Chapter 7: Marian

JADE:

Liam held his breath as he revealed the truth. “The girl we saw at that alley - she was the missing college student from our university…”

After recovering from the shock of knowing who the bloodied girl in that foggy alley was, I made some personal requests from my friends. It took a lot of convincing before my friends finally gave in to them, especially to my second request.

“First of all, please don’t tell my parents what happened.” I specifically addressed this concern to Dianna. She has been my childhood friend, and she knew my family back home. They would most likely call her if they cannot contact me. “If they learn what happened today, they would surely send me back to the house. I don’t want to go back to commuting. It’s too terrible.”

Dianna nodded. “Of course, bestie. I won’t say anything to them if that’s what you want.”

“Thank you. Now that it’s settled, can you help me get up?”

“What for,” it was Liam who interjected. He reached to my side though and propped me up into a sitting position as he said this.

“I’m going to the police.”

“What? Why,” Nina said, her face full of alarm.

“It’s a very serious case. I need to give my own statement.”

“Can’t it wait?” It was Ally who spoke. “You just woke up. You’ve been out for two hours, and before that, you wandered around for two hour outside, so we can only imagine how tired you must be… Can’t you do that tomorrow or on the weekend?”

I sighed. “The longer I wait, the more likely I might forget.”

“Wait, forget what,” Liam asked. His face did not seem to approve of my decision too. My heart leapt. I was touched by his concern towards me.

“The killer’s face,” I said, swallowing down the lump at my throat that was threatening to rise. “I think I saw the killer’s face back in there…”

**********************

After giving my statement at the police station, I felt the knots in my chest loosened up a bit. At the same time, I learned some important facts about the victim.

Her name was Marian Rabelo. She was a junior college student majoring at Psychology in my university. We are of the same age too.

“Her family must be devastated to learn what had happened, sir,” I said to the police officer before me. He had introduced himself earlier as Captain Martin Rigdon. He was the one in charge of investigating this case.

“Well, she’s an orphan and had been living alone for quite some time now, so there’s really no one to notify,” he said.

My heart felt more wretched when he said this. I was reminded by the strange dream where this girl – Marian – walked up to me and spoke in a creepy voice. Maybe it wasn’t a dream at all. Did she reach out to me because she had no one in particular to ask help from?

“Sir – I want to clarify something,” I said again after a long silence. “She was pronounced as ‘dead on arrival’ at the hospital, right, but when I saw her, her blood was just starting to flow… Why didn’t she make it?”

“The cut on her neck proved to be fatal. She had lost a lot of blood. If you had come earlier, there was a possibility that she might still be alive,” the police officer said, looking a bit sympathetic at my pale face.

“Of course, you had no control over it, Miss Sy. You’ve done well so far,” he continued. “Besides, your description of the suspect will really be of help to our investigation.” Suddenly, his face turned serious. “You need to be more careful though. The culprit is still out there, and since he had seen your face, there is a high probability of retaliation…”

I gulped down nervously. There was no need to say it. I was deathly afraid of the man in the black hooded jacket, black cap, and black army boots and more afraid of the fact that he tried to chase me around after just killing someone. I already provided the police with everything I know about him, and still, I provided such a vague description that I know the police will have a hard time chasing him.

I had seriously considered not going to the police to tell them this vital information, but my dream of that girl, Marian, at the hospital reminded me that I must help her despite my fears. Keeping quiet may only endanger my life further. At least for now, that man might become wary of doing a similar crime.

“Well, if that is all, I won’t take much of your time anymore, Miss Sy. Please keep in touch if you ever need help. We’ll send police officers to check on you from time to time. Also,” Captain Rigdon added, “for the time being, please refrain from going outside by yourself or doing anything reckless.”

“Alright, officer,” I said, forcing a smile to wipe away some of the worried look at his face, “I’ll keep that in mind, and I’ll be careful.”

I stood up from the seat and walked outside of the police station.

I was still lost in the thoughts of Marian. I wanted to know: what was she doing there? Why did she end up in such a place? Who did that to her, and why?

There had been two cases of death in which the victims were female college students in the last months. Was Marian’s case related to those two?

As I had lost myself in reverie once again, I looked down absentmindedly to my feet. I still had the red shoes on, for I didn’t have time to change.

‘Who would have thought that I would be saved in such a predicament while wearing some fancy heels like this,’ I thought. Good thing Liam found me in time too… If not, I shuddered to think what could have happened.

As I looked closer to my right feet, something caught my eye.

First, when I found Marian’s body, I distinctly remember the pooling of blood underneath my heels, but the shoes remained immaculate afterwards. Earlier at the hospital, I inspected it closely, and found no visible speck of blood, and I was shocked. Was that even possible?

Now, as I look at the shoes again, they looked a bit splattered in blood, and I found something white sticking out from underneath the sole.

What could this possibly be?...