Nine: Chapter Two



Tora Fossum

Day 01

City Sector 6, Daniel Collins Museum of Science

The tour of the museum was suddenly cut short when Jack Casanovic collapsed outside of the museum. Our principal, Dr. Graves, called the ambulance and we watched them carry him out on a stretcher and load him into the back of the stark white van before disappearing into the busy street.

After spending nearly 20 minutes trying to wake him up, and then another 10 for the ambulance people to finish picking him up and talking, we had to run immediately to the auditorium in the basement for the movie presentation.

The movie was long, and the speaker's voice was terrible boring. I had to slap myself awake at one point or another. Movie never really interested me, and despite the subject matter, this wa snot helping excite me in any way.

In the aisles, I instead focused on a woman who would lean down to the person at the edge of each row and whisper something, before popping back up a bit more frustrated looking than before.

She was very pretty, with baked caramel skin and short, impossibly curly brown hair. Her eyes were possibly the most striking part of her, an amber brown color that looked yellow in the light of the screen. She wore the simple volunteer's uniform, a dark blue pencil skirt and matching suit top, with a yellow bow tie to inish it all off.

There was something about her that wasn't right though.

She wasn't built like some wayward museum volunteer in the city. There was obviously no product in her hair, no makeup as far as she could see, and her eyes were not shielded by colorful contacts. She appeared clumsy in those wdge shoes, which were common for city goers, so what was wrong with her?

"Excuse me, Mister. I am looking for a...a Fossum?"

"Oh, you mean T? Yeah, hold on."

In front of me, Angela Dormier turn and waved her hand in my face.

"Tora, the lady wants you."

The lady in question, the bronze woman with gold eyes, came to the end of my aisle, leaning over one of my male classmates, who didn't seem to mind at all by the look of it.

"M-Miss Fossum, I h-have recieved call from your mother."

My heart stopped. Working in the station, I could only imagine what could have happened to her. If a criminal broke loose and mom was unarmed, then what if...

I shoved roughly past my two classmates and out of the aisle, following the woman to the employee door in the back. My hands were shaking and a thousand scenarios bolted through my head, a hundred different ways I could be losing my mom.

I stepped into the lounge, immediately looking around for a phone. The woman stayed behind to close the door and leaned against it, eyes downcast, facing me.

"Where's the phone?" I asked after thoroughly searching the kitchen. Her eyes shifted and closed before she looked up, back still pressed to the door.

"There's no service down here. We will have to go higher." I nodded and rushed to the other side of the room, expecting a flight of stairs or an elevator to the next lounge. Instead, I only found generic watery paintings of flowers and the cosmos.

I returned to the woman, arms crossed. "Please take me upstairs."

My hearts was thundering, and it was only after the woman raised her hand a slid a gold chain over and through the door's lock I realized she was not going to take me to call my mother.

My mother had never called.

I backed up and let out the most terrified, blood-curdling scream I could muster, something out of a cheesy Halloween movie.

The woman moved slowly, and I noticed she'd kicked off her shoes when we'd entered, revealing healed abrasions and marks. Her head lifted from the ground to reveal her eyes, clear and yellow, still filled with some sort of sadness. Regret. Apology.

"It's no use. He's prepared for you."

I screamed again, feeling tears at the corners of my eyes. I tripped over the back of my feet and fell into a red chair, beating my head against the tacky striped wallpaper. The world was spinning and blending, colors bleeding into each other, all except for the woman, who remained painfully sharp in contrast to the world around me.

I noticed her outfit was changing too, disappearing in a thick yet translucent mist. The navy blouse and ribbon were being replaced by a dark brown, almost leathery tunic. There was a golden belt around her waist, and I noticed the bottom of the tunic had been cut and carved into small rectangular chunks, something like ancient battle armor.

Her skirt was replaced by the tunic, and I noted a small pack on her leg, with the glean of a bronze knife protruding from opening.

She remained barefoot, and the scars on her feet seemed to glow and freshen, turning those old lacerations new again.

I tried to raise my arms and get up, but I felt like someone was pinning my wrists to the chair.

And as the woman with yellow eyes retrieved her knife and stepped back, I realized what she was.

She began to run, knife at the ready. By now it seemed like everything had melted into blackness, a product of my dizzyingly high heart rate and the concussion I probably had from the hard wall.

As the sweep of bronze slashed through my vision, I closed my eyes.

This really is no wayward city girl.

This is a hunter.