Cadence Garrow was walking down the hall of her school, holding a single book to her chest and peering out into the darkness as she nervously looked around. This was not a place she was supposed to be, and she knew it. After living in the Narrows her whole life, she knew better than most that leaving the safety of your home after darkness was asking for trouble. Just as she was contemplating which exit to use that would take her closest to the safest route home, she heard the sound of a door closing. Quietly she peeked around the corner to see what had caused the noise. With fear starting to grip her she made a run for the door, as she was running she silently spoke to herself. "There is nothing there; I am just letting my fear get the better of me." With that she stopped and went to turn around and further investigate what had caused the sudden noise.
Slowly pacing back up the hallway she heard hushed voices coming from a classroom. "Why are we in a school of all places?!" one voice said angrily, then after a slight pause. "Falcone had better have a good reason for sending us here." Then a new voice sounded. "The principal of this school made a deal with Falcone. He said if boss gave more funding for the school, he would let Falcone store stolen merchandise in the spare lockers. Been a month, and this dude Varley hasn't followed through with his end of the deal. The reason we are here is to torch the place. We just need to wait for the okay from Flass." The other voice responded quickly. "Flass!? He is a cop I don't know why boss trusts him. One day he is going to turn on us." The harsher of the voices replied with. " Flass is a smart guy, he knows better than to turn us in, it's his partner I am worried about, and he knows what Flass is up to. But the reason we need to trust Flass is cause he is going to make sure there are no cops around for when we need to escape."
Cadence let out a gasp that caused the two men to immediately whip their heads around. She did not wait to see if they had seen her standing there, she had already started running. Hearing the door smash open pushed her to run faster. She knew if she could make it out the door, she could hide herself in the darkness of the moonless sky. Skidding around a corner Cadence lost her footing which caused her to go smashing to the floor. Desperately she tried to get up, but failed as she felt a sharp pain in her ankle. Due to Cadence's fall, the men had caught up with her. One of them gave her a lung crushing kick to the chest while the other took out a rope. Roughly he whipped the rope around Cadence's neck and began to choke her. She didn't bother to fight back; she had already resigned herself to the fact that there was no way she could win against these men; all she could do was hope someone would save her. As the one man was choking Cadence, the other began to pour gasoline up and down the hallway. With Cadence nearing unconsciousness, the man stopped choking her and began to kick her in the ribs once again; just to be sure she wouldn't be going anywhere. With that they threw a single match into the gasoline, and began to walk out the door, leaving Cadence for dead.
As they opened the door, instead of stepping out into the darkness, they came face to face with a giant shadow. Startled in their fear, they attempted to run in the opposite direction, only to be stopped by a wall of fire. Quickly they decided that they would rather face fire than the giant shadow that frightened them so much. In the slight second they hesitated, the shadow grabbed both men by their collars, and slammed them headfirst into the lockers, and with a loud bang, both men fell unconscious. Picking up both men he went to throw them outside, knowing that if he left them inside they would burn to death. As the shadow was throwing the men out the door, an almost inaudible
moaning caught his attention, and he knew there was someone else in the building with him. Looking down the hall past the flames, he saw a girl laying there. Alarmed by her presence, and the fact that he didn't notice her before he went and picked her up. Carrying her outside he looked down her and saw the damage that Falcone's men had done. As he looked her over, her eyes opened slightly, and she let out a low moan. The shadow met her dark grey eyes with the piercing light green of his own. Looking into her eyes reminded him of the rain. They were a deep impenetrable dark grey, the kind of grey that is harsh and unforgiving on its own, but within this dark grey in her eyes were flecks of light grey. He had never seen this color in a person's eyes before, and it intrigued him. As she fell back into unconsciousness, the shadow found himself wishing he could have another look into this girls eyes. He knew there was something there that he needed to find out about. With that knowledge, the shadow made a decision.