Chapter One

The house was empty. Skye knew as soon as she walked through the front door. Only a clock ticking in the kitchen challenged the silence. Sadness uncurled within her. Mom, Chris, I miss you, she thought like a child. She dropped her school bag in the hall, closing the door, and walked slowly into the kitchen, afraid of what message might await her. There was a note on the refrigerator: 

 

 

Gone to work. Be back at nine. 

Make your dinner.  

Love, Aunt Kirsten 

P.S. Don't wait up 

 

 

She crumbled the note and flung it in the trash can. It seemed lately ever since her the death of her family all her conversations with her aunt had been carried on with a refrigerator magnet as intermediary. Skye now had waist-length dark brown hair, icy blue eyes, full pink lips, a slender, yet highly feminine build, and big breasts that could for as a D-cup, but she's not that large, nor to small. She's a C-cup. She had grown so beautiful, just like her mother. Even the boys were turning heads towards her, but she never really entered a relationship with a boy.  

 

  

She had only one friend named Sarah. All the preps hated Skye. it could have been that she was prettier than them or that boys were always talking to her or they just plain out didn't like her. Big news. tear out the front page. She had always been compared to her mother. She had the same icy blue eyes, long, waist-length dark brown/chestnut hair with a slight curl, but she didn't have her mother's pale skin.  

 

 Skye drifted from the kitchen, not sure what to do. She shrugged off her coat, leaving it on a chair. Her Aunt Kirsten kept on saying everything would be all right. She tugged at  her halter top, twisted a lock of her hair; her hands couldn't keep still. She even played with the locket. I should be used to this by now, she thought. It had been going over a year, plus the ten years from her accident; her aunt working long hours since her own divorce, long stays at home, and just her coming home to an empty house.   

 

 She paused in the dining room. It was sparsely furnished with a long antique trestle table and chairs that matched, but the walls were a fanfare to her aunt's life. They have a home to the large, bright, splashy oils; pictures charged with bold emotions, full of laughing people who leapt and swirled and sang. I want to be like them, she thought almost pleadingly as she stroked the crimson paint to feel the brush strokes, hoping maybe to absorb its warmth.  

 

The living room was cool and shadowed, The glints of sunlight on the roof she could see through the window resembled light playing on the surface of water, and the room's aqua colors hinted a undersea worlds. Perhaps she find peace there. She sank in the couch. Skye wasn't the only resident at home. As soon as she was about to sink in the couch, she heard a baby's cry and rushed upstairs. She turned on the right from her room across from her aunt's and slowly opened the nursery.  

 

The room was decorated in a Hello Kitty theme with plush toys stacked everywhere and here. She took every step to lean over the crib. A blonde haired infant was crying her little eyes out. The baby girl was born only nine months ago, literally born the time Skye came home. Her aunt was scared to leave the baby alone, but knew Skye would come home just in time to babysit. She carefully picked up the newborn infant in her arms.  

 

"It"s okay, don't cry baby. Please stop crying Zoey. You're hungry or need your diaper changed."  Skye tapped the baby's bottom, nodding that she was hungry and rushed back down stairs. By then, Zoey was sniffling once the bottle was placed in her mouth, she began to suck. "I almost forgot about you, you poor thing. At least you're here. You're pretty, yes you're very pretty." Skye cooed, finally sinking in the couch. 

 

Once Zoey emptied her bottle and drifted off to sleep. Skye's fingers touched the sleek cheapness of newsprint. The morning paper was still spread on the couch. She glanced at it with little interest, but the headline glared: EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD FEMALE FOUND DEAD. Her stomach lurched. Everyone's dead, she thought bitterly. Why not everybody? But she couldn't help reading the next few lines. Throat slashed, drained of blood. 

 

"That's not true," she said aloud in a whisper so not to wake Zoey. Her fingers tightened in disgust, crumbling the paper. "What sis this-- The 'National Enquire'?" She tossed the paper away, wrenched herself to her feet, and headed to her room. But her cell phone rang before she could even reach the stairs. A IPhone she received the day she turned sixteen. The caller ID read Sarah.  

 

"Hi Skye!!." Her best friend Sarah sang over the phone lines with typical cheer. It should have been comforting.  

 

"Hi Sarah, how are you?" Skye said, heading to her room with Zoey still in her arms. She didn't want to be alone. Her room had a black and purple theme to it. She even had a rug to match, her bed was black and dark pink and her dressers were royalty. She had pictures on her mirror of her and Sarah. She had posters of her favorite bands like Paramore and her movie Twilight.  

 

"I can't make it over because I'm babysitting my stupid brother. I rather come over there and play with Zoey. She's so adorable! I can't leave the house at all. But let's talk okay?'  

 

"Fine, I'm bored anyway."  

 

"Did you hear about the girl who got her throat cut?" 

  

"Yeah?" 

 

"Do you think that maybe it's that rapist who's our California Vampire doing this to get attention? Could he be a cannibal?" 

 

"If he were a cannibal, he would have eaten her Sarah, instead of just cutting her throat and draining her of blood." 

 

"My grandma says this is almost similar to the Black Dahlia case." 

  

"The Black Dahlia was found severely mutilated body had been severed at the waist and drained of blood and her face was slashed from the corners of her mouth toward her ears. She had been "posed" with her hands over her head and elbows bent at right angles. How is that similar to the girl having her throat cut?" 

 

 "I was just comparing and contrasting." 

 

 "I know, but this is the present." 

 

"Yeah, my grandma just remembered her and all. I looked her up and that's a gruesome way to kill a woman." 

 

"Worse than shooting her through the mouth?" 

 

"Yeah. May I ask you something?"  

 

"Yeah." 

 

"Why do you still wear that locket around your neck?" 

 

There was a silence. 

 

Why still wear this around my neck? Skye thought, rubbing the metal locket between her thumb and index finger. 

 

"I'm not sure why I wear it. Before the accident, I met this boy who was a year older than us. I had pulled this off by accident when I tried to kick him. I was going to give it back to him,, but he told me to keep it. I didn't want to because I had a feeling that it meant something to him, like it had a whole lot of value. I think I had a crush on him." 

 

"Did you?" 

 

"I was six-years-old back then, to be honest I didn't know what a crush was. I didn't know where babies came from and I didn't know what sex was until I had "the talk" with my aunt when I was fourteen. I didn't know alot of things." 

 

"Do you ever wish that you could see him again?" 

 

"Sarah, the dude could be twenty-seven-years-old by now. It's not like  I'm going to see him just by coincidence. He could be married and have kids. But I would really like to see him again to give him back this locket because I've grown attached to it. I've also tried to open it but it won't. On the back it's engraved 1651." 

 

"1651? It can't be a serial number. It must be a code to unlock it." 

 

 "A locket doesn't need a combination Sarah." 

 

"I was close. Anyway, I'll talk to you later. I love you, like a sister." 

 

"I love you too." 

  

"So, what was the guy's name?" 

 

"Aiden." 

 

"You still remember him?'" 

 

"It surprised me too." 

 

"Ws he cute?" 

 

"Very." 

 

"Hot even?" 

 

"You could say that. When I first met him he looked familiar."  

 

"Why'd he look familiar? You've only met him for the first time." 

 

"I know, that's the weird thing. I felt as though I've seen him before, countless times." 

 

"Are you sure? Maybe you dream about him alot." 

 

"Yeah. But I just had the feeling back then." 

 

"I'll talk to you later Skye. I love you, like a sister." 

 

"I love you too Sarah, like a sister." 

 

"Bye, Skye." 

 

 

Skye pressed the end button, glancing at the sleeping infant in her arms. "You could sleep through World War II little one. I guess I'll join you."  She lay down on top of the spread and escaped for a while. She awoke with a jolt. Zoey was crying again. She was wet. Skye grappled with the fleeting blur of dreams and recognized Zoey, slowly and cautiously with the baby.  

 

"Don't cry Zoey, I'm here. I'll change you. Then we can go out for a walk, just the two if us. I'll have to get your stroller." Skye peered at her phone to look at the time. It was only 8:30, her aunt wouldn't be home for another hour. Skye laid Zoey on the table, undressing her form her nightie, wiping her butt, and snapping on a new diaper and dressed her again. Skye raced downstairs, placed Zoey in her stroller and headed towards the door. She grabbed her crossed bone jacket from the chair. 

 

She needed this walk. The night air was crisp and sweet. A full moon hung plump and bright. She headed for the small local park. It was a plot of land on a street corner, scattered with trees and holding a thick maze of bushes near the center. There were swings, a slide, a seesaw, and three animals on springs that bobbed you back and forth drunkenly, until your backside grew too sore to sit on them.  

 

Skye loved to come late and wander alone after even the wild children had been dragged home. She dreaded the advent of the bright lights the safety-conscious community wanted to install. She liked it as it was now, with few lights making golden pools in the mysterious darkness. She settled on her favorite of the three heavily etched benches. It faced the gazebo not far far away, at the very center of the park. The pretty little domed building had always fascinated her.  

 

It had sets of steps all around like a carousel, and its open gingerbread sides were barely walls. It was always kept freshly painted summer-white and reminded her of a tiny palace from an Indian fairy tale. Moonlight hit the gazebo, tracing it with silver, but a shadow crept inside, independent of natural shades. She tensed. her hands gripped the edge of the bench. She leaned forward to decipher it;s meaning, peering into the mottled dark. She saw someone within.  

 

A figure detached from the shadows. Her mouth dried. Eighteen-year-old female found dead, she thought. It moved toward her, stepped into the moonlight on the side closest to her, and briefly she thought to run. Then she saw his face.  

 

He was a young boy, with messy dark hair framing his face and totally covering his eyes from view. He had full, light pink lips, with two piercings on the left side of them. He wore all black. He had a striking resemblance to Aiden from ten years ago.   

 

"W-W-W-Who are you?" Skye asked, gripping tight on Zoey's stroller.  

 

 "What are you a stutterer? Now be a good little girl and I won't rip out that pretty throat of yours."  Skye began to ran, but she felt strong arms wrap around her waist, tackling her to the ground. Skye's screams were muffled. "Whisper or else I'll kill you and your baby." 

 

She bit his hand but he didn't flinch. He turned her over so that they were face to face.  

 

"Please. Please. Please. Please. Please don't kill me. I'll keep quiet, just leave Zoey alive. Don't kill me." she was crying now.   

 

Boy's POV

 

That voice.... couldn't be. He pulled on the locket around her neck and stared her dead in the face. There's something voluptuous about her though, that reminds me of death. Big breasts, too, he thought and chuckled at his peculiarly human preference. She did not surprise me even though I despise surprises. I wonder if I should kill her like I did that other girl. But she looks so familiar. I remember now, she's that little girl from the plane crash. her skin is absolutely flawless now. I remember such pain she endured, hooked up to machines for over a year now.  

 

I saved her. Her leg and arm were broken. she suffered third degree burns, her face was bleeding so much that she was unrecognizable and it was swelling like an eggplant. I was sorry to drag her away from her already mother who was holding her and her brother who also died that day. Such pain her fragile, thin, child-like body endured. She's gotten beautiful. She was right when she said she was going to get prettier. I can't harm her. Every time I see her face.... I....  

 

"You look just like her." I said. Skye stares at me in confusion and fear. I wrench her up right and stare at her. I don't make a second glance as I leave her there to cry for all things lost.