"Heads up!" I shouted, trying to warn Sharon. Because of my breathlessness however, my warning failed to reach her ears and I watched as Sharon jogged right into a dark-skinned woman. They collided, both falling to the ground painfully.
The woman Sharon had inadvertently body slammed looked rather peculiar. Her skin was relatively dark, she had long black hair, worn loose, and plenty of jewelry. I estimated there to be about three dozen different shiny bracelets, rings and necklaces all strewn across her body. Her attire was rather exotic as well, a long skirt with a slit on the side reaching all the way to her hip, a sleeved belly shirt that showed several inches of skin, and no footwear. She was probably some kind of gypsy woman, I reasoned.
"Ouch..." Sharon groaned as she rubbed her head. "Sorry, miss, are you okay?" she apologized. Not answering, the woman merely clutched at her chest. After a few moments of awkward silence, where I helped Sharon get back to her feet, I noticed the strange woman scream. I looked over at her, concerned that she had been hurt in the fall.
"Are you alright? Need us to call an ambulance?" I asked, offering an outstretched hand to help the gypsy woman to her feet.
"Oh you careless idiots, what have you done?" the woman shouted, ignoring me as she continued to clutch her chest. I turned to get a better look, wondering if she might be having a heart attack, when I realized she wasn't clutching her chest but rather a silver amulet the size of a tennis ball, which seemed to be... leaking. A strange green and black fluid was trickling from the amulet and dripping through the gypsy woman's fingers, pouring onto the ground. Then, without warning, the strange amulet exploded violently, splattering me and Sharon with the strange substance.
Utterly repulsed, I spat some of the disgusting fluid out of my mouth. I had made the mistake of trying to talk just before the amulet went boom. "Okay, what the hell?" I coughed.
"Yeah, what just happened?" Sharon said, wiping her eyes. As I looked around at the subsequent mess, I noticed that the gypsy woman and her bizarre trinket were nowhere in sight. She must've have been covered in the weird black muck as well, which was proven true when I noticed a set of footprints leading down the road. However, I was in no mood to chase her after all that running. Besides, the gypsy had probably gone to shower and change, an idea I considered very appealing.
"Your guess is as good as mine. I kinda want to get cleaned up though. Maybe we should finish this run tomorrow," I suggested, as I tried to flick some of the grime from my hands.
"Yeah, good idea. Who on Earth was that woman? And what was that weird exploding amulet?" Sharon asked curiously, as she peered left and right to see where the gypsy woman had gone to.
"We can discuss this on the way back," I insisted, steering Sharon in the direction that took us back home. Sharon was always curious, a quality I liked about her, but her priorities were a little out of order. The need to investigate some imaginary mystery should have been trumped by the fact that we were covered in crap.
"Fine, fine. Aren't you the least bit curious though?" Sharon asked as we began to jog back. Thankfully, Sharon had insisted we bring sweat towels, so we managed to wipe off most of the grease-like fluid to the point that we didn't look like we had just jumped in a barrel of oil.
"Yeah, but I'm more interested in this great stench we've acquired," I said pointedly, making Sharon giggle. The weird ink smelled like bizarre mixture of garlic and smoke, afterwards mixing in a bucket of horse droppings for kicks. "It's weird, but I have a really bad feeling about this," I said, jogging alongside her.
"What d'ya mean?"
"This isn't the first time something crazy has happened. I'm beginning to think there's something out there, or maybe a group of somethings, who like putting me in these weird situations. I mean, you can attest to a lot of crazy stuff. Stuff like the giant octopus that paid us a visit while we were at the beach, remember that?"
"Heehee, yeah. I liked him, he was rather gentle with me."
"He was, wasn't he? Anyway, just saying, strange things happen to me and people around me," I shrugged, a gesture that is significantly less effective when jogging next to someone. "And this whole thing screams 'strange' to me. I'm honestly half-expecting us to have unleashed some kind of slime monster just now."
"Oh come on, that only happened like once," Sharon said dismissively. "You worry too much. Tell you what, it's getting late, let's just head back and catch some Z's. We'll go running tomorrow morning, okay? We'll be fine, nothing will happen."
"I swear, you're tempting fate. Pushing it is never a good thing. But fine, I'm wiped out from you working me like a slave today anyway," I laughed, sticking my tongue out at her as we stopped right outside her house. We agreed to meet here early tomorrow morning, and I trudged back to my place, wondering how I was going to explain why I smelled like a compost heap.
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