The sirens of cop cars had finally grown louder than the sound of the pouring rain slapping against the mud-caked ground outside. Interchanging red and blue light cast shadows off the crosses on the nearby gravestones and onto the marble walls of the mausoleum. The shadows danced on the gouged and time-weathered stone until they eventually stretched further and further, softly fading away in sync with the scream of the sirens.
A nearby streetlamp was the only source of light remaining, casting a hazy yellow glow across the iron gate leading out of the tomb as it squeaked outward on the rusted hinges. A single black leather gloved hand appeared threaded through the cage of the door's facade. Another loud protest from the rusty hinges and a slender shoulder, dressed in nothing but a flimsy, sheer, forest-green top appeared. Connected though goose-pimpled flesh, was the head of a young woman, her hair, slick with rain water, was mostly auburn with a shock of snow white to frame, and presently obscure her face.
A crack of lightning illuminated the sky above and was chased by a thunderclap loud enough to shake the earth. The woman in the doorway dropped to the ground and ducked back inside. Reared back and on all fours, she scuttled backward into a far-off corner and wrapped her long legs dressed in shredded black stockings with her pale arms thoroughly laced with red lashes. Her drenched hair fell into the small shelter between her chest and legs. She felt rooted to the spot pressed against the wall below a gaping window, helpless to stop the ceaseless onslaught of water pounding against her head and back. It was difficult to tell how much time had passed when she spotted a bright white searchlight playing at the shadows above her head. There was the faint sound of battery radios and shouted voices in the near distance.
The sharp snap of a twig breaking nearby made her jump slightly, and she opened her eyes, gray and sparkling in the dark - wide and slick with tears.
The sound of sloshing mud off boots bounced off the hallow walls of the tomb and soon a single hand wrapped around one of the bars of the iron gate. She could see through the bars, a wide man with a bright blue jacket and a glinting gold shield off his chest. The man peered through the bars in her direction and began to pull the gate open with an ear-splitting creak.
"Ricky!" A good ol' boy's voice cracked above the pour of the rain.
The moving door stopped, the fingers playing at the metal bars of the gate adjusted. "What?"
"Tommy and Joe had a sighting down at Jackson Ridge!"
The fingers pulled away from the door with a snap and a few heartbeats later there was the loud revving of an engine. The familiar shriek of a police siren suddenly punctured the air and quickly faded until it was no more.
It took a while for the woman's breathing to steady again and for her heart to fall back into place and out of their mouth. When it eventually did, she stood on crooked feet and trembling knees. Using the wall for support, she made her way back towards the door and peered through the cracks. Everything was again still and silent as the dead. She sucked in a lungful of air and pushed the door open the rest of the way. Standing now in the threshold of the home of the dead, artificial yellow light from the street lamp illuminated the finer features of her face. The mascara that ran deep trails down her face, the remnants of purple eyeshadow clung to the corners of her eyes and amethyst-colored lipstick smudged her bottom lip and parts of her cutting chin. Her wild eyes darted left and right along the time-worn cobblestone footpath of the graveyard.
A strange feeling in her gut, a feeling she hadn't acquired till recently, told her to head West towards the housing developments in Thistle Grove. She had only ever heard of Thistle Grove by name, but for some reason flashes of a quaint two-story house appeared in her mind's eyes when she thought about it. A house she knew she had spent the last few years living in with her dad and stepmom. Except... she didn't know her dad... and she didn't have a stepmom.
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Rogue Evolution
FanfictionA secret world exists within our own that only a few, a reluctant few, know about. The world of Mutants. They walk amongst us, talk like us, and many even look like us. However, within each of them they carry great powers beyond our understanding...
