Prologue
The pumping sound of the music from the club was still pulsing through her body, she could feel her bones vibrating with each wave of the base beat. She turned off at the corner to take the shortcut through the basketball courts, this she momentarily regretted as she had told herself that she wouldn't walk this way home alone at night, especially in her current condition and without her inhaler.
Only a couple she had told herself before she entered the club, she didn't want to go but she felt pressured into it by her work mates. You're a fucking sheep.
I have work in the morning she thought to herself as she staggered in the orange glow of the street lamps towering over the courts, now I'm going to have a fucking hungover, perfect. And I know what my hangovers are like. She kept on walking, trying to balance herself upright.
A chill ran up her spine, she felt an eerie presence behind her. She stopped and spun around, there was nothing behind her or anywhere in the courts. She was alone. She carried on walking, quickening her pace, wanting to get out of the courts as soon as possible and into the comfort of her home and escape this uneasiness. A feeling she had hoped to avoid.
Suddenly the street lamps shut off, the glow not fading away but as if blown out by a swift wind. She stopped dead in her tracks. She was surrounded by darkness and could not see her hands in front of her. The air surrounding felt cold as ice and frost began to form on the tiny hairs of her skin. Her body began to tremble, and then violently shake, she could feel her blood beginning to freeze. A thousand thoughts ran through her head, her heart was beating tremendously as she became more terrified with each beat. She fumbled through her handbag to double check she hadn't forgot her inhaler but it was no use, it wouldn't save her.
Her heartbeat began to slow down and she could no longer move, not even blink. A tear dropped from one eye, which formed to ice halfway down her cheek. She felt the cold less and less until her body became completely numb. A terrible shriek pulsated through her ears and her frozen ear drum shattered inside her head, but no blood poured from inside. Her blood had stopped pumping through her veins.
Her heart finally stopped beating.
The street lamps came back on, the hard stone pavement once again bathed in the warm orange glow. Fragments of the girl's body lay shattered across the court and no one else in sight.
T O R C H W O O D