Second Story: In The Nick of Time

Chapter 1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

6 November 2021

Beep, beep, beep

The sound of the alarm rang noisily in the early cold morning. A hand reached out to the digital alarm clock slowly and turned it off promptly. The room was quiet again.

A girl slowly got up from her bed and made her way to the bathroom while still in her pyjamas. It was exactly 6:30 am, but the winter sky had not brightened up at all. The starry sky over the sleepy city was imposing and mysterious. It was indeed a miracle to be able to see so many stars in this city, given how usually polluted the air was. But the girl was in no mood for stargazing, she could not even bother waking up if it were not for her worrywart mother.

Her name was Mai, and she was in class 11A12 of 'A' High School in Hanoi. She was beautiful and smart such that she was rightly one of the Four Princesses of 'A' High. Unlike the other three in the senior year who were rather showy and conspicuous, her allure was considered simple and cute by her schoolmates. She was well-liked by underclassmen, upperclassmen, and those in the same year. 'Princess of the Commoners', she was nicknamed because her class was not a specialised one, but a general curriculum class.

Descending the stairs slowly towards the dining room, the sleepy beauty was under the impression that she was the earliest in the household, but she was wrong: the whole family had already woken up and sat at the dining table.

Her mother saw Mai and told her to come over and have breakfast. It was French toast with orange juice. The mother was a successful businesswoman: she was the director of an electronics company that just set up shop in Hanoi. She scarfed down her breakfast and frantically left the dining room to get dressed for work. Her father was an official of the Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi; her elder sister was a university sophomore who was studying journalism.

Her father was silently reading the morning newspapers while her sister was watching the morning news on the television. Some background noise was welcome in order to break the silence, thought Mai. Then an article in the newspapers caught her eye. She saw a photograph of a person who she believed was familiar to her.

"Dad, could you lend me your papers?" asked Mai. "I want to read an article."

"Alright," replied her father, handing the newspapers to her.

The article she read went as thus:

"Trần Đức Hoàng, 17 years old, was found dead on 1 October 2021 in Long Biên District. The body was found beside Red River (1) at 8:53 pm by two construction workers working nearby. The victim was a student of 'A' High School. The police deemed this case murder and are still investigating for clues leading them to the elusive murderer. The murderer is believed to be a man whose age ranges in between the late 20s to the early 50s. It is still unclear if the murderer is the same one who had been brutally killing schoolgirls for the past three weeks in Hanoi."

As she finished reading this, she instantaneously stood up and ran to the bathroom. Locking herself up inside, she cried loudly. That was the article of the murder of her dead boyfriend. On the day he was killed, he had promised to take her on a date. But that was never to come.

He had left so suddenly such that a void was created within Mai's heart. She was devastated. Lost. Crushed. The teachers and students of 12A1 and some of the other classes came to his funeral to pay respects. Mai stayed at home for a whole week following the case, touching neither her food nor drink that her mother brought to her room. Her family and friends tried their best to console her through this loss, but to no avail.