The Hill. The morning passes, runners exhale on a seemingly constant basis. You smell the damp bark after the night of on off on off rain mixed with occasional thunder. A lone structure litters your vision, its silhouette enhanced by the rising figure of the sun. You start the descent, disaffected by the steep incline,filled with cautious optimism of the day to come. The smell becomes stronger. You blank out the other noises as you focus on yourself. Light covers the everything in its view like a spotlight in a watchman’s tower. You breath in the air as if it is of value, savoring it almost. Its almost as if the air is pure, unaltered by the contaminants of inner-city London.

As you reach the apex of the hill discover the building you saw in the distance was just a school, small by most standards and in a odd place, being on the top of a hill. You walk past an assortment of dogs, all barking as if a phantom squirrel had appeared and was running straight for them. Alongside the dogs were their owners, all with startled expressions on their faces as they hear the dogs barking in unison at seemingly invisible prey . You try to hide your laughter as the dogs all start running, leaving their owners with their leaches, all of them looking at each over as if a streaker had ran past and slapped them all. You decide to walk on against your greatest urge to stop watch the spectacle. You go on, now passing the collection of coffee shops filled with mums with buggies and wannabe-hipsters trying to have the start new fashion trends and have the most extravagant beards. You still smell the damp bark although in a more muted sense, less raw then earlier perhaps.

You reach the start of a short descent down the hill, relieved by its relatively gentle slope down and the lack of people. The wind reaches you again just briefly after you pass by an opening in the trees, blowing your hair in countless directions . You fell its cold touch, similar to when you leave the bathroom after a cold shower, the hairs standing up on the back of your neck. You walk on and reach the last few meters of the path, still with the cautious optimism you had at the start of your journey but dreading your return.

The Hill. You feel the a strand of sweat fall down the back of your neck, illuminated by the dim moonlight. You walk at a brisk pace, aware of what happens if you dawdle. The wind you felt in the morning was still there but much gentler like a coastal breeze of a Mediterranean town. It produces a faint whisper due to it brushing through the trees, much more prominent in the silence of the night. You feel eyes on you, disguised by the mist of darkness and add some pace to your walk, probably looking to an observer like a man who desperately needs to relieve himself.

You make it up to the collection of coffee shops, now fully closed shutters down and chairs inside but sense an air of human activity from the eerie silence, almost like someone is trying to be silent. You walk to the area where all the dogs escaped from their owners leashes, funny at the time but in the silence on isolation of the night you sense a seemingly supernatural air from the event. Why would the dogs run at nothing?, why all of them at once?. As you walk over the path you try to clear your mind, but the thought keeps niggling at you, combined with the feeling of another presence you almost break out into a run but have enough self control to contain yourself even. You hear the dim hum of the