#itlotm

Trigger warning: death, mentions of suicide

8 months ago...

June 12th was the worst day of my life. My dad called me from work, asking that I come to his office immediately. His office was only a few blocks away from school, so I jogged toward it, begging him to tell me what was going on. That’s when I noticed the man with the black cloak. He looked out of place on the streets of Devil’s Lake, but no one else seemed to notice him except for me. His gaze followed me as I walked down the street. I shivered, uneasy. There was something off about the way the citizens walked right past him, not bothering to spare him a second glance.

I was relieved when I finally made it to my father’s office and walked inside, away from the man’s unsettling stare.

Dad wrung his hands as I walked into the room. He seemed more anxious than I'd ever seen him. He gestured for me to sit and rubbed his eyes, as if he was trying to figure out how to start. I wiped my sweaty hands on the sleeves of my coat, growing more and more nervous with every second. Finally, he spoke.

“When was the last time you heard from Madelyn?”

I frowned. That was not what I had expected him to ask. “Two days ago,” I answered hesitantly. “She told me that she was sick, strep throat or something similar. Why?”

Dad ran his hands through his hair. “She disappeared late Thursday night.”

“What? When I talked to her on Wednesday, she seemed fine. Well, besides the coughing." I took a deep breath, feeling my pulse start to quicken. "It can't be true."

“Really? She didn’t say anything strange? Anything suspicious?”

“No. Dad, where are you going with this?” My pulse was racing. We might've been a bit more distant than usual for the past few months, but Madelyn was my best and only friend. I didn't know if I could bear it if something had happened to her.

Suddenly, I remembered something she had said to me during our last conversation. She had tried to sound nonchalant, although I had heard the tinge of fear in her voice when she said it.

“I think someone is following me.”

“Her parents called the police when they noticed she was missing the next morning,” Dad continued. “It didn’t seem like she had made any effort to cover her tracks. The police followed her trail until they found blood near the stream. They didn’t find a body, but the police have come to the conclusion of suicide.”

The room was spinning as my heart dropped out of my body. I didn’t notice I was falling until I felt Dad’s strong arms catch my shoulders. “It can’t be true,” I muttered over and over.

“Hey,” Dad said, waiting until I looked at him before I continued. “I’m sorry I had to break this to you like this. I know you and Madelyn were very close. The police just wanted to know if she’d said anything to you. Why don’t you go home and get some rest.”

I forced myself to nod. I walked numbly out of the room, Madelyn’s last words replaying in my head.

“I think someone is following me.”

Based on these words, I didn’t think Madelyn had killed herself. Someone must’ve murdered her.

As I walked through the lobby, I heard commotion coming from above. Someone screamed, then the crack of a gunshot. I froze. Dad.

I sprinted back the way I came and found my dad’s receptionist laying outside of the door to his office, a bullet wound in her chest. Cautiously, I opened the door. The man who had been watching me on the street, the man with the black cloak, stood behind Dad’s desk, as if he had been waiting for me. He held Dad in a headlock, a gun to his skull.

The man smiled, exposing sharp, white teeth.

“Tell me where it is, girl,” he said, “and I’ll let your dear daddy go.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I stammered. 

“I know you do,” he hissed. “I can see your aura. You’re one of them.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” I cried, my heart pounding. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to throw up, break down and cry, or throttle the man who was holding my father hostage. “Please," I said after a moment. "Just let my dad go.”

“Stop toying with me, girl!” he roared, moving to pull the trigger of his gun. I curled my hands into fists, my palms tingling. I wouldn’t let this wicked man harm my father. I lunged forward, determined to stop the pistol from firing. 

An explosion rocked the building. I was thrown backward, slamming into something hard. It felt like years before I opened my eyes, dizzy and disoriented. My ears were ringing, but otherwise, I couldn’t hear a thing. Through my blurry vision, all I could see was the flames overwhelming the building.

I knelt, bringing my hands to my ears. The ringing was growing louder and louder, soon so deafening I felt like my skull was vibrating. 

Suddenly, I felt a cold hand on my neck, the reek of blood penetrating the smoke.

Besides Pete's entire character being a horrible mix between a plot device and a trope, I don't have much self critique for this chapter! Enjoy!

(And sorry for my habit of overanalyzing my work)

On the same day as my arrival, there are three other new students, a record in a town as obscure and unaccustomed to new people as this one. I can hear the whispers as I walk outside for lunch, leaning against a large tree.

Someone sits next to me in the damp grass, startling me so badly I drop my book. I look over and see another new student sitting beside me. Eve, if I'm remembering correctly. She seems almost unnaturally beautiful, with smooth brown skin and intelligent, deep brown eyes. The gold-dyed tips of her dark hair shine in the sunlight as she peers at a detailed map through golden spectacles. In her hand is a container of egg salad, which she takes one bite of before wrinkling her nose and shoving it back in her lunch sack.

“Mom always forgets I don’t like mayo,” she says when she catches me staring at her. “Icena, is it?” she asks.

“Yes,” I reply, blushing furiously. I’ve always been terrible at conversations and never know what to say. It hasn’t ever been much of a problem since I’ve only ever had one friend, and-

I stop myself midthought. I can't think about her now. It's just too painful.

“Have you noticed anything strange about the new students?" Eve asks, still studying her map. "Anything coincidental?"

"Erm...no?" I respond. To be honest, I hadn't really been paying attention to the student introductions, my mind still caught on the raven I had seen that morning.

Eve turns her map to face me, pointing at locations she had marked with a pencil. "I'm from New Jersey," she says, "which you would know if you paid attention to my introduction. You are from Minnesota," she continued, drawing a line from her hometown to Devil's Lake. She connected two more dots. "The other new students are from Texas and Northern California. Do you see it now?"

I stare at the map, feeling incredibly stupid. "It's a diamond."

"And what's at the center of the diamond?" Eve traces the lines to the center of the page, circling the name of a small town. My jaw drops.

"Lebanon."

"The geographical center of the United States," Eve confirms.

"What are the odds of that?" I say with a nervous laugh.

Eve glances toward me, dead serious. "Slim."

"But not impossible," I reply, trying to convince myself more than anyone that this is a coincidence. 

"North, Este, Meridiem, West," Eve says suddenly, raising her eyebrows.

"What?"

"The surnames of the four new students. Each of them are or mean one of the cardinal directions; specifically the direction the person came from. Do you still think this is a coincidence?"

I narrow my eyes with suspicion. "What are you saying?" 

A sudden caw causes me to jump, spilling root beer down the front of my shirt. I look up and see the raven perched on the branch of a nearby tree. My stomach turns.

“Um, Eve?”

She looks up and frowns. “It’s just a raven.”

“The same raven,” I whisper to myself. I’m certain that it is. It has the same stare, urging me to follow it into the unknown. The raven caws again, sending shivers down my spine.

I lock eyes with a girl across the lawn. It’s Sina Meridiem, a tall, stocky girl who has bright ginger hair with green tips. One of her eyes is covered by an eyepatch, her face marred by scars, and the eye that stares at me now is an unusual shade of stormy gray. She seems terrified of the raven, although I’m not sure why. She begins to frantically shoo away the bird, her panic growing clearer with every moment. A few students have noticed.

“Looks like there’s a truckload of weirdos today!” Pete yells, causing everyone to laugh. Sina clenches her jaw as she turns toward him, but doesn’t respond to his insult. “What is it, sweetheart?” he asks, stalking closer. “Cat got your tongue?”

Someone laughs. It’s Gwen. I’m surprised she has the nerve to stand up to Pete after he hit her this morning. “Going for a streak, buddy?” she says mockingly. “Is it on your schedule to mess with at least five girls per day? You don’t seem like the leader of this school. You seem like a dictator.” 

I stand, curling my fists. Pete could take down Gwen in seconds, as he has already demonstrated. If he tries, I’ll be ready.

Pete’s eye twitches. “You’ve got the nerve to insult me a second time?”

Gwen laughs. “That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” she stage-whispers to the students. “Well, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, can you?”

Pete roars, charging at her. I tackle him before he even gets to her and knock him to the ground. I manage to punch him a few times, but he soon gains the upper hand, throwing fist after fist at my face until I can feel my eye swelling and my nose bleeding. Anger rises inside of me once again, and this time I can’t stop it. The next few moments pass in a haze.

To be honest I was really avoiding posting this chapter because it legit sounds like a more metaphorically worded version of that school bully scene in every kid's show ever, but unfortunately its necessary to introduce a character. I've been trying to come up with ways to rework it or introduce the character in an entirely different scene, but I'm drawing a blank haha. Does anyone have any advice?

I wake the next morning to the sound of a bird outside of my bedroom window. I stretch, rubbing my bleary eyes. When I open them, however, I scramble back, almost falling off of my bed.

A raven, perched on my windowsill, is staring straight at me, its intelligent, beady eyes boring into mine.

“Go away!” I yell, a bit hysterically. When the bird doesn’t move a muscle, I scramble out of bed and pound on the window. “Beat it!” Finally, the raven springs from its perch and flies gracefully toward the horizon, not making another sound.

As I walk to school, I can’t stop thinking about the raven. Every movement or noise causes me to jump, and I can’t help but wonder if I’ll turn around and it will be there. There was something very unsettling about the way it stared at me, almost as if it wanted to tell me something...

I arrive at school only a few minutes before the school day begins. I hadn’t realised how far away the school is from my house, but luckily, I left a bit earlier than usual.

There is a small crowd gathered near the front of the building, but I can’t see what they are looking at. That’s probably the entire school right there, I think as I walk closer.

“Who do you think you are?” A boy is saying. He is hulking and muscular,  and his meaty hands look as if they could crush my skull in an instant. “You need to learn your place in this town, you hear me? No one insults me, Pete Walker, unless you want a  piece of my mind! I’m the leader here, just like my father is the leader of this town.”

I shove through the crowd and finally see who the boy is yelling at. A small blond girl lays on the ground, the skin around her eyes as dark as the feathers of a raven. I shudder. Of course I would make that comparison.

"So, do you want a piece of my mind, girlie? Or perhaps a piece of my fist? " My blood boils. I despise bullying, especially when it’s done to someone smaller and weaker than the bully themself.

“Hey!” I yell, surprising even myself. I shove past Pete Walker and stand protectively in front of the girl.

“Look, another freak!” says Pete mockingly, and a few of his cronies laugh. I clench my fists, trying to keep my cool. The tingling heat rises up inside of me, but I hold it down. I can’t afford to have another episode, another person’s blood on my hands.

“Get away from her,” I say, my voice shaking.

“Or what?” Pete replies, stepping into my personal space. His breath smells like garlic. “What could you do about it?”

I hold my ground. “Try me.”

Just then, the bell rings. The students rush toward the door, determined to get to class on time. I hold out my hand to the blond girl and help her up. 

“You okay?” I ask.

“I think so,” the girl says. She seems shaken by the incident. 

“That guy’s an idiot, honestly,” I say as we walk toward the building. “Like, who refers to themself in the third person? What did you do to him, anyways?"

"Same as you," she replies. "That spoiled brat and his henchman were picking on a girl, telling her she was ugly and useless. From the look on her face, I could tell she gets it all the time, and no one helps her out. So I may have told Pete that the girl really was beautiful, and he was only picking on her because he's ugly on the inside. Well, I'm paraphrasing; I might have used some more colourful words. I’m Gwen, by the way.” She says all of this very fast, a smile on her face despite recently getting punched in the eye. I blink at her, still processing.

"I'm Icena," I tell her, mustering my own smile. "Icena North."

As I walk to my locker, Pete brushes past me.

Thank you @loopyhoopywrites for the tag!

words: miracle, social, faint

Miracle (from In the Light of the Moon)

“Where am I?” I asked weakly. “My family…”

“They’re dead,” the man said. “When the house collapsed. You’re the only survivor.” I felt tears flooding into my eyes, but the man grabbed my arm, sending a stab of pain shooting through me. “Big girls don’t cry,” he growled.

“I’m sorry! Just...stop!”

He released my arm, the madness in his eyes more prevalent than before. “You’re in the hospital,” he said gruffly. “It’s a miracle you made it out of there alive. Well, unless it was intentional that you did.”

Faint (from In the Light of the Moon)

This one sounds really strange without context haha. But, so it makes more sense, the narrating character is a vampire.

"I think Rome is east of here, more or less,” I say, prodding at a small chunk of leaf that was left in the potion. It smells like mud and burning animal flesh. Plugging my nose, I down the potion in a few gulps, wincing at the acrid taste. Almost immediately, I found my heightened senses dulling, the sweet, tantalising smell of blood decreasing to only a faint hint.

“Then let’s go!” says Icena, turning in the direction of the still rising sun. She hesitates, then turns back. “Unless you need a minute.”

“No, I’m good,” I assure her, struggling to my feet. Even after resting, I’m still exhausted, and the slashes and gashes marring my arms and legs throb like hell. My clothes are stiff with dried blood, and my hair is matted with the sticky, red substance as well, plastered against my head.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, positive.”

I couldn't find the word 'social' in any of my WIPs or any of my completed stories, which is pretty crazy as I have over 300,000 words altogether!