The call of Ardigra

The day had been a normal one for one Lucy Davis. Bomb drills at school, and a test in arithmetic. But that day, February 13, 1988, was the day River Lynx London would die. 

She had arrived at her house after school like always. Her mother still at work, her father's chair vacant as the day he had left them. She walked to her room, avoiding the gaze of the mirror in the hall. She dropped her bag on her bed in the small three bedroom house, then walked in the bathroom. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Nothing was strange. Nothing moved or made a sound. River left the bathroom and headed towards the kitchen when a knock sounded at the door. River turned to where the noise had come from and looked at the mirror. She froze, entranced and horrified as she started to tremble. As River's perfect life shattered into pieces. 

The air was filled with a black smoke, choking River as she gasped for breath. Screams echoed in the crowded air along with gunshots and cannons booming.Something was wrong. Where was she? The smoke suddenly disappeared. Blown away, as if by a fan. The she saw them. Men dressed in uniforms, stained with blood and oil. They bore the present and hammer on their arm and they were pointing guns at her. She couldn't move, couldn't run. The parted her lips to scream but she didn't have time. The words were forming to slow as the bullets sprinted they're way towards her. Time slowed. The bullets struck. Pain blossomed. Darkness claimed her. 

The man at the door heard someone screaming within the house, then a large thump. He started frantically fiddling with the door. He was muttering to himself.

"No, no this can't be happening. She wasn't supposed to have realized her power this early. Not now, not here." The screaming stretched on, getting louder and louder and more frantic. The the screaming fell short and silence stretched on. The man backed up, a determined expression masking his face. Then he ran at the slammed into it with his shoulder, destroying it completely. Reducing the eight inch oaken door into matchwood. He rolled as he hit the floor, coming up in a crouch, then sprinting through the halls to find the source of the screaming. 

He found her, head cracked and oozing blood and a colorless liquid from her banging repeatedly against the floor, a cracked mirror on the wall beside her. The man started the put pressure on the wound, binding it with a bandage from his pocket. Then placed a strange small device down and flipped a switch. A blue haze simmered into existence, then winked out. The man picked up the girl gently, her eyes rolled into her sockets, then he ran for the front door and the white, nondescript van waiting outside. 

Mrs. London pulled up into the empty driveway. Running up to the house after seeing the destroyed door. 

"River honey! River where are you?" she shouted, trying and failing to keep her voice level. Her shouts got more frantic as she searched the house. "River where are you! Come out this instant! RIVER!" she fell to the ground by the pool of blood in the hall. She was crying, sobbing fanatically. "I knew this day would come, why today? Why today? Why my little baby? Why? Why not take me instead. 

Mrs. London was still curled up there when the police arrived after a call from one of the neighbors. She was still muttering to herself when they wrapped a shock blanket around her and forced her to drink water. 

She was still muttering to herself as the white van arrived at a private airport and the men inside boarded a plane.