Burn Out

Chapter One: Two Birds With One Stone

Nighttime.

The glorious darkness that surrounds the earth. Quiet and silence everywhere. Few are awake and many are dreaming. It is a time when the stars come out to play with the moon. They have to wait a rather long time before they can make an appearance. Like actors on a stage waiting for the next act.

Under the light of a thousand twinkling stars and a pure glowing moon, a horrific crime was committed. The blood ran redder than the colors of a sunrise.

During a night which should have been one of the best of her short-loved life, Drina Melrose stood paralyzed in horror at the scene before her.

Bodies.
There were two lifeless bodies lying face down on the floor.
The brown carpet stained red as the corpses lay in their own drained life source.

Heaving and gasping for air, Drina emptied the contents of her stomach.
The carpet was stained, again.

She felt as if she were in a haze.
Was she dead or alive? Unconscious or conscious? Horrified or emotionless?

Suddenly, a faint movement to her right, caught her eye.

Standing before her was a man.
A strange man she had never seen before.
It was dark in the room.
Her parents must have fallen asleep in the living room, exhausted from the day's exuberant birthday activities.

She tried to catch a glimpse of her parents' murderer but all she could see were the whites of his eyes, glimmering maliciously in the moonlight streaming in from the a nearby window. His weapon of choice, a gun, lay dangling from his index finger.

Drina stood as still as a statue.
She knew he had seen her.
Yet he hadn't made any moves to pull the trigger.
She blinked and he was gone.
Her parents' murderer had escaped and she was alone.
Devastatingly alone.

Drina's 21st birthday had started off as a dream and ended as a nightmare.