The moon shone down upon chilly Minnesota, wrapping the snow-covered landscape in an eerie, silvery glow. There was no light on that scene, no hope; there was only the whistling of the bitter wind through leafless trees and the biting air that seemed like it would kill any living thing that ventured forth into it. The untouched snow on the road gave the impression that the world that night really was empty; the seven billion souls living their lives out at that very moment didn't exist. The whole world was trapped in the lonely shadows, and even the streetlights didn't help. They just cast more shadows, more false promises of light.
The stars were the only pinpricks of real light. They twinkled, dancing across the heavens like sparklers on the Fourth of July. It was their hope, their promise, that drew the girl out of her comfortable home. Even so, on a night such as that one, where invisible eyes seemed to watch every move one made, only the very brave or the very crazy were leaving their homes. But this girl… she was a bit of both.
Her name was Victoria Grace Baker, sixteen years old and a junior at Hemmingway Memorial High School. She was smart, cheerful, and kind, with a touch of mischievous rebellion and impish humor. Never afraid to make a fool of herself, she was definitely not popular, but she didn't care. She'd found her own true friends, ones who loved her (some, more than she knew) and ones who were just as willing to act insane.
To those who knew her, it was no surprise that she would have taken the chance to escape out into the wild, frosty night. However, any random person peeking out of their living room curtains would have wondered why the slim, pixyish girl with a hint of baby innocence still on her face was wandering in a night that even grown men were hesitant to venture out into.
If someone had asked her, she would have told them that she didn't know why she was out that night. It had just been a feeling, just a whisper of the barbaric beauty of the darkness calling to her. Not something one would like to explain to a stranger, but still, the truth.
Her gloved hands found their way to her pockets and she found herself wandering aimlessly in the park down the street from her house. Her boots made fresh impressions in the snow, and she smiled slightly to herself, kicking patterns into the icy, white blanket.
As she was in the midst of tracing "Tori wuz here," with her toe, her eye caught sight of something… someone. Her heart leapt in her chest, climbing to her throat quickly before she recognized the figure sitting on the bench, his head bent, raven hair dusted white with snowflakes sticking to the individual spikes.
"Logan?"
The soft voice caused his head to shoot up frantically, fear flashing in his deep brown eyes before recognition settled in, calming him down.
"Hey Tori," he sighed, looking back down at the snow.
She carefully walked over to her best friend and sat down beside him. "What're you doing out on a night like this?"
He shrugged. "I dunno. What about you?"
Her eyes twinkled a bit. "I dunno," she mumbled, imitating him.
The corner of his mouth twitched into a small smile. "I'll tell if you tell?"
"Alright. You first."
He looked back down at the ground again, and she glimpsed the dark circles under his eyes, looking almost like bruises in the darkness. "Home just seemed to suffocating," he sighed, kicking the snow at his feet with unnecessary force. "You?"
"The night just seemed so beautiful," she whispered as she stared up at the twinkling stars.
He glanced at her enraptured face, but quickly looked back down again when she lowered her head. "Oh."
"Yeah," she whispered, red rising to her cheeks though not from the cold.
A silence washed over the two of them, though not necessarily uncomfortable. Both teenagers were aware of the other one there, and making a conscious effort not to do anything silly, stupid, or excessively embarrassing. But at the same time, those two had done some rather silly, stupid, and excessively embarrassing things together in their lifetime, so there was comfort in that too. Still, there was something different that night, when the two of them were alone, not surrounded by any other friends or classmates. And it wasn't even just the fact that they were alone together. There had been plenty of sleepovers, plenty of play dates, plenty of alone time in the eleven years that they'd been friends.
But still… this was different somehow.
"Anything new?" Logan asked after a while, just to break the silence.
"Not really… not since I saw you at school seven hours ago. Or called you three hours ago. Or texted you one hour ago."
"It was a stupid…"
"Yup."
His mouth twitched into a small smile again, and he shivered against the wind, the thin shirt he had on not doing much to stop the chill.
"Hey," she whispered, unbuttoning her jacket. "You cold?"
"Nope," he lied. "And anyways, I'm the guy. Aren't the guys supposed to give the girls their coats?"
"Yeah, but…"
"I'm fine, Tora," he sighed, using his nickname for her. "Really…"
"Alright," she said, not believing him, though accepting his wishes.
Another silence. The same type as before: that uncomfortable comfort.
A phone buzzed, breaking the strange silence. Tori's fingers fumbled in her pocket, finally pulling out a battered blue cell phone, the artificial light from the screen seeming strange and out of place in the night air.
"That's my mom," she sighed. "She wants me back home, ASAP. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Wait!" the word slipped past his lips before he knew it. "Let me at least walk you back."
She smiled at the snow-covered ground. "Alright."
Their walk home was much different than their time at the park. Back out under the streetlamps, they started to act like idiots again: goofy, funny, and just a little bit crazy. Tori spun around, trying to catch snowflakes in her mouth, though she spun out of control, crashing into Logan. Seeing as the two of them were already laughing their heads off from an earlier joke, they both fell to the ground, rolling on the freshly fallen snow, laughing maniacally. This incident seemed to repeat itself a few more times, so that, by the time they got to Tori's house, they were pink-cheeked, soaking wet, and absolutely covered in snow.
"Thanks for walking me home," she said, eyes sparkling. "That was fun."
"Yeah," he grinned at her. "I-I'll be seeing you tomorrow then, right?"
"Yup," she smiled, biting her lower lip. "I'll see you tomorrow. School. All that."
"Right," he said. "Um… bye."
"Bye," she whispered as he gave her one last little wave before walking off.
She watched his the back of his dark shirt slowly fade out of sight in the darkness, staying outside even after he left her line of vision. It was only when her mom shouted at her to come inside that she sighed and opened the door.
She'd had a feeling. Just a feeling. But it had been like the one calling her outside, and there she'd found Logan. But feelings don't mean much, do they? They couldn't at all be relevant to what was going to happen next, right?
But she still couldn't shake the dread that enveloped her every thought.
