Lowlighters: A Text From Your Dark Side [Teaser]

1% | I'm A Villain

What do you feel before a murder?

A tide of emotions rises in her.

The waves hit her in the rhythm of the flickering street light that's lighting up the alley. The icy water engulfs her like the cold of the metal dumpster she's pressing her back against as she peeks around the corner.

Just a few seconds are left, and his dark figure will be standing there.

Sweat runs down her face and panic washes over her, but she has to keep calm. What do you feel? What are you supposed to feel? This isn't real. It can't be.

Her phone is vibrating inside her pocket; She pulls it out and the screen lights up with a message.

"Do you really think you can hide behind a dumpster?"

Elora tosses her phone aside. Her face loses its color as a painting dropped into water, then it disappears into her hands. There she lies now on the wet pavement, now not crouching anymore, but cowering.

For an instant, her sobbing is the only overtone to the chilly wind that whistles through the alley.

Her green eyes peek through her fingers at her phone. It's vibrating. Growling at her. Calling for her.

Elora flinches. Her phone's ringtone blares through the alley. She jerks her hand to the phone, the rough ground scratches her thin arm. Her fingers shiver as she unleashes a storm of taps on the screen. The ringtone fades.

But now, so engulfed in silence, she doesn't dare to breathe. She peeks around the dumpster. Her eyes are half-closed, fearing who might have heard her. But her only company was still the unsteady street light and the shadows staring back at her. She's still a petite, delicate girl in the dark of the rough Berlin night.

She shouldn't be here.

A voice comes out of the phone in her hand - What is happening?...

She knows she hung up!

Yet it sounds like the device itself was whispering to her and she can't help but hold it to her ear. And she regrets it instantly:

"You can't run from me."