dots, like Braille, covered its surface. His hand was warm.

"Happiness to you," he said.

"As much as life will bring," she responded automatically, still examining the thing in her hands. She had seen people use them at the booths before, but she had never held one.

He seemed to take this as his cue to leave, and after a moment Lura continued on her way as well. Her heart was still beating painfully fast, but now she wrapped her coat more securely around herself and rushed along. 

The booth was deserted, which made sense for the time of day. Bypassing the normal buttons, she slid the cylinder into the hole on the console. A pill came rolling down the chute, making an almost cheerful tinkling sound as it landed.

The tablet was pale yellow and round. On one side, in tiny letters, it declared "calm." She swallowed it eagerly. Within a few seconds her heart had slowed to a more reasonable level. She took a deep breath and started back on her way home. 

By the time she had gotten about ten feet from the booth, the events of not even ten minutes ago had faded to the back of her mind. She was over twenty minutes behind on her trip home, and her thoughts were on warmth, and slippers, and the thing in her left pocket.

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This is just an idea I had today and thought I would run with. Since I'm not too busy right now, I'll probably update pretty frequently as long as I can. 

Please like and comment to let me know if you like this. Thanks so much for reading!              

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