Estranged - Prologue

PROLOGUE

The lonely streets were silent save for the heavy panting of a lone man. He staggered past an array of closed shops, the shutters all down as though they were intentionally keeping him out. There was no where for him to run but straight ahead – towards an impending doom.

Any exasperated cry the man could muster from his breathless state did little to penetrate the cloak of night around him. He was not the conventional defeatist and he knew that he should be able to attempt to defend himself should the situation call for it, but there was something so much more sinister about his assailant this time. A gut feeling in his stomach told him he was dealing with an adversary that he should be fearful of; it was one that he could not possibly put up a fight against.

Why this assailant was after him he did not know. He had just left the club from one of his routine fortnightly parties all inebriated and tipsy, barely making any sense of his direction. Turning away from the hoards of people leaving in the other direction, he had only covered a few metres on a pavement circumventing the park when a sudden hustle in the bushes around alerted him to a foreign presence. Then, almost before he could react, there was an excruciating pain in his right thigh as something was embedded deep in the flesh. It was immediately followed by a pervasive numbing sensation and before he had known it, he found himself staggering away as quickly as he could.

It had happened just as quickly as it passed. The man did not have a clue how the attack had been carried out so invisibly. All he knew was that the assailant's intentions were far from harmless.

By now, his jeans were stained in a crimson red as he continued to bleed. The numbing sensation was increasingly crippling, almost completely impeding his ability to assess the situation or get a grip of himself. All he knew was to follow his instincts – one that was demanding him to run.

The man turned into a smaller alley in hopes that he had lost his assailant. He no longer had the energy to keep up the pace as he collapsed onto the ground and there was a clutter of cans around him. The sound of metal clunking against the concrete ground reverberated through the alley, triggering a sense of panic in him once again.

'One...two...three...four...' the man tried to compose himself by counting slowly in between long and deep pants. He backed into the alley in steady, gradual steps, with his front facing the entrance on full alert. In such a narrow place, nobody could possibly approach him without being noticed.

The searing pain in his leg drew his attention back to the wound again. Upon closer examination he realised that there appeared to be a needle protruding from the wound pierced through his jeans. Any attempt to remove it resulted in such unbearable pain that the man could almost faint of shock.

Fortunately, the surge of fear had shaken him out of his intoxicated state. The numbing had also begun to fade from his body. However, an overwhelming fatigue set in from the stress he had exerted on his weakened limbs.

'Be calm. There is no reason anybody might want to attack you. I am sure you will make it out of this. Everything will be just fine.' He tried to reassure himself, but it was for naught.

Despite having already cleared some distance from the entrance of the alley, his instincts were screaming that it was not enough.

He took another step back.

And another.

Yet another, but then his footing hit something solid and elastic. He quickly spun around, coming face to face with a chain link fence. Apparently the alley had led to a dead end. The criss-crossed wires running all over the fencing brandished razor sharp barbs. It was clear that whoever had put the fence in place had no intention of letting any miscreants climb over it.

The man's feelings of helplessness continued to perpetuate as the realisation dawned on him that if he were to be discovered, he had nowhere to run. Fate was clearly done toying with him and wanted to get to business.

Grabbing an empty glass bottle from the ground and smashing it against the wall to form a makeshift weapon, he braced himself for the assailant.

Moments passed, but nothing seemed to happen. Heaving a sigh of relief, the man dropped the bottle on the ground.

Before he could do anything else, however, two hands suddenly shot out from the holes of the wired fencing behind him and clasped around his neck, pulling his head back towards the fence in an aggressive thrust. The hands separated and retracted to the other side of the fence, wrapping a thin wire around his neck which bound his head to the fence.

The wire brutally constricted his neck, nearly crushing his throat. The man struggled in response, but his flailing arms only caused the razor sharp barbs in the fence to lacerate his skin and they began to bleed too.

"It is terrifying not to have a clue who I am, isn't it? Blindness is a weakness of the human heart. It is in blindness that humans start to speculate. They speculate to try to apprehend a tangible threat, then contend themselves by denying its presence. This taps on their deepest fears, breaking them down into a frenzied and cowardly heap. And once blindness has enslaved another human in its illusion, he can no longer focus on guarding himself from the threat that is really there."

The voice was that of a young girl, but in a tone so vile and sadistic that it sounded surreal. There was a clear tinge of excitement in it; the assailant was enjoying herself immensely. It sounded, however, far too confident, delighted, experienced and cold-hearted to belong to someone so innocent and young.

The man had little time to ponder over his incredulity though as without any supply of oxygen his thought processes were quickly shutting down. This was the end for him.

“Well, this is where we part. Farewell.”

His head tilted up as his nerve senses collapsed and the pain in his body began to fade.

“Oh yeah, I'm Gwendolyn. Nice to meet you.”

Her last words never registered in his brain.

As the assailant released her grip on the wire around his neck, the lifeless body slumped to the ground. She then left the scene as unexpectedly as she had entered. A murder had been committed that night.