Blue

Prologue

Her name was Ophelia and she was from a time when names meant very little. Her name meant 'help', but was perhaps associated more with the character from a Shakespeare play who went insane. These things were, of course, unknown to her, but not to the person whose trunk she was currently bouncing around in. Ophelia Jordan, chosen for a terrible fate simply because of the poetic nature of her name.

He had a name too, the driver of the car, but not one that she would ever know. The knowledge of a name was powerful; far too powerful a weapon for a victim to wield.

Ophelia's head smacked painfully against the trunk as the car hit another speed bump. He didn't slow down, didn't bother to warn her when one of these disruptions would crop up in the road, resulting in a particularly tender spot on her head growing and then blossoming in the span of the drive. She didn't know where they were going. She didn't even know where they had left from, really, in her panic. The last thing Ophelia remembered was walking to her car with her keys in hand, swinging like a pendulum, as she strolled to her car. Ah, the grocery store. That was right. She had been at the grocery store. Her car was parked at the front of the lot, right near the grocery doors. She had a small bag of groceries in her right hand, containing a pack of sugar wafers, three grapefruits, a small container of spinach, and a half pound of salmon. She wanted flounder but the man behind the counter had wiped his bloodstained hands on his apron before informing her they were all out. Come back next week, he had said. What had happened to her groceries? Her salmon? She could imagine it sprawled out on the ground, once brilliant orange and whole, now just a paste of smashed muscles.

Her face slammed painfully against the top of the car trunk again, finally breaking the skin. She couldn't wipe her face. Her hands were tied behind her back and there was no way for her to maneuver them to the trickle of blood that was falling into her eye. She felt dizzy. She didn't even know what kind of car she was in. If she tried to push at the wall in her memory, the one that circled the area around walking to her car and waking up in this one, a crippling headache would split through her mind.

Was it night or day?

The car drove on, throwing her against all four sides of the trunk, until it finally slowed to a stop. She heard the door slam and didn't even have time to start to feel the beginning shivers of fear before the trunk was wrenched open, spilling moonlight onto her face. The light was white and cold and so bright that she suddenly felt tears well up in her eyes, tears that started as pain, but were so imbued with panic that they turned into a torrent of water and snot on her face as she gazed up at the impassive face above her.

"Please, please don't hurt me. Please. I'll do anything. Anything. Please!" she cried. His face was illuminated in the bright light of the moon, shining like a spotlight in the darkness. She wished the moon was gone so she wouldn't have to look into his face, illuminated in a halo of white and golden strands. His hair was an odd blonde color verging on grey, as bright a silver-white as the moon above them, and his skin was even paler than his hair; stark white, bone white. Death white.

He reached into the trunk, ignoring the screams gushing from her mouth and the feeble way her bound hands tried to claw at his skin. He tangled his fingers into her dark, straight hair and pulled, wrenching her from the trunk. Her screams took on the heavy weight of pain as he inadvertently wrenched out several chunks of her hair. She landed bodily onto the concrete.

"PLEASE. I'll do- I'll do anything. Oh please, please, my family will miss me, please. I'll do anything! ANYTHING PLEASE DON'T!"

One hand was wrapped up in her hair, the other in the rope binding together her wrists and he dragged her across the concrete, leaving a tiny trail of blood droplets as the concrete ate through her skin.

"NO! I won't tell anyone. I swear I won't tell anyone. Just let me go. Please let me go. Please. I won't tell anyone. I won't tell anyone. I SWEAR. I WON'T TELL ANYONE! PLEASE!"

Her body smacked into the sand of the beach, bleached white too by the light of the ruthless moon, and her screams, tinged with fear, lost their shape and became bodiless exhales of fear as she started to lose her breath. The grains of sand grappled with her wounds, burning and stinging. Her body flew through the air and landed in the surf, just in time for a wave of dark water to slam into her. Her scream gurgled. She couldn't form any coherent thoughts as he held her head under the waves, his unrelenting hands keeping her beneath the water only to yank her back to the surface right before the darkness that was spotting her vision threatened to take over for good. She was so dizzy. So tired.

He tossed her back onto the waterlogged sand and she choked out a mouthful of water. She was preparing to scream again, throat decimated by salt water, when the pain filled her side. The moonlight glinted off of the knife, twinkling, as it left her body and entered again, again, again. She was tossed again into the surf, leaking water, blood, life, staining the ocean red. She thought she could feel the ocean inside of her, the treacherous waves drawing out every drop of blood she had to give as her body sank beneath the waves, exchanging blood with the ocean and landing on the sandy floor with a soundless thud.

The ocean continued to churn.