The night was as black as it was dark and as dark as it was black, which was very. Mist washed over the sleeping town, but its ethereal silver was lost in the shroud of night. I sat hunched over my laptop, my room lit only by the screen's dusty glow. Sleeping hadn't been my forte since Sunday, and once again I found myself scouring newspapers and police reports at 3am for any sign of our mysterious dead Purple Shirt Guy. I wouldn't say it had been haunting me, considering the circumstances I thought I was coping pretty well. It was early days yet, but I was pretty sure I wasn't traumatised for life. I ran my fingers through my hair. Maybe that was a bad thing. I was more guiltily and morbidly fascinated by the whole thing than horrified. Once I'd got over the initial shock, it was kind of... exciting. Oh God. I closed my laptop forcefully, slipping into bed and firmly holding my eyes shut.
*
"Oh, I almost forgot, you up for filming the sequences today? The dance studio's free from four onwards."
I gulped audibly, and Chris laughed. "I'm sure we can find someone else if you don't want to do it, I mean..."
"Oh, shut up. Yeah, fine, but I haven't choreographed anything because you haven't given me any music or anything?" I tried to keep the rising panic out of my voice, running my fingers through my hair. It was an annoying habit, I'd developed it in secondary school to hide my anxiety in social situations but now I couldn't shift it. (My hair had been completely static by the time Knuckles had finished his sadistic 'induction'.)
"I think the plan at the moment is just to film you doing some random leaps and shit and then just mash them all together. Don't worry about it, if we decide we need a full blown routine we'll give you plenty of warning-"
Chris was cut off by a squealing girl hurtling through the middle of our conversation on a spinning desk chair with a shout of laughter.
The theatre building was always the same: loud, raucous, and melodramatic.
The thick black curtains that swathed three sides of the stage area were rippling constantly as people forced their way past at high speed with swords and cutlasses. Another group was putting on a modern take on Hamlet and were trying to figure out how to stage a shoot up, resulting in strobe lights and explosion effects every few seconds — much to the distaste of the tear drenched couple rehearsing 'Romeo and Juliet'.
A tiny girl balanced precariously on a ladder adjusting the lighting while another struggled with a heavy spotlight. Everyone was whipped into frantic activity, the final exams just weeks away. Chris and I lounged across a faux-marble table trying to juggle several plastic vegetables and a pig's head.
"It's weird that they still haven't released anything about the dead guy." Chris mused.
"I told you. It was definitely murder, and they don't want anyone else killed. They just told us they reckon he was killed on Thursday and not to worry because we weren't suspects." I shrugged.
"But what about his family? They'll want to have a funeral, but they can't invite anyone because it's all hush hush. And presumably he had some friends, so they will have to be told, and you know how word gets round. Unless they solve this pretty quick, everyone's gonna know anyway. They might at least have told us seeing as we were the ones who discovered it."
I rolled my eyes. "Technically, it was me that discovered it. You were all too chicken to go near it. Anyway - why does it matter? People turn up dead all the time. We didn't know him, he wasn't even from around here."
Except, he was. The little voice in the back of my head whispered. You saw him just a few days before. Only from the back, but a purple shirt is a purple shirt. And most people wouldn't wear a purple shirt while out jogging...
And then it hit me. I'd seen a guy with brown hair and a purple shirt jogging into the woods, the day I confronted Phil about Jakob.
I shivered. Phil and Jakob were in the woods with a murderer. They could have walked right past him without knowing. What if they'd seen? What if the murderer saw them? He probably would have killed them both on sight. The thought made my knees weak. Phil, my Phil was just a few metres away from a murderer — he could have been just inches away from death.
"Dan? Dan, are you there or have you fallen asleep?"
I shook my head and blinked. "Sorry I... daydreaming. You were saying?"
I wouldn't tell anyone, except maybe the police. I still didn't know why Phil had freaked out quite so badly, but I was pretty sure this knowledge wouldn't help his state of calm.
*
The changing room off the side of the dance studio smelled like feet. I stood alone in the small room, considering. Did I change into a leotard and tights, for the sake of the cinematography, or did I opt for shorts and a vest top for the sake of my dignity? Phil's voice rose above the others' in his gorgeous, melodic laughter outside the door and my mind was made. Baggy shorts. Another squirt of deodorant wouldn't go amiss, either.
The floor was cold under my bare feet. I rubbed a little rosin on my heels; partly because today really wasn't a good day to slip over and land on my arse, and partly to delay opening the door. I closed my eyes. Suddenly, I realised I was dragging my fingers through my hair again. I yanked my hands away, keeping them busy by running through a couple of stretches — more to psych myself up than anything else. As I pulled my left leg up to my ear, the door flew open with a crash.
"Oi Dan, did you get stuck in your jeans or something?" PJ called.
"Ahh no, he's just limbering up." Chris grinned.
Phil made a show of looking my up and down very slowly and deliberately, before raising his eyebrows appreciatively and winking.
I rolled my eyes, already blushing, and strode past them into the mirrored hall. This building was a lot smaller than my studios, and — to my absolute horror when I'd first ventured here — one wall was lined with large windows which overlooked the forest instead of mirrors. Suddenly my mouth was dry, a lump rising in my throat. A mass of tripods and cameras were set up in the back two corners, and I tried not to think of the many more passing eyes that could potentially see me this afternoon.
"Can we just get this over and done with?" I said through gritted teeth.
Phil took my hand briefly as I passed, giving it a tight squeeze, and I smiled gratefully at him.
"Well Dan, you're in charge. If you want to just put some music on and do your thing and we'll take as much footage as we need. We've already fixed the lighting and everything; silhouette only, have no fear." PJ disappeared behind a camera with a reassuring smile and suddenly I was alone in the middle of the room. I gulped.
Think of Phil.
Quickly, I skipped over to the sound system before I could change my mind and plugged my iPod in. I bit my lip as I scrolled through the tracks. I knew I would have to do a routine I knew well - I didn't have the confidence to just improvise.
Human — The Killers.
One of my all-time favourite songs, and a routine I'd been working on for several months. I glanced over my shoulder and caught Phil's eye, his crystal blue staring steadily into my dull brown. He gave me a thumbs up and I pressed play without looking.
The opening bars kicked in, washing a wave of calm from my toes up to the top of my head, and I wondered why I had ever been nervous in the first place. This was me. A smile spread across my face, and, slowly, I raised my arms.
Close your eyes. Clear your heart.
Cut the cord.
My legs move without signal from my brain. My eyes are wide, moving through the studio one step ahead of the rest of me. It's a kind of breathless excitement. There's a surge of energy, a pulse running through me. It's hard to explain.
But every dancer feels it. It's what we live for.
My heart is pounding; the windows and the cameras and Chris, PJ and even Phil are all invisible. It's just me and the music now. Every position I hit, every jump and every turn, I feel a surge of endorphins. It's the feeling of getting it right, knowing exactly where you're going, stretching, pointing, twisting... it's a feeling of strength and power. Just my body and the music. And sometimes I feel like I can almost fly.
Are we human?
Or are we dancers
And now I know. I've never been human, not really. I'm a dancer.
And that's the reason I never fitted in, was never truly comfortable with other people. But now, here, in this tiny mirrored studio on the edge of a forest, two worlds are colliding.
*
I came to an end with the music, winding down to the floor as the last bars faded out — flushed and breathless, my heart pounding in my ears.
There was a moment of silence, and I looked up, suddenly apprehensive.
Phil was standing just a few metres in front of me.
When did he get there? I hadn't noticed him move. His glistening eyes bore into mine and I bit my lip, anxious. Why was no one saying anything? Was I really that awful? I thought it went quite well.
There was a movement from the corner. "Holy shit," muttered Chris.
And then Phil was moving forwards with impossible speed. He crashed into me, his hands winding round my hair and pulling me close, his lips moulding furiously into mine. I wrapped my arms around his back, kissing him back with all my might, amidst a chorus of wolf whistles from the back wall.
Eventually, Phil released me, gasping for breath, his eyes shining.
"You're beautiful." He whispered.
I just stared into those crystal eyes, unable to formulate a response.
"There is one slight problem though..." PJ's voice drifted from the corner and I was pulled out of my haze, turning to face him with a bewildered blink.
"We were all so transfixed we forgot to press record."
*
We stayed filming right into the evening, taking shot after shot at every possible angle. And truth be told, I enjoyed every minute. The other three talked animatedly as they headed out into the cool night air, leaving me to change.
I emerged from the stuffy room, turning to spray copious amounts of deodorant as I went for my one good deed of the day, but as the cloud of spray cleared a movement caught my eye in the far window. I slowed to a halt and took a long but shallow breath. My heart, having just returned to a normal speed, was like a caged bull in my chest, pounding erratically and frantically at the walls of my ribcage. My eyes were wide and fixed unblinkingly on the far right window, or, more specifically, what had just become visible through the glass now that the lights were turned off in the studio.
Knuckles stood in the shadows outside the studio, his face illuminated only by the orange glow of his cigarette. One look and I knew he'd been standing there a long time. He'd seen everything.
He stared steadily into my eyes, his expression unreadable. As I watched, he dropped the cigarette butt and ground it into the asphalt with his foot before disappearing silently into the shadows.
I was shaking by the time I reached the door, running straight into Phil's arms and burying my face in his shoulder.
"Dan?! Dan what's wrong?"
They were all around me, trying to calm me down and rubbing my shoulders.
"Let's go, let's get out of here quickly before he brings the others!" I whispered, tugging Phil along behind me.
"Before who brings what others — Dan what's going on?!" PJ's voice was high pitched and fearful. He grabbed my arm and spun me around. "Dan. Talk to us." His green eyes glistened.
"Knuckles was standing outside the whole time," I whispered faintly. "He's coming for me, Phil, he's going to get me."
I couldn't make out their faces in the dark, but there was a hushed silence.
"Don't worry about them. He's not going to attack us all. He's a coward — he'd never take on even numbers. Let's just get inside." Chris's voice wasn't convincing. "Maybe you should stay over tonight."
We walked briskly and in silence back to the dorm building, each of us alert and taking it in turns to jump at every small noise. Phil and I clung to each other like children even as we were getting changed for bed.
It was a subdued conversation at dinner, and we sat for a long time in the dimly lit room speaking little before going to bed.