The Sovereign of Souls

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Rossiya Moretti POV

I stared at the first streaks of dawn through the tiny window in this cold and dingy basement. A sigh escaped my lips, I was turning eighteen today; meaning it had been four years since my and my family's death anniversary.
Yeah, you heard that right. I should've died in that crash, my body should've remained splayed on the street, my soul should've gone to wherever the dead went and yet here I was, an escapee of death, a creature outside the natural order of things.
I was just about to nod off when the door swung open; light flooded the room and quite literally burned my eyes before I adjusted to the change. "Get up, you need to be in school today." Hearing the irritation in my foster mum's voice, I knew it was only because she didn't want any more people from social services poking around here again. She didn't have to worry though, I was eighteen now. With a final sigh, I stood up and hauled myself out.

Standing under the freezing cold water I couldn't help but try to recall what the faces of my family, even if it was pointless. I didn't remember anything before that god awful crash except my name and how old I was so because of that I ended up being put in the system. I doubted having any living relatives though because they would have come for me; that or they just didn't want to be burdened.
A searing pain shot through my head, making me grab both sides of it in pure agony. The same blurry images playing one after another at hyperspeed, each one causing more pain than the last. Usually this would only be for a few seconds but this episode dragged out, and was more painful than anything I'd ever felt. Hot tears mixed with cold water as I bit my tongue to avoid screaming, a few more minutes later and it left as suddenly as it came.

After regaining my strength I got dressed and hauled myself out of the bathroom, making my way downstairs to the lounge. I didn't even bother heading into the kitchen, today already had a shitty start and I wasn't going to make it worse by interacting with Lucy.
***

My eyes kept darting back and forth between Mr. Andrews and the blackboard, Why? Because no matter how much I tried I couldn't ignore the souls of dead girls that clung to him like leeches. There was a new one today, he must've killed another one this week. One of them froze and turned to me but I had looked away before she noticed; my heart pounding in my ears, it was never a good thing when they noticed me because some of these things had no good intentions and I'd rather not have an episode in the middle of class, again.

I wondered how long it would take the police to catch him though or if this would  be another one of those cold cases. The latter was more probable, he was your perfect white picket fence ol' American boy, which only made it more bizarre begging the question as to what made him snap. Aside from that I was glaring holes into the board as the girl from before made her way to me, already suspicious. The smell of her made me gag inwardly, her soul was starting to rot. She stood right in front of me, her scent burning my nostrils and almost making my eyes water. Her hand crept up to the side of my face, testing. I was as still as a statue, well until my name being called out on the intercom made my own soul leave my body.

'Rossiya Moretti, please report to the principals office.' Everyone turned to me as if to ask why, well hell if I knew. With a sigh I lifted myself out of my chair but as I was walking Lucy stuck out her leg and if I had noticed it a second later my face would've kissed the floor. I wanted to punch her crooked teeth in but I couldn't. I'd have enough nights down in the basement for a while. My classmates snickered and like always I flipped them the bird.

On my way to the office my mind kept on racking for reasons he would even need to call me, I hadn't done anything yet so maybe it could've been my continued absence from school. But Lucy's mum had called me in sick so what was it? I was about to turn the door knob when the scent behind it froze me in my tracks. It was not human. Taking in a deep breath I went in and my eyes landed on the man sitting down stuck straight.