Hidden In The Shadows

3. Murdered Promises

Stumbling back to the line, I wiped the tear off my cheek, swallowed hard and put my brave face on. A-girl-had-been-killed? My mind was unable to comprehend what I had the pleasure of witnessing.

Everyone was staring now and eventually a teacher had to come out and shout at everyone to leave the cafeteria and go back to lessons.

"EVERYONE BACK NOW!!" He screamed, yet one girl still managed to push through and began wailing at the sight of the corpse- before she saw the corpse actually.
"JASMIN. JASMIN. JASMIN HOW DARE YOU LEAVE ME LIKE THIS!" She was shouting at the top of her lungs while tears were flooding out of her eyes. I assumed this was the best friend.
She had to be dragged- kicking and screaming- out of the room by police who had arrived to investigate this death and look for clues on the dead body. I heard them whisper though "this is a professional job and whoever did it was on the inside." This struck terror into my soul even more. There was a murderer on the loose in our college.

The rest of the day after registering was filled with introductions by the principal explaining how good the college is by showing off students exam results from previous years and countless ice breakers in form and in every other lesson. I didn't mind that though, I was most certainly not in the mood to work on the first day and especially not after seeing a lifeless, bloody corpse this morning.

Speaking of the corpse: none of the teachers mentioned anything about that to us in presentations or lessons. They were just smiling along like nothing was wrong, almost like they were in denial.

Before long it was home time and I rushed out of the college, not even waiting to say goodbye to some friends I had made during the ice breakers and the people who had come from the same high school as me. It was as though I was a prisoner being let out of jail. I smiled at how ironic that thought was and then the image of the corpse lept back into my mind.
"There's definitely someone who deserves to be in jail." I whispered to myself.

"What was that? Clumsy and now talking to yourself as well."
I jumped in shock at the voice and then looked behind me cautiously. It was Josh the guy I had bumped into earlier.

"Oh I wasn't talking to myself, simply thinking out loud."
"Well keep those thoughts to yourself." He said while smiling a mischevious smile.
"I can do what I like." I replied lowering my voice to add intimidation to my tone.
"Okay wow I was just saying. Also, you never really apologised for denting my back with your nose."
"Petty much? Okay sorry."
He smiled back and then turned into what looked like an alley way, but ended up being a dimly lit street.

"Wow he didn't even say bye. People are weird." I thought to myself and then turned onto my street, reached my door and unlocked it with my key.

I could tell something was wrong. No one was rushing about the house or screaming at each other. It was deadly silent with just a few whispers cutting the silence like a knife.

"You should really tell her you know." I heard my father's voice say. I knew they were talking about me. I listened closer, but didn't realise the shoe that was in front of me. I took a few steps towards the door and BANG! I facepalmed the floor. The whispers stopped and my parents rushed out of the living room to see a nervous looking me face-down on the floor. They laughed a little, but ended up being more of a sigh than amusement.
"Amelle, we need to talk."

The words escaped my mother's lips and at that moment my life flashed before my eyes. I thought about everything I had done wrong, making my head spin around and around and around.
"AMELLE!" My dad screamed "sit down."

After a few seconds of silence which felt like hours, I blurted out "I didn't do it!" which caused my sister who was sitting across the room to burst out laughing. My mum raised her hand and all laughter stopped altogether.