Prologue
Drip. drip. drip.
The sound of blood dripping from her nails echoes through the dark road. She is dressed in the same uniform as me but I cannot recall seeing her in any of the dorms. She keeps her right hand on her bleeding swollen belly, trying to protect what it carries. Though, it appears that she has failed. She seems long past her due time. Her forehead is bruised and she is limping towards the storage area.
I need to help her.
I move forward and offer her my hand but she walks right through me as if an apparition. I try to call out to her but the words dissolve in thin air as soon as they leave my mouth. So, I do the only thing I can do. I watch as a bystander.
I watch her as she carries herself through the storage doors and picks up the gasoline. She limps outside and throws open the gasoline bottle.
Horrified, I realise what she is about to do.
I need to get out. I need to warn others.
But there is no use. She marches around the campus drizzling the gasoline on the barren yellow field and on the gates of every building. Her injured leg causes her to lose balance frequently but that does not stop her. She is determined to carry out the mass homicide.
After she has emptied out five cans of the highly flammable liquid, she limps up to every building and every door to lock it from outside.
Finally, she holds out a lighter from her skirt pocket and looks straight at me. Her eyes are bloodshot red and her face is covered in scratches almost as if she had fallen off a flight of stairs. I move away but her stare remains frozen. She was not looking at me. Her eyes remain on the haunting beauty of the Axernove Academy.
The beauty which she is about to burn.
She stands still, her arms shaking from the cold.
She needs to get to a hospital soon if she wants to survive.
She knows it, yet she does not move. She kneels down and lets out a scream which rips through my earbuds terrifying me to the bone.
My breath hitches as she hides her face in her hands and starts to rock herself back and forth uncontrollably.
I need to leave. Right now.
Just when I turn around, she lifts her face from her hands and wipes the tears from her face. She lifts herself up and without a second thought, drops the lit lighter on the ground.
The building catches on fire and soon, several screams resound through the campus. The freshly awaken students from their deep slumber knock repeatedly on the wooden doors failing to understand the situation.
They are dying.
But she does not care. The screams neither give her pleasure nor a sense of empathy. This was something she needed to do. It was an objective which she has now accomplished. Now, she can proudly walk out as the sole survivor.
She crawls towards the exit gate, having no energy left inside her. Her legs give up when she almost reaches the gate.
She will bleed to death.
Freedom sits just a few metres ahead but she cannot bring herself to grasp it. She is screaming again. Now, in evident physical pain from rough stricken labour.
At last, she touches the metal door. She holds it for support, rises up and for the first time in this little while I have observed her, I see her smile.
She is going to survive after all.
She rests her hand on her stomach and grins with tears in her eyes. Hope glimmers in her tears bringing a soft realisation of a possible future for her and her child.
That is when something grabs her leg all of a sudden and drags her back to the burning hell she created.
This time I cannot follow her even after trying hard enough to. All I am able to hear are desperate screams which keep ringing in my ears. I close my eyes and cover my ears with my hands but that is not enough to block them.
I cannot breathe.
Air seeps out of my lungs and my heartbeat slows.
I will die.
"Zehra? Are you okay?"
The familiar voice brings me back to my senses.
I open my eyes and gasp for air.
"Here, have some water.", Principal Moore says holding a glass of water.
I drink it and realise that I am sitting on my dorm bed.
It was just a dream.
"Thank you ", I say after a few sips. "But how did you get in?"
She seemed taken aback by the question as if the answer was very obvious and I was stupid enough to ask it.
"I chose to visit you to wake you up for your very first day. I have been watching you sleep for a long time. "
My heart sinks to my stomach. I do not know how to react to this so I just smile and nod.
She has access to my room and had been watching me sleep for a long time.
She says some more things about where my classes will be and a lot of study related stuff but my brain tunes it out.
All my head can ramble about is what took that girl?
