And Arrives Home Just Slightly Different
It was just before midnight when the girl started for home.
She breathed deeply of the cool January air and sighed with abject pleasure as she breathed it out. There was no finer time of year, she reasoned. Let the beach-goers have their summer, the picnickers their spring. Let the leafers have their autumn and the young have their winter.
The first two weeks of January were not a season. They were paradise. Particularly for those like the girl who preferred sitting inside. The cold air was nice, but even nicer was the ability to retreat into the warmth of a library of a home whenever one felt like it.
She breathed in and out again, this time paying attention as the air fogged from her mouth. When she'd been small, she'd fancied herself a dragon, a blazing inferno barely contained within her breast. Now she knew the science behind it, the reasoning.
She was no dragon, she was just a student.
She was no little girl. She was a high schooler.
She tugged her jacket closer to her and left the all night study hall at a smooth even pace. There was no need to hurry, to rush. She'd spent her entire life cultivating an unbreakable trust with her parents in readiness for nights like these. While her peers would abuse the freedom that came with their age, the girl knew what a wondrous reward trust could give, even if the burden of responsibility was heavy.
Her parents trust in her was the reason they allowed her to walk the mile to the all night study hall with no threat of breaking curfew. It was why she was given her very own house-key at her last birthday party. It was why they had allowed her to tell the boy that yes, she was available to go see a movie this Saturday.
Thoughts of the boy filled her with warmth and she hugged the jacket, his jacket, tighter against her. Look how much he already trusts me, she would tell her small group of friends. He's already given me his coat to wear.
Her pace picked up, her shoes echoing on the empty shop fronts that surrounded her. There was not a single sign of anyone around. No cars on the road, no lights in the windows.
She was utterly alone in the night.
Her steps faltered at the strangeness. She looked this way and that for some sign, any sign, of human activity.
Nothing.
Not a single car had driven past her, not even a taxi cab.
There as not even one other person out enjoying the weather as she was.
Her feet came to a stop. The echo of her steps faded.
Her ears picked up the slightest of oddities in the air.
She listened hard for the sound of the wind blowing between the buildings, for the calls of the crickets in the grass that lined the sidewalk. She listened for the distant sound of someone's bass, of a voice carried on the breeze from down the way.
There was nothing. Nothing save for the sound of her own breathing.
She started walking for a moment, waiting for the echo to begin again. Once she heard it, she froze in place and listened.
The echo faded and stopped...
...much later than it should have.
If she didn't know any better, she would've guessed that there was someone walking behind her.
She spun, her two toned hair whipping with the force, and cast her eyes back.
Standing less than twenty feet away was a figure clad all in black. A black ski mask covered his face.
The girl's heart began to beat faster. Adrenaline began to rush through her veins. She tensed to run, grasping the straps of her book bag tighter to ensure the precious cargo would not fall when she did what she was planning to do next.
The figure stood still a moment, just watching her.
...The girl bolted.
She heard the figure start running right behind her.
She was no athlete. She couldn’t even remember the last time she'd run. Her mother had suggested taking track, making a sly remark about how guys tended to like toned legs.
As her chest began to burn from the exertion of running, she made a promise to herself and to whatever powers that were that she would apologize to her mother for brushing off her suggestion.
She heard her pursuer keeping pace behind her, heard the rapid footfalls and the harsh panting breaths. She dared to look back... and gasped.
The person chasing her was rapidly gaining ground. His sudden ability to overtake her seemed to be coming from the fact that he was now on all fours, almost galloping straight at her.
The girl spun and screamed as she lost her footing and fell backwards. He was upon her a second later, his gloved hands clasping desperately for her throat. The grunts coming from his mouth sounded almost feminine and just as ragged as hers. She squirmed and pulled away from him with every bit of strength inside her. Her book bag’s strap broke and she, thinking quickly, swung it like a club at her assailant's head.
The bag was weighted down by some of the heaviest books the library had to offer.
The assailant gasped in pain and fell to her side. The book bag split open, spilling books, papers, and pencils onto the sidewalk. The girl paid them no mind. She struggled to her feet and made to run again.
"Oh no you don't."
The sound of the voice shocked her so much that she was wholly unprepared for what happened next. Her assailant lunged forward and wrapped their arms around her legs. The girl screamed again as her momentum carried her back to the ground. The scream was abruptly silenced as the girl's skull smacked heavily against the cold sidewalk.
Suddenly, she didn't feel much like running anymore.
She lay there, dazed, as her attacker rolled her over and clambered up her body. The feminine pants were heavier now. The girl stared at the starry night sky, identifying constellations, until her view was erased forever by the masked face of her attacker. The thing in the black ski mask stared directly into her eyes.
Her eyes.
She was staring into her own eyes.
Hands, dainty and thin, even when wrapped in gloves, wrapped around her throat and squeezed.
"Nothing personal." The attacker grunted in a voice that did not belong to her, that could not belong to her.
The girl tried to breathe, tried to wrestle at her attacker's wrists, but she was just too weak. Whoever this thing was, it was possessed by some horrible will. Its strength was incredible, its grip ironclad.
Concussed and suffocating, knowing that this was her dying moment, the girl felt one last pang of curiosity. She reached out for her attacker's face and used the last of her fading strength to pull the mask away.
A cascade of two toned hair fell around her face.
She stared into a mirror as she died.
She shook once...twice... then went limp.
Taking no chances, the attacker held the grip tight for a few minutes more. To make absolutely sure, since there could be no mistakes, she twisted the girl's neck sharply and tried to suppress her rising gorge as she felt the bones give way.
The attacker fell away from the body to recover herself. There, she thought. The hard part's done with. She reached into her pocket and removed a small vial of violet liquid. She stood and examined the body, ensuring that there were no bits of jewelry or other bodily markers that she would need to take with her. A thought occurred to her and she carefully removed the jacket from the girl's body. She pulled it on and smirked at the perfect fit. There was something in the inner pocket. She reached inside and pulled out two small cards. The first read;
Property of Flash Sentry
The second was a school ID, still unbent and nearly new. Probably printed less than six months ago. It read;
Sunset Shimmer
Canterlot High School
Freshman
A smirk crawled across Sunset Shimmer's lips. She returned the cards to the inner pocket and uncorked the vial. "For what it’s worth, I'm sorry it had to be this way. But I've got work to do." She drizzled the vial's contents over the corpse and watched as the magical flames did their work. Flickering violet light shone in the night for an instant then faded to nothingness.
The body was gone, reduced to less than ashes.
Sunset Shimmer inhaled the crisp, cool night air of this new world she had come to. She reached into her pants pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper she pulled from the spell book just before her escape through the mirror. She relished the tingle of the magic in her hands one last time before she tore it in half.
The night was suddenly alive with cricket song. Taxis drove past, seeking patrons.
She hugged her new jacket tighter against her and looked down the road. She figured that she had better get moving. Her new parents would be getting worried.
It was just after midnight when the girl started for home.