Prologue
Sophitia had never been so scared in her entire life. The knife felt so sharp against her neck, she feared it would slash right through if the man that held it jerked even a little bit. At that moment she wished she were anywhere else in Arcadia but here. At that moment…
..........She wished she had never gotten lost in the first place....
Several Hours before...
Sophitia groaned. She couldn't believe she'd gotten herself lost in her hometown of all places! Trying to get her bearings, her head swung around from one direction to the next, searching both sides so that the item shop she worked at would not escape her. She stopped to look at her reflection in a window. Her fair, black hair fell about her shoulders in a wavy way, and weren't quite far enough to reach her collarbone. Her green colored eyes stared back at her, and her attention was drawn to her eyelashes, which were usually disgustingly long, but since she'd cut them in an amateur way, they only looked weird.
She pouted at her deformed eyelashes and continued her way. Sophitia had only gone to buy a peck of khale, which was on sale that day, when she ran into Dalan, her super hot coworker and secret crush. Gazing into his gorgeous, glittering sapphire eyes and admiring his beautiful, short golden hair was enough to lose even married women. They had a pleasant conversation about the store (Actually, ANY conversation would be pleasant with Dalan), and how well the sales were going. Sophitia must have been walking during their talk, because she had been at the khale stand before, and now she had no idea where she was. The three 200-gold coins were still clasped in her hands. Sophitia looked up at the sun.
The sale is probably over by now. So much for khale.
If only she hadn't ogled at Dalan until he left her sight…she suddenly ran into something. It felt like, and she hoped it was, the usual rough-clothed bags of bitter melons her boss kept outside the shop. So, for a while, Sophitia kept her eyes tightly shut in a vain hope that her wish would come true. When the thing she ran into began to move, however, her eyes flew open and she practically jumped back out of fright. Unsurprisingly, not only had her silent wish failed to come true (she was still lost), but a suspicious looking man had now been added to the equation. Suspicious looking to Sophitia, at least, because who else would be in such scary and winding alleyway?
"S-sorry," Sophitia hastily stuttered as the man turned to see who had bumped into him.
She tried to walk around him, but he raised a hand as if to stop her, so she quickly backed away instead. He looked okay, for a shady character (then again, compared to Dalan, all guys only look okay), but it was obvious he was a couple years older than she was. The only noticeable feature was the crimson, embroidered coat he wore.
The man knelt down so that his short, light brown hair was the only visible part of his head. At first, she thought he was trying to look under her dark green dress, for which she backed away even more. He straightened up and held out his hand. Sophitia didn't know what to do with this gesture, and actually considered making a break for it. That's when the fading sun glittered off his open hand, and she noticed he offered up three coins.
"You dropped these," he said, stepping forward so that she could reach.
"Oh!" She exclaimed, feeling foolish for her wrong assumption. "Thank you!" She added with a smile as she retrieved her money.
"No problem," He answered with a smile of his own.
She continued past him and around the corner into yet another alleyway. She stopped and frowned.
Why are there so many blasted alleyways?!
"Hey," The man called out as he caught up to her. "You seem…lost. Need directions?"
"Uh…"She felt uneasy, because she had just remembered there had been a bunch of kidnappings lately where the female victims were found dead on the doorsteps of their homes. What a time to remember such a thing!
"No I'm…I know where I am."
"Oh…well then you know there's a bar nearby," he said as he advanced towards her, "If you want, I can buy—"
"No thank you!" Sophitia jittered out, breaking into a dash.