I was dozing off at work when the phone rang.
I jumped up. My arm had knocked a few sheets off of the counter, but I quickly hopped off of the slick wooden stool to pick them up, and then carelessly dangled the corded phone from my ear, keeping it steady between my shoulder and cheek.
"Hello, Queens Diner," I answered, clumsily shuffling all of the fallen papers in my hands. It was odd to get a call after ten at night, and I should've had that in the back of my mind when I answered.
"Diana?" a familiar voice piped up on the opposite side of the line. My cheeks blossomed when I realised that my sister was calling me at work, after I specifically asked her not to, two nights ago when I started this job. "What time are you coming home? I made a bean salad for us, but you aren't here-"
"Madison," I snapped under my breath. "I already told you not to call me at work- you'll hold up the line."
"Your cell phone was off," Madison scolded, and I rolled my eyes. "When will you be home?"
"I'm off at eleven thirty tonight," I said. "So in, like, two minutes. But it'll take me fifteen to walk, so I'll be back a little before midnight. Kapeesh?"
"Not kapeesh," Madison pushed. "Are you sure you need a job? The hours are late, this is your third night and they have you working until near midnight! You're sixteen, for crying out loud, don't they know you have school-"
I sighed. Madison was my older sister, and she's been providing for the two of us ever since my mom died last year. Now, even though she's only six years older than me, Madison is the actual definition of a helicopter parent. "No. I need a job. You can't pay the rent and buy the food all by yourself, you know."
"That shouldn't be your job," Madison said. "It's mine. I can get us by."
"You're so damn secretive," I scowled. "I don't even know where you work, because it's oh-so-secretly important. And I will help you pay the rent and buy the food, because I want to do more than just get by. I'll see you in fifteen minutes."
"Diana-"
I hung up the phone angrily, just as my boss, Marty, poked his head out from the corner of the room by the washrooms and office.
"What's that?" Marty asked me. His brown curls dropped around his face, shaping his confusion.
I bit my lip. "Nothing. Just... someone who changed their mind on ordering."
Marty shrugged. "Remember to be nice to customers, D. You sound dragged."
Marty disappeared back along the wall, and I let out a huff. I would go off at Madison when I got home. For now, I untied my red apron, threw it in the laundry bin under the desk, and clocked out. I waved an exhausted good-bye to Marty as I slipped out the glass door, sliding off my flimsy crimson visor and hanging it on the hook so I wouldn't have to walk home looking like a beachy maniac. I left the shoe room and stepped out into the cool August night. There was a breeze that glided across my cheeks, but other than that, all was calm.
Well, as calm as Queens could get at eleven-thirty on a weeknight.
A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, disrupting the unusual peace of the chaotic area. I cursed under my breath- my umbrella was hanging on the coat rack in my apartment. Even though the air was thick and mild, Madison was probably at home, running around worries that I would be in the rain.
As soon as I thought the word, a drop landed on the tip of my narrow nose, and another one soon after on my cheek. I looked up at the dark night sky, and could barely tell that gray clouds were prominently floating over the entirety of the city. Three more raindrops splashed down on my face.
I was actually a fan of rain, but I started jogging down the dimly lit street to get home when I promised Madison by, eleven forty-five. Puddles were already forming when I had sped along two blocks, and the light sprinkle was beginning to turn into a downpour. Not just your average rain, but the kind of fall where everywhere you looked was a crackling gray television screen. I couldn't see three feet in front of me. Still, I stormed through the falling water up another empty sidewalk, making my way home.
I sped my pace down when I was almost all the way down the next road. I knew vaguely of the alleyway that carved a shorter distance home. I remember contemplating taking it my first night walking home, and then skipping it, only to see the other side of it after walking a fat eight minutes. Logically, I could save time by taking it, and be home at eleven-forty, tops.
I pivoted my heel in the shallow waters of the puddle that I was standing in, and dodged the rest as I speed- walked down the pavement of the alley. It was a narrow alley- I wasn't sure that even a car would be able to drive through. Not a large one, anyway. It was nice and cozy between an old, abandoned warehouse, and a run-down apartment that I was sure was only half-occupied. Some trash littered the first bit of the path, most likely thrown out of the apartment windows above me. The pavement was cracked and bumped in every place possible, and I assumed that it hadn't been re-paved since the day it was created.
I walked faster with my head down, remembering why I wasn't fond of alleys. They were a little too dank and creepy for my likings. It was hardly illuminated- the only light came from the occasional lamp sticking high off the ground of the apartment. I tried my best to watch my step along the pavement, which became somehow even more uneven as I neared the halfway point.
In the dimness, a shiny set of double doors gleamed from a little lamp that was hung directly across the alley on the apartments. They were the only doors that I had seen so far on the warehouse yet, which was a little odd. There were no big windows, either. Only slim planks carved just below the roof, and there was cardboard covering them anyways.
I was creeped out to the max, needless to say, and sped up my walk as fast as I could without tripping. My footsteps echoed in the walkway from the puddles and pavement alike, but those sounds were drowned out when the double doors were both slammed open at the same time, sending a yellow stream of light against the ground and wall, and a second later, a man flying out.
He was obviously thrust out of the building by a pretty big force, because he was airborne across the entire alley, and crumpled against the brick wall opposite the warehouse. All of this unfolded not five feet away from me- I hadn't even walked by the doors yet. Instead, I froze.
"Please," the man, not a day over forty, stuttered. He covered his forehead with his arm, as if he were staring into the sun. He was seeing something I wasn't, beyond the doors inside the building. He didn't even notice my shadow towering over him. "No-"
Before I could say anything, help the man or run in the other direction, a loud engine whirred to life somewhere, only in seconds. But it sounded like an eternity of whatever thing behind the door was gearing up for.
I shouldn't be here. This was wrong. Very wrong.
I couldn't peel my eyes off the scene in front of me- everything was happening in slow motion, ten times slower than it should have been. A violet glow began to mix with the yellow light illuminating the alley, and a blast shortly followed as something that resembled a stream of electricity and wisps of something laced within that danced through the air, striking the collapsed man in an attosecond, and something broke inside of me as I watched the scene unfold. The man jolted as the violet wisps crackled around him, suffocating him and slicing him at the edges, drawing blood. A moment later, he went limp. He didn't even scream.
I didn't think. I stopped doing that altogether. But what I did next was incredibly stupid, and I could only thank the empath inside of me for it. Without even knowing what was behind the doors, probably still there, looming on the scene, I had to dash towards the man. I didn't just watch someone die. I didn't want to believe I did, either.
I made a point to avoid the puddles around me now, too. It was, most likely, warehouse residue, but miniscule lakes of a black- tar like substance littered the ground between the man and I. He had missed landing in it, only a mild victory for him- but as I hopscotched my way over to him, and placed two fingers on his neck, the absence of a heartbeat confirmed what I denied to already know. He was dead.
My hand started to shake as I pulled it away from his throat. This was a murder scene. Was this the mafia? I questioned what, exactly, my definition of the mafia was. Did they work in large abandoned warehouses at midnight? Did they kill people in cold blood?
Whatever it was, I didn't want to stay to find out. I wasn't sure what way was the shortest out of the alley, but I planned to outrun whatever lurked in that warehouse. My heart leapt when a shadow began to emerge from the doors, creeping along the crumbling pavement, over the body, and up the apartment wall.
I turned on my heel and ran faster than the speed of light, away from the figureless monster coming from the building. The exit was a solid minute's run from where I was, but I was sure I could make it.
But I had to know what was chasing me- it most definitely knew I was here, especially after nearing the man. I didn't stop running, but I craned my neck like an owl just to see my predator. Unfortunately, I didn't even catch a glimpse of whatever, or whoever, it was, as my foot landed deeper than I thought on the downside of a hump in the pavement, rolling my ankle down the concrete.
I fell to the ground in a rough stumble, and landed with an odd splash. I rolled onto my side, swearing. My ankle hurt like hell. And my knees both stung like a real bitch. My head pounded. On top of all this, I was soaked.
Not from the rain. But coating my legs, my backside, my hands, and splattered over my chest and face, was the undesirable tar-like shit that I had already declared as warehouse residue and pledged to avoid.
"Mother of fuck," I shot at myself, climbing up, only to fall on my knees once again, which hurt. Carefully, I grasped the flat surface of the wall with my hand, using it as a level to pull myself up. I groaned, and leaned my head against the rough brick of the apartments. I shut my eyes, pressing my lids together hard until the world around me stopped spinning. Or maybe it was my head that was spinning, like a wheel let free down a hill. Either way, I wished for it to stop.
The only other thing I could feel was a burning sensation that ate at my skin. Panicked, I wiped the black liquid from my face with the dry patch of fabric at the back of my white blouse sleeve. Everywhere it touched my skin, it was like a flame that tore through my flesh. I could feel it on my hands, and on my back, not protected by my top's cotton. My shirt must have been ripped on the other side, and when I tried to get it off with my hands, it did practically nothing but mix them both.
My actions were interrupted by the disturbing clanking coming from my right, where the double doors stood, politely open. My eyes were painfully zooming things in and out of focus, and my ears were like hollow tunnels in my head. Everything around me was happening times a hundred, and it was next to impossible to interpret anything. Anything but the near robotic sound, taking slow clunking steps out of the warehouse towards me, each step bringing my death closer and closer.
"Well," a scratchy voice hissed, echoing a million times in my ears. "You shouldn't be here, should you, buttercup?"
I turned my eyes into the direction of the man's horrifyingly vacant voice. My eyes were on a slant, adjacent to the wall I leaned upon, but my crooked view did this man no mercy. First of all, he was wearing a metal jumpsuit, complete with silver transformer shoes, and a wider build. His chest and legs were exposed to air, but his arms were covered in the same metal, which also served as a mask around his face. All I could do was have my eyes meet his, empty and green. His robot suit, fantasy garment, whatever you want to call it, was either incomplete, or this guy was really ballsy and not to mention, confident. But the trademark of it all were the two gigantic metal wings that were neatly folded behind him, waiting to be used.
Oh. He was also carrying the largest gun I have ever seen in my life.
"I hate to do this," he continued, taking slow steps towards me, gearing up his gun. Likewise, for every step he took, I took one back. "But you really were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"No," I croaked, my voice wobbling. His words pierced into my soul. This was it. Goodbye, Madison, goodbye, Nitara, goodbye, my faithful cat Chewie. Hello, the end of the line.
"Yes," he said, his voice hushed. It should only have been a whisper, and he was a good ways away from me. But I heard him loud and clear.
I didn't want this to be it for me. Everything I have ever known flashed in front of my eyes. My friends, my family- maybe I could see Mom and Dad again.
Or maybe I could die trying to live.
* * *
ta daaa!! here is the prelude! might as well start with some action am i right?
anyway, the prelude is all i'll have up until july. i'll try to update every sunday along w my other books, since i'll finally have like plenty of time in the summer to write once exams are over. :)
thanks for reading xx
//15.06.19
//wc: 2523