Prelude:
Andriana was walking home from her job at the gas station on Fifth after her car wouldn’t start. She walked with anger in her stride and snow collecting in her hair. Her boots crunched against the ice breaking apart on the narrow sidewalk. After a while, she looked up to the street sign reflecting with the light of the rising full moon. She cursed, realizing she had taken a wrong turn.
“Great,” she groaned, “that’s just fantastic.”
She spun around and began walking back the way she came when she heard a man speaking under his breath. She stepped slowly to the alley opening up a few feet in front of her. The voice continued.
“…reached the occupied cities up north, but they have another platoon coming in from the West.”
“I thought they didn’t own the Western Territories” another man asked.
“They cut a deal with the government officials”
“Really?”
“My best guess.”
Andri crept forward. The ice crunching loudly under her feet. Her hand flew to her mouth.
“I told you I heard something,” the first man hissed.
“Stay here.”
“What are you-”
“Just stay here!”
A man in a large coat looked around the corner before Andri had a chance to turn and run. His eyes were shockingly blue and blonde hair poked out from his winter hat. She let out a yelp before whipping around and sprinting away. She heard as he let out a harsh laugh from the edge of the ally.
“Sorry lady,” he yelled after her, “but I can’t let you leave.”
Something pierced the air and hit Andri between the shoulder blades. She fell forward, the strength in her outstretched arms not enough to stop her from falling in a pile of plowed snow not twenty feet from the man and the ally. The other man still hidden in the ally gasped.
“No! You idiot!” he yelled.
“What?”
“It’s a full moon!”
Her vision faded. She didn’t even feel the bullet lodged deep into her chest, but the blood still fell. And her heart still stopped.
Chapter 1:
First there was nothing, no darkness, no thoughts, and no pain. And then everything. All at once. Fully and completely. It was like waking up out of a dream when Andri hadn’t even noticed she’d fallen asleep. Her heart was racing, but a sense of calm gripped her and she had no idea why. She looked around, she was standing in a street late at night. Then it all came rushing back to her. The man in the alley, her running away and falling, then nothing.
Suddenly she heard a scream from the side of the street. She pivoted to see a woman in a bright red scarf looking at a dark shape sitting on top of a pile of snow pushed against the sidewalk. When Andri stepped closer she could see the blond curls laid hectically across a puffy white jacket stained with red. Her eyes flew to her hands. The body in the snow, was her, but she also stood in the road. Her hands were solid, but held no light. No shadows fell on them, even though it was dark. Her heart began to race once more. The woman looking at the body and pulled a phone from her pocket, jabbing frantically at it before holding it up to her ear. She spoke shakily, but it sounded far away.
Andri walked towards the woman. She tried to call out to her but her voice caught in her throat as tears fell from her brown eyes. She stopped and tried to speak again.
“Hey,” her voice trembled with fear, “I’m right-”
Alarms began to sound in the distance. She winced. And the woman in the red scarf looked around in panic, the phone still pressed against her head. She nodded to the voice on the line and then ran down the street and disappeared behind a corner. She followed her, looking around the corner to see her run to one of the doors lining the streets and disappear inside.
That’s when Andri noticed that no one else stood in the dark with her. No one was coming home from work, no one was walking their dog, and no one was even sitting on the corner begging for change.
“Hello,” her voice broke, “can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”
She heard footsteps and looked to find men walking down the road in line from one sidewalk to the other. They wore riot gear and eyepieces, holding strange guns and walking slowly towards her. Thick white letters sprawled across their chests.
“OTD,” she read, “What the hell is that?”
A gun went off and narrowly missed Andri’s shoulder, she backed farther into the street adjacent to the one with the armed men. Her breath escaped her mouth in quick bursts, her heart pounded like a drum in her ears, and her head spun. They are shooting at me! I didn’t do anything! How can they see me when that lady couldn’t? Why am I standing here like an idiot when I should be running?
She took off in a sprint down the road, heading back towards the gas station. Her hair whipping in the winter air and her puffy coat squeaking as the fabric of her arms rubbed against her torso. Tears blew out of her brown eyes as soon as they came. She was too afraid to check if they were following her, and doubly afraid to stop. She took a left, then a right, then another left, slowing only slightly when she saw the familiar light of the gas station up ahead. She ran around to the back, ripped open the door to the girls bathroom that she knew she had forgotten to lock and scuttled inside, slamming the door behind her and turning the lock.
The tears had no chance to be blown away now, so they fell freely down her tan cheeks. She slid down the grubby door, the ball expanding in her throat and escaping in the form of violent sobs. She pulled her knees up to her face and hugged them against her as the sobs shook her shoulders. When she lifted her head she put her hands through her hair as she looked at the makeup that now stained her dark jeans.
The fluorescent light above the sink flickered and buzzed, casting white light across the tiny room so weak it barely reached the toilet in the corner. Andri let out shaky gasps heavy with pain. Then she heard footsteps, barely audible, right outside the door. She took in a sharp breath and quickly shuffled over to the other wall.
Every noise she made was infinitely louder as she kept her eyes glued to the door. Beads of sweat pushed their way onto her skin. She pushed herself against the wall like it would make her disappear. The footsteps got louder and louder until they were all she could hear. The handle rattled, she put her hand to her mouth.
“Over here,” a gruff voice yelled.
She stepped off from the wall, but she had nowhere to run.
They started pounding on the door, the sound equal in volume to her heart in her chest. It seemed like hours before they burst through, but it must have been just seconds.
The door flew against the wall, narrowly avoiding Andri.
They held up their guns and she held up her hands. With perfect clarity she heard them click as the triggers were pulled back.
She closed her eyes, shrinking into herself and letting out the beginnings of a scream.
Then she disappeared.
