Octagon Project 1: Melody Halloway

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After things calmed down and students were allowed to leave the area, Mel noticed from her peripheral that Allison and Carl had been watching her. Did they know she was the one responsible for the recent events? Most likely. Did she care? Not a bit. She kept an eye on them most of the day but they seemed like fairly normal students. Normal students that seemed to both be interested in her every move. By the end of the day, she packed up her stuff and left the library.

Taking a deep breath and pulling on her bag again as she left, heading in the direction of the football field, Mel used the crowd in the quad for cover to evade her new stalkers. She got dressed in the cafeteria bathroom, changing her jeans out for her yoga pants and her converse out for sneakers. Placing her bag on the bleachers nearest the track, she put in her headphones and walked to the starting line to stretch. That was when she noticed a guy already taking ownership of the track as he ran around the burgundy path across the field from her. He had on black basketball shorts and a grey tank top that clearly used to be a T-shirt. Even from the distance, she could see his well-tanned body was glistening with sweat. How long has he been out here? Ignoring him the best she could, Mel began her run at a slow, set pace. Since she had long legs, she tended to cover more ground a lot quicker than the average person her height.

The sun was getting lower and the man had stopped running. He sat down in the bleachers with his elbows resting on his knees and a water bottle in his hands. Mel was on her last lap. As she reached the starting point again, she stopped and plopped down onto the turf to catch her breath and stretch. A shadow crossed her face and she looked up to see the guy standing there, gazing at her with steady hazel eyes and a firmly set jaw. He held out his hand and she shook it suspiciously.

"Nice form." He commented. His voice was deep and didn't show many hints of emotion, but didn't exactly sound eerie either.

"Thanks." She replied dryly, dropping his hand and pulling her ankles towards her in a stretch. He plopped down next to her and stared at the bleachers blankly.

"How'd you learn to run so well?"

"Track." She said quickly. He gave a single nod with his lips pursed into a fine line. She had to admit, he was kind of attractive. But as if that weren't odd enough, so were all the men she had seen today. Minus the one that she got arrested. He was just a straight-up jackass with so much dick in his personality that he looked like one. But that could have just been her own opinion.

"How many laps did you do?" He asked.

"Six."

"Nice."

"And how many of those were you watching me?" She asked, now turning to face him; her voice held a bite to it. He huffed out a chuckle and looked back at the bleachers; playing with his water bottle subconsciously.

"Only two." He answered her.

"Uh huh." Mel hummed in response as though that were hard to believe. The sky began to turn bright shades of orange and pink, turning the autumn leaves into colors of fire as Mel stood up and wiped the sweat from her forehead before she strolled over to her bag and left the track and mysterious runner. By the time she got to her mom's car, which was left for her to drive home, it was overall pretty dark out and the only cars that were in the parking lot were a couple staff's cars and students that took late classes. The moment she closed the car door her phone vibrated in her jacket pocket with a text from her father asking to pick up some groceries.

She quickly replied, starting the ignition and backed out of her spot. As she drove down the street towards the grocery store, she had the strangest feeling that she was being watched no matter how many times she told herself that she was fine. Today has probably been the oddest day she's experienced since the day that she was kidnapped three years ago.

"You're safe Mel, you're fine. You're safe." She repeated to herself over and over again as she walked out of the store through a very empty parking lot towards her car. As she began to put the key in the door to unlock it, the figure of a guy behind her reflected in the window and she froze, ducking just in time to miss his arm which went through the window instead. He growled and swung his arm towards her again. She ducked again and knocked out one of his knees, sending him onto his back when strong arms restrained her from behind, causing her to drop the grocery bag; the glass bottled items shattering. Mel kicked and tried to scream, but the hand on her mouth was firm. Leaning her head forward, she thrust it back and the arms around her loosened to touch their nose. She scrambled away when a hand was around her ankle and pulled her to the rough asphalt. Within a split second, she was pinned to the ground with a heavy weight on top of her, holding her hands to her sides to refrain her from flailing.

What is it with people and wanting to kidnap me?! Mel's thoughts screamed.

The guy on top of her was wearing a black fencing mask like the other one that was starting to recover. Pushing her knee up at full force, Mel could hear the groan of pain that came from the guy. Freeing her hands, she pushed him off of her and flicked out her pocketknife as the second guy lunged for her. She managed to stab his foot, causing a loud scream to come from him. Pretty soon, another figure appears, taller and leaner than the other two. He dodged her slashing attempts to cut him and grabbed her wrist, knocking the knife out of her hand. She went to kick his groin, but he bounced back, not releasing his firm grip on her. She jumped forward and tried to kick again, but this time he moved to her side and pulled both her arms over her chest, holding her up against his broad frame where her feet were at least two inches or more off the ground. Another figure emerged from the dark; this one female. It took Mel too long of a time to notice the white cloth she was holding until the smell engulfed her and her vision went fuzzy before completely black. Chloroform...