God I hate waking up in the mornings! I looked in the mirror and shrugged at myself. "Oh well. I look like this everyday" I thought to myself. I had very tanned skin considering my mother was hispanic and my father was black. I had light brown curly hair that fell a little past my shoulders, big big deep brown eyes and an average figure for the height of 5'3. I didn't wear make up, even though almost every other 17 year old would, because I hated having to take it off before bed. Feeling extra lazy today I had simply thrown on a nice pair of jeans and a pink shirt that said, "Do you wanna taco bout it?" next to the image of a taco. Yupp...I'm bummin' it to school.
Everyone was going about their usual routines in life. Adults making the morning commute to work, kids trying to get to school, and babies waking their parents up for the 15th time that day. Things seemed pretty uneventful in the world. I was walking to school with my friend Courtney when I tripped on a bump in the sidewalk- again.
"Gosh Tatania, how many more times do you plan on tripping over your own feet before we get to school?"
"As many times as the universe makes me!" I replied with a bit of pep just to annoy her.
"How you can trip this often and not break a bone is beyond my power of imagination," Courtney dramatically sighed.
Laughing, I said back "Get over it will ya! We're almost to school!"
"Um...excuse me you two... did you see a little girl run by you?" Courtney and I both turned to look at the dishveiled man parked next to the side-walk.
"No, sorry. We haven't seen anyone," Courtney politely replied to the man. Personally, I did feel bad for him, but he was kind of creepy. So, I wanted to leave as quickly as possible.
"Please tell me if you see her! We were getting ready for school this morning and then the next thing I know...she's just...gone!" the man replied, rubbing his face in exhaustion. Courtney has always had a soft spot for kids. So, when I saw her get her customary frown, I knew we would be late for school. Sigh. She's so much nicer than I am, if I'm being honest.
"Do you have a picture of her? If you hand it to me I can ask other kids at school if anyone has seen her!" she told him as she started to walk towards the guy.
"As a matter of fact....I can do you one better," the creepy guy said, right as he grabbed ahold of Courtney and covered her mouth with a rag. I opened my mouth to scream as loud as I could, but I felt a rough hand cover my mouth. Struggling to free myself, I managed to kick the man holding me in the right knee, but couldn't achieve much else.
"Which one is the reginadefe? And which one is the human? Because I've had just about enough from this one!" my attacker snarled.
"Only one way to find out," said the man holdiing Courtney. Then his eyes took on a faraway look and he began to chant, "Reginam domina...ego audivii regina...regina es domina!" Almost immediately I felt a sharp pain in my eyes! I blinked repeated trying to make the pain go away. Looking over at Courtney, I saw her eyes widened in fear. But she wasn't looking at out attackers....she was looking at me. "What the hell?" I thought.
"Ahh!" yelled the man holding Courtney, "It seems it's your lucky day Eqni! You get to hold the reginadefe!" Glancing down at Courtney, who he still held in his arms, he whispered in a voice I could barely hear, "And that makes you...unimportant." The next thing he did...I will spend an eternity wishing I had never seen...
He took her head in his hands, winked at me, and then began to rip her limbs off. Courtney's screams mingled with my own. The last thing I felt before the world went black...was the pinch of a needle in my neck.
