It Started With A Murder

Part I chapter 1

Arabella Vega raced up to her bedroom, her heart thudding in her chest. Opening the teak door, she pulled out the bright pink envelope she had kept on her study table on Friday night.  

Was this a coincidence? 

She pulled out the sweet smelling off-white colored letter from the envelope, her heart pounding. She could distinctly feel her lungs expanding as she inhaled. Her counselor had told her inhaling would calm her down. Inhaling was not calming her down.

In fact, she could feel the blood rush up to her head, she could feel heat radiating out of her ears, the ground sway beneath her feet. With a throat as dry as a parched lizard in a desert, she reread the letter she had received on Friday evening.

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Dear A. Vega,

I feel that if the people who surround you don't inspire you anymore then they aren't your well wishers, they're merely a cage. And sometimes it scares me that I might become resigned to the monotony of captivity.
It is weird, this feeling, and to me it's foreign too. For I had always fancied myself as a passionate person. And I have a passion for a lot of things. Like poetry for example, I like poetry: 

I could pen something interesting, or something to make you laugh 
But how then will you separate, the corn from the chaff
So if you're reading this, a murder could occur
Which I think would be tragic, to an unsuspecting  her
 Look out for Abbeyville, on the 22nd of this month
And you might just witness, the biggest thing in the decacanth.

Yours scandalously, 

The Protege

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She threw it away. 

Wiping her damp forehead with the back of her hand, she tried remembering  the day. She had received the letter pretty late that evening, or atleast noticed it late. It had been kept on her windowsill, and she had been really taken aback at the sight of it. Whoever uses letters anymore, she had thought. Very carefully she had opened the letter and read it. 

She had giggled about it then. For some reason she seemed to have found it funny. She was in high school and pranks like this--as grave as they were--were not really uncommon. She had remembered how one senior jock had been pranked by his fellow teammates, he had been initiated to play a nasty joke on the school football coach--who was a downright terror--and had nearly been expelled from school.

There was nothing remotely funny about it now and the goosebumps on the nape of her neck were a subtle reminder of how much of an idiot she had been. 

Then came the impeding question: Why had this letter been addressed to her?

Why did this killer--or the protege, as he called himself--decide on leaving the letter at the doorstep of some rather insignificant junior girl from the same school who didn't even know the dead girl?

Her name is Allison, her conscience reminded her. 

Was.

Her name was Allison. She is dead now!

Arabella was dumbstruck. What was she supposed to do now? 

What was she expected to do now? 

Tell parents? Arabella shook her head. It would scare them to death. And her mother was a heart patient.

Tell the police? What if it was indeed a joke. Maybe this letter didn't have the least bit of connection to that murder on Abbyville Street. Maybe this was indeed a coincidence?

No.

Something in the pit of her stomach was not ready to accept that explanation. She crouched down to pick up the letter she had dropped, Arabella heard the distinct voices of her parents. Calling out to her. Pancakes were getting cold... 

Pancakes were the last thing on her mind now. 

It's amusing how common sense has a tendency of leaving us the moment we need it the most. 

She couldn't decide. 

Usually a focused girl, Arabella had a hard time comprehending this. A small part of her  brain still ushered her into believing it was a coincidence. A plain coincidence. 

Why her? 

She was not clever. Atleast, not according to her. If that were the reason he had left her the letter then he was unbelievably mistaken. 

She heard her parents call out again. This time, their voices rising up by an octave. 

That's when she decided. She'd talk to somebody. She needed to tell somebody--if not the police--some adult, a close friend,  atleast somebody about it. 

Because, no matter how insistent that little part of her brain was, the bigger part of her brain was absolutely sure that this was not a coincidence. And that this was a premeditated murder. And most of all, this was just the beginning.