Tairais was always a strange child. She didn't cry, she sobbed. She didn't wail, she trilled mournfully. It was like she was a songbird given human form and stuck gracing the mortals around her with her presence. Every morning, she'd wake up the town at dawn. Not by screaming or banging things though, no she was to musically inclined to do that. Instead, she composed a new melody out of thin air every morning, starting quietly, but getting louder and louder until even the very air was saturated with song.
She was the town's sweetheart, and even though her family was a strange one, the town of Iski embraced them with all their hearts. Their town was one shrouded in mystery. Located West of the horrid Dras-Leona, they were a small, isolated town that no one ever visited and no one seemed to believe existed. That is... until the Dragon Rider returned.
The bass pulsed in the background, my body moving uncontrollably. At that moment, there was nothing, no stress. I wasn't a poor black girl who was being persecuted over something I had no control over, I was a dancer. It didn't matter that I hadn't seriously danced since my mom had moved me halfway across the country. It didn't matter that I was in the middle of the the school hallway and the bell was about to ring. Nothing mattered.
My music was so loud, my earbuds so noise-cancelling, I didn't hear the lock-down announcement. I didn't hear the screams as the crazy guy with a gun got into my high school and started shooting. So engrossed was I, I didn't notice the man with the crazy eyes in front of me until it was too late; I was dying.