💡 Murder in the Moonlight

chapter one - burnt muffins

Crows fly overhead.

Six.

My eyes flash open. Where am I? I try to take in my surroundings as best as I can in the darkness; I am lying in... dirt. I push myself up to my feet, brushing the soil off my denim shorts. Bruised legs, scarred arms, foggy memory. I can't see anyone around me. The night has just arrived and the moon is full.

A voice echoes in the distance. Unfamiliar, masculine, searching for anybody else. Just like me. With no source of light but the moon above, I move towards the voice and meander through the darkness. Eventually, I stop at a pair of worn-out Converse. I glance up – the fading glimmer of two brown eyes stare back at me.

"Hello?" I murmur. He says nothing back and for a brief moment, I wonder if I've truly lost my mind and have started to see things. Unrecognised figures in the dark? Always a possibility. He smells of freshly baked muffins and I resist the urge to question it.

More footsteps behind him.

Heavy breathing.

His pupils constrict and I feel his slender figure begin to collapse. Immediately, I reach out to stop his fall. His body feels cold and frail. A wave of fear rushes through my limbs as I sense something from behind. Blood. There must be some sort of incision or stab wound. I lay him at my feet and place my hands on his neck.

No pulse.

No breath.

He's dead.

God, someone just died. In my arms. Taking quick, frightened breaths, I scan my surroundings. Clearly, whoever was just with us had ran away. My eyes catch the flicker of a crimson flame in the distance. I glance at his peacefully silent corpse one last time then run as fast as I physically can to the fire. One foot after the other. Don't think about the murder you just witnessed. You haven't even reported it yet!

My legs start to ache moments later and my vision goes blurry. So blurry that I fail to notice another person ahead on the path. Before I even know it, I've ran into someone – not nearly as slim as the boy I watched die just before – and I trip over his shoes. And now I'm face first in dirt. Again.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry! Clumsiness seems to be my thing tonight," I giggle nervously as I turn to stand up. He reaches out his hand, it's warm, and pulls me to my feet.

"Don't sweat it. It's ridiculously late and we're in a forest," he answers.

"I'm Indah, you?"

"Alab. Great to meet you, especially under these fantastic circumstances," he chuckles. I glance at his eyes, they're dark enough that not even the moonlight can point to a certain colour. But they still glimmer. I pause for a moment – this feels like déjà vu. Will he fall dead in my arms now?

That reminds me.

"Were you looking for someone perchance?" my tongue stumbles over each word.

"Yeah, I was. My friend Mateo said he'd go looking for firewood but he's been out for nearly an hour and we couldn't find him," his words are shaky as well. We?

"God. Mateo, was it?" Word vomit. I can feel it crawling up my throat. Alab squeezes the bottom of his beige, knitted sweater and looks down at his feet for a moment. Each of his breaths are shaky.

"Yeah," he barely musters an answer.

"Would he have happened to smell like muffins by any chance?" unlike Alab, my words are pouring out of my mouth far too fast to process. He wipes his nose with his sleeve before looking back at me.