By the Light of Day - Chapter 1 - Part 1

Before you read this chapter, I want to introduce you to this story. It's not essential that you read this prologue, but it may help. I have given it this rating due to violence, blood, and gore, which is occasionally extreme. There may be some language, but there will be no sex, explicit or implied. Other chapters may have different ratings due to different content, but they will all follow this general guideline.

This is a story that I have started before and never finished. I have decided to rewrite what I have written and then go from there. Hopefully, with some encouragement, I can finish it this time!!

The story takes place in a relatively modern time. It is a murder mystery and is told from many different perspectives. I might put the point of view at the beginning of the chapter to make it less confusing, unless it is obvious whose point of view the story is told from. If you get confused (it happens!) don't hesitate to ask me any questions! Now, please, read By the Light Of Day - Chapter One - Part One, and enjoy.



By the Light of Day

"Beginnings" Chapter

Part 1



"Come out with your hands up!" A loud voice boomed.

In the moon's glow, the woman could see every detail of the slaughtered bodies at her feet. It made her laugh, remembering the way her four victims had ran from her. And how they had screamed when her claw hammer broke their fragile bodies! Imagining the terror they must have felt when she'd cornered them in this very room made her already wide grin stretch all the way across her face.

She dropped to her knees; the dark pool of blood on the wooden floor soaking through her worn, gray skirt. The woman dipped her small, pale, manicured hands into the spreading pool around her and began to laugh hysterically.

"All right, that's it! We're coming in!" A police officer armed with a revolver kicked down the front door. Though the group of seven men searched high and low throughout the tiny, two-room house (shack was more like it), they failed to locate the madwoman who had butchered the now nearly-unidentifiable bodies in the empty room at the head of the house.

From her hiding place--the small, five-foot cube under the floorboards--the madwoman cackled softly.



SIX MONTHS LATER



I could see Yuichi from under the tall oak tree where I was hiding. I snuck up behind him as quietly as I could, hoping he wouldn't turn around. Nobody else was anywhere nearby, so I could probably go unnoticed as long as Yuichi stayed lost in thought. I was only inches away from him when I attacked.

"Aaaaaah!" Yuichi screamed. He wheeled around and jumped back. "Geez, Nami, you scared me."

"It was just a hug, Yui-san." Yuichi Yamaguchi one of the first friends I made when we had moved to Meikaze less than a year ago. He was very kind to me, and his smile was unlike any other. We bonded instantly, and now, it was like we had grown up together.

"Yeah, yeah." He brushed off his shoulders where I had hugged him; his medium-length, dirty-blonde hair blowing gently in the calm wind.

"Are you afraid you'll get germs or something?" I teased.

"No! I just...." He glanced at the watch on his left wrist, his face red. "Dammit. We're gonna be late!" He grabbed my arm and then dragged me along after him, never relinquishing his hold on me as we ran to school.



* * *



Yuichi, Hiroshi, Kaiya and I walked home together after school. Normally, Izumi and Kagami would have walked with us, but they had been absent from school. A boy in one of the lower grades had said that the Nakamura twins were both ill.

"I hope Kagami and Izumi get better soon," Kaiya sighed. "School just isn't the same without them."

"Yeah. I miss them a lot when they're out." Yuichi agreed.

"I wonder how they got sick. It's hot out, and they don't get summer colds." I said.

"Knowing Izumi, I'll bet she just stayed up too late reading manga. But I don't know about Kagami-chan." Yuichi replied.

I nodded, then shifted my books so I was carrying them with my other arm, as my left arm was getting sore. It was hard carrying four textbooks home. Yuichi noticed this, and asked if I needed help carrying my books.

"I'm okay," I responded, blushing.

"Why are you carrying all of your books home, anyway? You finished your homework in class, didn't you?" Hiroshi asked. He was supposed to sit between Yuichi and I during school, but there were a lot of things in school I didn't understand and I preferred to have Yuichi explain them, rather than Hiroshi, because Yuichi was more patient if I didn't get something right.

"I did," I started, "but I wanted to study a little bit tonight when I got home so Yuichi doesn't have to teach me everything." I didn't mind Yuichi teaching me. In fact, I really enjoyed it, but I didn't want him to think I was stupid or a burden.

As if he could read my thoughts, Yuichi said, "I really don't mind teaching you, Nami."

"Really?" I asked, after a pause, shocked.

"Yeah, it's fine. I used to teach my cousin a lot of stuff, before he and his father moved to Myoutsu."

"Myoutsu isn't that far, though." In fact, it was only a short walk from the outskirts of Meikaze. Myoutsu was a medium-sized city, and only about ten minutes or so away by car. I walked there often to buy groceries and other items for my mother.

"Yeah, I know, but his father can't walk very well, so he has to care for him all the time."

"Oh, that's too bad." I frowned.

"It is, but you can't really help it, can you?" He asked, thoughtfully, probably not expecting any reply.

"I guess not."

Hiroshi and Kaiya left us after that, as their houses were along a different path than ours, so Yuichi and I walked alone after that. We reached his house before mine, so we said our goodbyes and then I finished my journey alone.