Kizzy
"Thank you for staying with us. We hope to see you soon!" She said, as the young couple walked out the entrance to her family's Bed-and-Breakfast. She enjoyed helping out there: not only was it her mother's dream come true, but she liked meeting new people and it was good work experience too. Once the couple had left, she reached into her pocket for her comb and fluffed up her afro a bit. Kizzy wasn't too obsessed with her appearance, yet she was proud of her hair - it had taken her all 16 years of her life to learn to love it.
No one in her family had kicked up that much of a fuss when she started growing it out naturally, nor when she started looking at black tops, black pants, black jackets, basically black everything. They didn't even worry too much when she said she was going around with her friends on days that they knew there were going to be protests about civil rights. Of course she wasn't lying: she was meeting up with her friends... to protest.
However, there were no 'meet-ups' scheduled for today, so when her mother came down and told her to go out and get some fresh air, she decided to go around her local park. Kizzy loved going there; whenever she was lost or unsure as to where to meet up, she always instinctively headed to that park, and right opposite was the university she dreamed of attending - Gressenheller University. It was also a nice escape from the newly-formed excess traffic caused by what had happened just last week. Kizzy was surprised that people were still willing to have holidays in the city, even after an act of domestic terrorism levelled half of it.
5 minutes later...
Luckily, the park was seemingly empty: next to no-one was there, except for a few souls seeking escape from the city's loud, impure environment. Kizzy found a vacant bench under a weeping willow tree and started reading her copy of Trial and Terror, a new murder-mystery novel by her favourite author, Millicent Toore. She wasn't sure exactly how much time had passed, but after a while she heard a voice say
"Excuse me, I love your hair!"
She turned around to find the source of the voice, which seemed to be a young girl about her age. She had beautiful brown eyes (that looked hopefully at Kizzy), which were framed perfectly by her round face and curled bangs. She was wearing an orange cotton house dress, cinched at the waist by a red ribbon that matched the one tying her auburn hair up in a ponytail. She looked familiar, but Kizzy couldn't tell why. She had a rosy glow about her cheeks, starkly contrasting to a series of bruises plotted along her arms. The girl was smiling sweetly at Kizzy, and wanting to keep that smile on her face, she quickly answered her.
"Oh, thank you! Your hair looks nice too!"
The girl smiled even more at Kizzy, her cheeks obtaining a rosy glow as she accepted her compliment with a simple 'aww thanks!' before going on to ask her:
"Is that the new Millicent Toore book?"
The girl's face morphed into an inquisitive expression, her once hopeful brown eyes now acquiring a hint of curiosity. Kizzy simply replied (with an equally as inquisitive smirk creeping across her face),
"Yes, it is, I got it yesterday. Why, do you like her books?"
At this, the girl's face lit up as she excitedly responded,
"Omigosh, I love her! I have all her books, my favourite though has got to be The Golden Silence, but that's only if I had to pick one!"
As she said her last word, the soft tolling of a school bell could be heard across the park. The girl noticed this and said:
"I gotta go meet someone at the university now. We will have to meet up and obsess over Millicent Toore sometime! Maybe tomorrow here again, at the same time?"
Kizzy liked that idea and replied,
"Yeah, I can make that. Also, what's your name, sorry? I don't think you told me. Mine's Kizzy."
"Oh, Kizzy is such a pretty name! My name's Flora, by the way. See you tomorrow then, Kizzy!" And with that, Flora ran off in the direction of the university.
Later...
On the way back, Kizzy decided to nip into a nearby corner shop. She often went in there to buy sweets, groceries and her father's newspaper. However, she hadn't got today's paper yet and knew that she needed to get it on pain of making her dad upset, so she walked over to the newspaper stand. The front headline immediately caught her eye.
Madman Murderer Masqueraded as Young Boy and Made Off with Teen-Ager
It has been revealed that the madman that attempted to destroy the capital city just last week also impersonated a young boy and kidnapped a young woman.
This piqued Kizzy's interest as she picked up a copy for her father. More and more information about the recent attack on her home city was coming to light, and the more she could find out about it, the better. As she walked towards the till to pay, she continued to read the article.
The court has now received reports that Clive Dove, the man charged with attempted destruction by fortress of the city of London, claimed to be the 'future version' of a 13 year old boy and held a now 16 year old girl captive on the fortress.
This intrigued Kizzy: not only was this new information about the incident (which she was desperate to find out more about), but now a young girl - who was her age, no less- had also been unnecessarily drawn into it. She read on;
Dove, 23, attempted to destroy the entire capital just last Wednesday. However, prior to the event, he allegedly lured esteemed archaeologist and university professor Hershel Layton and others to an underground cavern, which had been modelled to look like London 10 years into the future. They were told that they'd been transported 10 years into the future, and that Dove was the 'future version' of one of Layton's accomplices, 13 year old Luke Triton (inset top).
Kizzy looked over to where the picture of this 'Luke' kid was, and immediately saw how this rich bloke could've got away with it: the two looked like brothers, or at least related in some way. Nevertheless, she was keen to learn more about the event, so she looked back to the article itself.
On top of that, according to eyewitness accounts (including that of Scotland Yard's finest, Inspector Chelmey himself), Dove; whilst on his way to initiate the attack, grabbed hold of and physically dragged (at the time) 15 year old Flora Reinhold (right) out of the door and onto a speedboat (which he used to reach the fortress).
Reinhold said on the attack:
"I was terrified: I didn't know what was happening, nor what was going to happen. One minute I was sitting down in a café, the next being shoved into a boat, then being dragged around the fortress, and finally being forced into a glass cage of sorts. I was that shocked that straight after I landed in the cage, I blacked out and couldn't remember a thing until I woke up."
"Y'alright, love?" Said the cashier at the counter, bringing Kizzy back into the real world. She could feel that her mouth was no longer closed, and quickly snapped her jaw shut.
"Y-Yeah, yeah, I'm alright, thanks." Kizzy said, as she handed over the paper and the money for it. She got so wrapped up in reading about that girl her age called Flora, that she forgot about the world around her. A thought crossed her mind, a thought that both interested and shocked her: a thought about the two Floras that she had encountered that day, in the park and the article - that they may be one and the same.
The cashier once again interrupted her thoughts by handing back the paper and the spare change whilst saying,
"Terrible thing, what 'appened to that young lass, eh? Y'know, she's got a lotta bruises all over her, and that's just the physical injuries she got!"
Kizzy rushed to answer.
"Yeah, poor girl. I hope she's ok, especially now the press knows. Who knows what kind of stories they'll make up about her? My heart goes out to her, what with her being my age an' all that. Thanks!"
Kizzy was too eager to get back to that article and to look at the pictures, particularly after that conversation. The cashier said that this Flora that was kidnapped was bruised all over, much like the Flora she saw today. She glanced back to the paragraph about what happened to the girl, just to check where the photo of this Flora was.
...Flora Reinhold (Right) out of...
She looked over to the right side of the page.
And sure enough, that was the Flora she met earlier that day.