Tranquility

Tranquility

         Tori pushed her blonde hair out of her face and over her ear, using her other hand to constantly refresh the Snapchat page. The night was getting late as her boyfriend had still yet to reply to her constant messages. She thought using social media as a scapegoat would possibly grab his attention without him realizing it; a trap of sorts. She uploaded a random picture of them she had saved in her phone from a boating trip they took a few summers ago and sent it to a select few people on her friends list, including him, hoping he would see it and she would receive the notification that he had opened the file.

         She kept up at this for about thirty minutes, still nothing. Her right hand twirled the vodka cranberry in her hand as she looked around the club. Bodies were gyrating to and fro to the hits of this ages' popular music. The LEDs and laser lights, accompanied by the gratuitous amount of fog lining the ground from the fog machine, gave a very surreal atmosphere, as if people were raving in the middle of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. Once again she looked down at her phone and refreshed it. No response.

         Tori promised herself she would avoid looking at her phone for at least five minutes before obsessing over it again. Those five minutes felt like absolute death to her as she tried to find something to occupy her mind. The club was filled with plenty of people of varying sizes and backgrounds. You had the short Asian guy who was phenomenal at breakdancing, the awkward middle Eastern guy in the corner with his group of creeper buddies, the buff high school Jocks who sat at the VIP section with all their "hoochie-mama" dates, the socially awkward girl who was forced to join by all her visually more attractive friends, the obnoxiously loud African American girls twerking in the center of the dance floor and who could forget the homosexual males who occupied the dance poles. Every stereotype was met tonight and Tori found it extremely hard to find which specific "clique" she fit in.

         "Finally," she thought to herself as the five minutes had passed.

         Without hesitation, she reached down to pick up her phone. In a heartbeat, her face was flushed red with anger as she realized that her phone had died. The number of times she refreshed the page must have amounted to glorious power usage, because she had fully charged her phone before leaving her house this evening. Trying to hold back tears, she gathered her things, dropped a $100 bill on the bar and walked out.

         As she made her way down the wet street, Tori struggled to keep herself upright. The amount of alcohol she had consumed while waiting for her boyfriend was beginning to take its toll on her. Aside from the rage she felt for being stood up tonight, the only other emotion she could muster was the emotion that comes with being drunk and ready to puke all over the sidewalk. Tori cursed herself for becoming so intoxicated and at the same time, praised herself for taking the time to at least look decent as she wobbled around the street.

         She wore black stilettos that matched her short black dress. Her ears filled with various pieces, including diamond-inlayed golden studs. Her neck was lined with beautiful golden jewelry, most notably a gold chain that hung lower than the other necklaces. The chain connected to a single silver locket, the only piece of her outfit that didn't immediately match the rest of her attire. Tori even had taken the time to straighten her hair, something she didn't do often unless it was desired of her boyfriend, which explains why she did so tonight. As she continued stumbling her way down the seemingly abandoned street, Tori tried to remind herself where she had last seen her BMW.

         In the midst of her remembrance, Tori felt the rush of bile coming up through her body and into her throat. She ran quickly into the nearest alley way, almost slipping on her heels. She didn't make it far before falling against a wall and vomiting all over the brick structure. The humidity in the air had all but kept Tori's hair perfectly straight as she threw it out of her face, taking a last couple of saliva shots at the corner that connecting the building to the street. After relieving her mouth of the disgusting residue that tainted her tongue, Tori tried to balance herself again.

         "This is the last time I ever do ANYTHING for this bastard," she cursed under her breath before feeling her throat constantly open and close in an attempt to gag the rest of the bile from her system.

         As Tori sniffed hard, returning the escaping mucus back to its cavern, she heard a noise. Looking to the direction of the sound, the darkness of the alleyway reached for her. Tori stood frozen as the darkness crept up closer and closer. She tried to scream, but her voice was muffled by hands covering her mouth. Her eyes were open with terror as she recognized the face and used all her might to tear the hand from her face.

         "God damnit, Jason! Where the hell were you?" Tori screamed as her boyfriend stood there with a confused look on his face, "The next time you tell me to meet you at a club, make a conscious effort to actually be there!"

         Jason stood there, a puzzled look on his face, "Tori, what are you talking about? I didn't tell you to meet me at any club."

         "What the hell are YOU talking about, Jason? You told me to fix my hair the way you like it, left me jewelry on the table and even had this dress completely laid out for me to wear tonight."

         "I did what?!"

         "Look Jason, I may be a little intoxicated, but I'm not fucking stupid, okay?" Tori's face was once again flustered red with anger as she looked her boyfriend in the eyes. It wasn't long until it actually struck her that he was being honest, "Jason, are you telling me really don't remember doing any of this?"

         "Tori, if I had told you those things, wouldn't you remember my voice giving the instructions?"

         "No, you sent the directions via text message once I got home from work this afternoon."

         "Tori . . . ," Jason's eyes grew wide with fright, "I lost my phone early this morning. I haven't seen it since I left it on the train this morning."

         The air became even darker as the couple felt the air become extremely chilly, cold even. With every breath, cold air escaped their lips and became visible in the night air.

         Tori was the first to break the silence, "Jason, what are you tal-?"

         Suddenly, in one swift motion, Jason was pulled into the darkness of the alley way. Tori was frozen trying to process what was going on. All she heard was the sounds of something being torn and shred apart, accompanied by the sounds of growling and crunching. By the time Tori could regain her consciousness, it was too late. What remained of her boyfriend's body was tossed with inhuman force out into the middle of the street. Tori's head followed the direction of Jason's body before finally mustering up enough energy to scream at the top of her lungs.

         She could not believe what was going on. Her mind couldn't wrap around everything that was happening, and even as she attempted to, her mouth was still open, screaming until her voice was replaced with nothing but more vomit on the curb. She crawled to Jason's corpse, tears streaming down her face and onto the pavement. She prayed to the heavenly Father above for help and in that instance, Tori felt a hand on her shoulder. This hand was warm though; full of life and comfort, opposite of the cool air that surrounded it.

         Tori turned her head slowly to face a charming face. He was a handsomely chiseled man with a small amount of scruff and slicked back brown hair. He wore a leather jacket over his black V-neck and deep blue jeans. She was awestruck by the amount of beauty that this man exuded, wanting to curse herself for even having these thoughts after what she had just witnessed. Tori wanted to kiss him and scream for help at the same time; she was completely under his spell. However gorgeous this man was though, he had two distinct flaws. First, his eyes were gray, as lifeless as the empty street around them. Secondly, his face was covered in crimson. Blood drips from his mouth and down his chin as he smiled at Tori.

         Frozen in his stare, Tori could do nothing but kneel over Jason's lifeless body as the strange man reached under her mess of blonde hair and removed the unique jewelry from around her neck. He tossed it all aside and kept the un-matching silver pendant, before smiling at her and licking his lips.

         "I'll be taking this back now. By the way, you look ravishing, love," the man smirked and before Tori knew what was happening, he was gone and she was left alone, her deceased boyfriends corpse lying at her knees.

         She couldn't cry. She couldn't scream. She couldn't move. All she could do was stare at the cold ground and smile, the image of those beautiful, lifeless gray eyes burning into her thoughts.