Children on Scene of Bloodiest Serial Killings in a Decade

Chapter One

"The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists." - Charles Dickens

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'Murder.'

Oscar had found himself lost in a maze. Or, was it a labyrinth? He considered the differences between them. By definition, a maze is a complex branching puzzle and is structured with multiple entrances and exits. A labyrinth, on the other hand, has only one entrance and one exit. Yes, it was definitely a maze. For some unknown reason the word "labyrinth" sounded far more complex, even fearful, but "maze" sounded almost childish to him. However, the situation he had found himself in was anything but childish.

Oscar was a boy of intense, unrelenting intelligence. It was the sort that made others feel insignificant in its presence. The sort that cannot resist keep proving itself over and over again, especially when met with someone who had not yet witnessed its power. 

It certainly wasn't only his cleverness, but also his arrogance, that made Oscar confrontational. As much as the boy revelled in a chance to deconstruct another person (figuratively or literally) he seldom took the chance to do so with himself, whether it was through fear of the truth, or, perhaps he was already aware of his over-confidence.

He did, however, enjoy getting lost within the complex maze of his mind. Often this maze took the form of a crime story, preferably real. As much as Oscar willed the maze to become a labyrinth, he had learned in his fifteen years that you cannot force a simple solution out of a multi-faceted problem. Especially when he entered those thoughts from different entrances, taking different angles, he could not expect there to also be only one way out. Crime was not mathematics, so he believed, he did not think of murders as calculated or clever. More often than not, they were creative, slick, misleading and the successful ones always contained some element of luck. Or, so he believed.

In his own life, Oscar had not had such luck. 

'Murder!'

He gasped as he snapped up and everything kicked into gear at once. His eyes focussed to let him see his surroundings in full razor-sharp, 3D vision. His brain whirled to the present time and he was confronted with the scene in front of him. A most chilling scene it was. 

The lunch hall.

'It's murder I'm certain of it!' screamed Katy Brown. She stood up amongst a crowd of children of all ages eagerly crowding in towards the television, as if she were a street performer attracting a crowd. They looked up at her with bewilderment. 

'Come on Katy, what would a murderer be doin' round these parts? This is the nice bit of town, ain't it? And the police said it could easily be suicide.' replied a small, brown-haired boy from behind her, no older than twelve. 

'Anything can happen anywhere if someone is wantin' it to badly enough!' Another boy who was newly arrived stood up at the front of the circle, closest to Oscar, and said in a long drawn out in a pretentious air:

'Well, I personally don't think such a thing is likely to happen here. Let's be realistic, this is the West End. I reckon if it's good enough for Lord Baitstone to live round the corner from here, it's good enough to keep that sort of folk out.'

'That may be true newbie, but all I say is: it never managed to keep us out,' an authoritative voice smoothed over the crowd from the back of the room. Some turned and expected to see a teacher, or at least an adult, but instead what they saw was an eighteen year old boy/man sitting relaxed on the top table with one foot propped up beside him, looking entirely relaxed. His name was Chett. Born in... Second name... Parents... This information was blank on his profile. He was Indian by appearance, but his cockney accent confessed that he was raised in London. He was surrounded by a gang of older kids. One of the girls, known for drugging and slitting her parents' fingers open one by one whilst they were unconscious before she got here, swung her keys around her finger like a pistol. She smiled sweetly and looked out at the children's faces, a mixture of intrigue and fear. She looked like she could smell fear.