Blinding light.

Penelope Flynn had been picking up a soda and some peanuts from the gas station on her way to class. It was supposed to be a quick trip for some snacks before her Differential Equations final, but now the red-haired twenty-two-year-old couldn’t see because of a light so bright that it burned even through closed eyelids.

As soon as the light dimmed, she opened her eyes and realized she wasn’t in the gas station anymore.

She was outside, with hundreds of people around her. Hundreds of voices assaulted her ears all at once. Her heart sped up, pounding against her chest as her mind demanded an answer to the torrent of questions the voices were asking all at once.

Where are we? What happened? Who are all these people?

Penelope pushed those questions out of her mind because there was another one that was taking precedence.

How do I get out of the crowd???

She was near the center of the crowd that was boxed in by three dull concrete buildings and a fourth that was nothing but rubble and smoke. Her eyes spotted the alley streets at the corners, but there were too many people to get through.

An impact on her left side jarred her back to reality.

“Hey!” Snarled a large man with a tattoo of a dragon climbing up his arm. He turned around to glare at her. “Watch where you’re going!”

He bumped into me!

Penelope wanted to tell him that she hadn’t moved, but he was almost six feet tall. That gave him eight inches on her five-foot-four frame, and he was easily twice her weight. She couldn’t look directly into the raging brown eyes above the sneer for more than a moment, so she focused on his nose instead.

“Sorry.” Her adrenaline kicked in before he could reply, and she dashed through the first opening she saw. The hole on her right didn’t last long, as the crowd closed in around her, knocking her off balance and cutting off any easy escape. The volume of the crowd escalated around her, once again drowning her thoughts.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

“FIGHT!”

“STOP IT!”

“MOVE!”

Fists started flying to her left. The crowd bunched up to get away from the brawl, knocking over some bystanders in the rush.

Penelope reached to help a fallen woman up, but she was still holding the soda and peanuts that she hadn’t paid for in either hand. By the time she switched the bag of peanuts into her right hand with the soda, the crowd had pushed her out of sight of the brunette on the pavement.

To make herself smaller, Penelope scrunched her arms in front of her, burying her elbows in her stomach. Another fight broke out, and there were more arguments than she could keep track of. Her head was buzzing, and her lungs felt like she was breathing ice by the time she worked her way to the edge.

Breaking free of the crowd, she released a breath that she hadn’t realized that she’d been holding. Putting what distance she could between herself and the crowd, she finally sank to the ground with her back against the cold, rough concrete of one of the buildings lining the square.

Huh, I thought it’d be warm.

Penelope put down her items, the only things that she owned, as she closed her eyes and focused on calming her pulse. After a minute of breathing, she was able to reach a more manageable rate.

The sky overhead looked overcast, but instead of clouds, there was an oily bubble above her. The rays of sunlight visible to her right refracted into random rainbows that flashed across the surface. They were mesmerizing to look at, but she would have to stare at them some other time. Right now, her focus was on where she was, and the most apparent thing about her current location was that it wasn’t Arkansas.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

A minty scent danced on the gentle breeze, at a level that she’d only smelled before at flower shops. She couldn't hear any other noises than the people in front of her, which was something that she would have expected from a city with buildings like the one she was propped against.

The stimuli threatened to overwhelm her; she needed to calm her reeling mind. Numbers were always how she grounded herself. A simple calculation could give her an idea of the number of people in the crowd. She just needed a frame of reference, so she turned her focus towards the buildings across the plaza.

The buildings are six windows wide and two windows tall. Except the middle two, and those are three, but that doesn’t matter for the length. Anyway, assuming each window is to a room that’s ten feet wide, that’s sixty feet. There were about six square feet around me when I could see again, which means there are—

“Six hundred people.” A male voice finished the thought she had been about to announce.

Penelope’s eyes widened as she looked up at the man in front of her.

He stood with a sense of authority, like he knew exactly what was going on. He was tall and wearing jeans and a tight shirt that advertised just how fit he was. The blond man smiled at her.

“That’s—”

“What you were about to say.” His blue eyes sparkled as he held out his hand to help her stand. “Every time, it’s so adorable.”

Penelope started to take his hand, then stood on her own. The man in front of her was boxing her into the wall and looming over her, but she didn’t feel like she was in danger.

What did he mean ‘every time’? And why is he acting like he knows me? I’ve never seen him before!

“Hey.” The stranger grabbed her arm and pulled her close to him.

Penelope was as stunned as she was confused. Her body should have been screaming for her to break free and run, yet it was leaning into the hug, taking confused comfort in the gentle embrace.

GREETINGS HUMANS!

The upper half of a man with blue skin appeared above the ruins of the entire northern side. His piercing black eyes looked down at everyone in the square.

Penelope shifted to look around the stranger’s chest up at the image of the pointy-eared man. The blond man let her go so she could see better.

“Ugh, I can’t listen to this again.” The stranger pinched his brow. “Pea, I hate to do this to you…”

Hearing her childhood nickname froze Penelope in place. No one had called her that in over a decade.

He dug around in his right pants pocket, then pulled out an index card covered in a faint glow.

She tightened as he pushed her against the wall.

“I just can’t do this anymore.” He shoved the card against her collarbone.

Sparks ran over her body as the card melted through her green shirt and buried itself under her skin.

“What?”

“Shh…” He put a finger on her lips. “I hope you can figure this out.” Sorrow filled his blue eyes. “I really think you’re the one. I really do. I just wish I could see you do it.” He moved his hand up from her neck to cup her cheek.

Penelope’s pulse accelerated so fast her heart felt like it was hitting against her ribcage. She felt the tingle when their lips touched all the way to her toes.

She couldn’t pull away. That electricity locked her feet in place and kept her from moving. A complete stranger was kissing her with more passion than she’d ever felt from any boyfriend, but she still didn’t know his name. Her mind screamed for answers while her body melted into it like they had done this thousands of times.

Her lips weren’t ready for the kiss to end as he pulled away. She was about to say something when she noticed the tears gathering in his eyes. His face was too sad for something that had felt so confusingly amazing.

“I’m sorry to do this to you. Just…” A tear rolled down his cheek. “This is so wrong, but..." More tears followed the first. “This is a horrible way to say goodbye…”

“Wha—”

A sharp pain silenced her vocal cords. Penelope grabbed her neck with both hands and felt the warm liquid running over her fingers.The knife in his hands with her blood running off of the tip told her everything that she needed to know about what had just happened, but her mouth couldn’t form the words to ask why.

Black spots crept across her vision, but she could still see well enough to watch the weapon fall to the concrete. The warmth drained from her body, but she could still feel his arms as he caught her and pulled her into his lap as she fell.

She couldn’t see her killer, but she could feel tears hitting the top of her head. His gentle touch was so wrong compared to what he’d just done. Yet she wasn’t panicking as she stared back at the rainbows she had wanted to examine more in the future. A future it seemed she would no longer have.

As Penelope lost consciousness, she heard her killer’s broken voice utter three words before she died.

“I love you.”