I'd walked this familiar path all to often, knew the route so well it could have been carved into the back of my hand. The breeze blew my hair across my face. I brushed it away. I knew I should turn around, go back another route, anything. Yet I kept walking, and I didn't know why. I knew they would be here - waiting for me - underneath the bridge. Ready with their scornful words and hateful eyes. I kept putting one foot infront of the other.
The canal took another turn in it's path, the footpath followed. Rounding the bend, I saw them, and they saw me. I'd been clinging onto the hopeful thought that maybe, just maybe, they'd forgotten about me.
There were more than I'd hoped, and I felt like I forgotten how to breathe. My palms starting sweating with fear. My feet stopped moving without me realising.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't little Katya" simpered Sophie, as she prowled towards me. "I told you she'd come, didn't I? She's a brave one..." She adressed this to her friends, who stood in a group behind her, like henchmen. I took in her platinum blonde hair, her bright blue eyes, the alabaster skin, and found myself wondering why she would feel the need to believe the rumours that had been spreading. It seemed incredulous to me, totally and utterly stupid. To even think that someone like me, small, wiry, with a lank auburn hair and an unattractive smile, could ever be seen as a risk, a threat. It was like comparing a Monet to a dustbin.
"It was nothing, Sophie." I remembered saying, my voice stronger than I felt.
"Ah, I knew you'd say that. But you still kissed him, didn't you?" Her voice was sharper now, less like a windchime, more like broken glass. "Don't lie to me, Katya; I know the truth."
"It was only a play, nothing, honest!" I pleaded. It was nothing, only a school play, acting. He was Romeo, I was Juliet. It didn't end well, just as Shakespeare intended it to be staged. A doomed romance, that was never meant to take place in the first place. And now Juliet was facing the consequences.
"You could have turned the role down. You should have turned it down!" Hands pushed into my chest, and I stumbled backwards, displaying my weakness. With a grip of terror, I realised that noone passing by would be able to see us; anything could happen and noone would know. They'd chosen the spot well.
"I didn't know..." My voice shook.
Nothing I could say would make them believe my side of the story. What good was one voice against the views of many, even if that single sole voice spoke the the truth?
A stone flew through my perethial vision, as if in slow motion, yet I couldn't do anything to stop it from striking me against the temple.
The last thing I remember was the fall, slowly, into the inky grey waters of the canal. The screams were not mine as I became submerged, consumed by the undercurrents. Watery hands rolled my body over and over until I could not feel anything anymore.
author's note: The next chapter will be more relationg to the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, I promise; This is just a prologue.