Vikranti ~ Prologue

Lucy waits in the darkness for Blake...

Lucy was sitting on the staircase while the darkness crept in. The light of the sun was almost gone, only a few rays now came from the corridor windows of the school. The building was very silent, and the wind could be heard, blowing the branches of trees against the glass. A gust of air came up the stairs and wrapped her in cold arms which she rubbed to warm up. Her backpack was set on the stair next to her and she was waiting, waiting for the boy who promised to meet her here. School had never been this silent before. Once everything was black and outside, the lampposts were on, she left her backpack and ran down the stairs, waiting for Blake to be coming. She waited in the lobby. He was suppose to come through the open window. She couldn’t wait to spend this night with him, just there in the school, as romantic as could be, like in the movies. She loved him, that was certain. He was already late and that was highly unlike him. She paced the hallways back and forth, those she knew by heart, that she could follow eyes closed, room where she could touch a desk and know whose it was. Of course, her close friends said she cheated because she had certain…abilities that were not humanoid at all. She ran a hand through her brown hair and sighed. What was Blake doing ? He was already an hour late. She sat down against on wall of the corridor and waited a minute. Finally, in a hallway parallel to hers, she heard footsteps. They were rather quick walking. She smiled.

“ Blake,” she called out, getting to her feet and running. The footsteps quickened too. But they were fading away. She stopped and listened. There were two other pair of feet running. “ Blake,” she called out. “ Is that you ?” for answer she received a muffled cry and something falling heavily to the floor on the story above her. She ran to the staircase, everything was silent but for her heavy footfalls. She took the stairs three by three and came along the passageway. Somewhere in the middle there was a form, something lying on the ground. She neared it slowly, some fear gripping her. She came beside it and saw the upturned face and the pool of blood. It was Cole, a good friend too. She stepped back astonished by this lifeless body. She then ran down the hall, down the stairs and went through the left open window, having to live with the fact that a murder had happened just when she was there, that Blake had never come for some reason. And when she reached home, she realized that she had forgotten her backpack at school.

 

Foolishly, Lucy did not wash her bloody shoes, and so they were still red when the police came to knock on the door. Her father answered and let them in. They had Lucy’s backpack, an accusation, and the shoes they show only confirmed the truth of the action : thirteen years old Lucy had murdered seventeen years old Cole. It seemed highly unlikely that someone her height and width kill a boy so stout and broad shouldered, but justice does not necessarily question this sort of thing. The prosecution took place, and Lucy having nothing to say, nothing that could prove that she was innocent but Blake’s voice�"Blake who did not answer at her call�"was sentenced to go to the juvenile detention center. She looked up at the judge teary eyed, and a curse silently slipped from her lips onto the man, curse that would come to pass for she put her whole faith and honesty in it.

 

Lucy didn’t stay long in the detention center. Her ability to shut off any camera, to put to sleep any man or woman and physical extremes as well allowed her to escape very easily. She was not heard of again. Multiples of bodies began to be found in the Clyde School during the years after her escape, and no murderer could be found, everything falling down on her. Lucy was to blame.

 

Vikranti waited till it was completely dark and silent to come out of her hiding place. There was not one sound in the very big building. She walked to the window and glanced outside. The street lights were on, and the orange glows reflected on the sidewalks and the road. Somewhere in a darker corner, she thought she saw a shadow of a human. The murderer was attracting its next prey, was it. She suddenly heard a door slamming somewhere and hurried footsteps on the stairs. The innocent was already here.