Survival of the Fittest

The cloaked figure

                                                                                                Lyra

It was the third time I'd seen him that week; the man, covered with a dark cloak, creeping along darkened alley ways as if stalking someone.

He unnerved me.

As I hurried past him I felt his eyes burning into the back of my head, I kept walking. Not only was I keen to see my best friend, Luke, but I wanted to tell him about the man. For some reason, I didn't feel that my parents would believe me if I told them I kept seeing a cloaked figure in alleys. I'd already commented that he was creepy, and my father had looked at me funnily and asked who I was talking about. He'd looked straight through the man! I knew he was there though. When I'd spoken he had looked at me, and he winked at me when my father looked straight through him.

Once I rounded the corner and the man was out of sight, I let out a sigh of relief: Cursing myself for being so scared.

I composed myself then walked up to Luke's house in a dignified matter. I knocked on the door, it flew open.

"Oh, hi Lyra! Luke's upstairs," said Millie, Luke's younger sister. Millie was eight and had a cute little face with big round brown eyes and little pigtails. I smiled, thanking her I went upstairs. I loved Millie; she seemed to think I was some kind of hero. Luke had a smallish sized house with a big old fashioned fireplace in the living room. The staircase was carpeted in a creamy green colour which contrasted with the deep crimson coloured carpet in Luke's room.

As I trudged up the stairs, Luke's father, Carl, called down to Millie "Who is it Mills?" Mills was Millie's nickname, and somehow it suited her. "It's Lyra daddy," she called up, then she asked "can I go play in the garden?" Mills had found her own den; a hollow bit of a tree trunk, and she loved spending time in it.

I reached Luke's room, Knocking once I entered; Luke sat at a surprisingly clean desk compared to the rest of his room, which looked like a bomb had gone off in it. Clothes were strewn across his bed, and homework scattered the floor.

"I was wondering when you were coming." He stated looking up from a surprisingly good drawing of the man I'd seen in the alley.

"You can see him too?" I asked, not sure what to think. He nodded looking confused.

"My dad looked straight through him."

"Then how come we see him?"

"A bit creepy isn't it?"

"Yeah."

He smiled, "Luke, why are you smiling?" I questioned in a resigned tone, he always did that.

"You answered a question with a question, again."

"Don't start that again!" I said in exasperation.

"As you wish, Madame," He joked, his face trembling from suppressed laughter as I sighed in exasperation.

Luke was thirteen, like me. He had dirty blond hair, which he wore in a ruffled mess; his greeny-brown eyes twinkled as I stuck my middle finger up at him, then he returned the favour. Luke was about five inches taller than me, but only a couple of months older. We'd been best friends from day one and had always been inseparable. Sometimes our parents joked that they may as well start preparing our wedding, at which point we'd both pretend to be sick, Luke really out doing himself with the sound effects.

He really was quite cute, and many girls in our year had a crush on him and were therefore jealous of me. I, however, felt that we were much too young for dating, but the "couples" in our year didn't agree with my logic. If Luke had ever had a crush on me, he'd certainly never said so.

However just because I felt we were too young to date, didn't mean that in future we definitely wouldn't, but at that time there was no chance.

I asked Luke where he'd seen the cloaked man and he told me that he'd seen the man down an alley way near our school.

I then told Luke that I'd seen him near his house, and we decided to go and see if he was still there. Curiosity getting the better of us. After Luke told his dad that we were going to the park Luke grabbed his pocket knife and we headed to the alley way.

We both gripped our pocket knives tightly, because we knew that the man was potentially dangerous, and we wanted to be on the careful side. Now I look back, it wasn't the best course of action we could have taken, but our only options were to leave him be or see who he was, we couldn't tell the police about him because they might not be able to see him, like my dad couldn't. So we took the dangerous course of action.

As we approached the alley we saw a girl of fourteen enter. We sped up to warn her about the man, for all we knew he could've been a criminal. However just as we reached the alley we heard something that chilled our bones; a girl's scream echoed from the alley. We glanced at each other and I was reassured to see that Luke had also heard the scream and that I wasn't going mad. However my reassurance only lasted a moment and before I knew it we were both dashing down the alley with our pocket knives out. We turned a corner and there in front of us was the man, only this time he was not alone; he held the girl in his arms, while he pressed a knife to her neck.

From what I could see of his face from under the hood he seemed pale, with an angular jawbone and a sense of agelessness seemed to radiate off him. His eyes were deep green, so dark they seemed to absorb the light. A lock of dark hair fell into his eye and he flicked his head in an attempt to get rid of it, I saw it only for a second but that was enough, I would never forget it; from his right eyebrow to the bottom of his ear ran a long jagged scar.

When he saw us he smiled gesturing at us to put our knives away, we did. He then grinned again mouthing "You're next." And without a backwards glance he threw his cloak over the girl and disappeared round a corner.

We stood dumbstruck for a moment then raced round the corner, but he was gone, along with the girl.

Feeling numb, I heard the words "You're next" echo in my brain.

"You're next."

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