Spoiler! :
I
“Beatrice Grey found dead under Parkway 2 last night.”
That was today’s headline. Aria stared at the paper, splayed out on the counter of a newsstand.
People blurred by her, oblivious of her presence as they rushed to work. Car horns blared; taxis dodged through traffic, glass office buildings rose above the horizon and blocked the rising sun.
No one cared about a dead girl right now.
Apparently, they didn’t even pay heed to the living.
Some idiot streaking down the street with a backpack smashed into her. Aria bounced once on the ground and glared before she caught a look at his face. Her glare faded, replaced by a tiny smile.
She could go along with this sort of situation.
“Ah, geez! I’m sorry.” The young man held out his hand to help her up. Aria grasped it and used his weight to do most of the work. Back on her feet, she brushed the dirt from her jeans, aware of the flat pain of her butt. She brushed a few long strands of her orange-red hair back from her face and out of her slate-gray eyes.
The quick movements were calculated to draw his attention to her favoured features while she could secretly gawk at his own.
His eyes caught her attention first off. One was a faded, algae-green while the other was almost yellow. Equally striking was his shock of near-white hair. His face had set into hard lines but only a single wrinkle creased his forehead between his eyes, granting him a thoughtful look. Aria placed his age somewhere in the late twenties.
She caught herself staring to long and blinked. His clothes, black dress pants and a crisp white sleeved shirt, were immaculate. He wore his red tie loosely, the image of a young corporate type.
“Nah, it’s okay,” she assured him. She hoped he would tell her his name, or his number. He held himself with confidence. An air about him spoke of leadership and unusual kindness. That kind of person was rare.
Then she noticed the newspaper she’d been looking at had fallen with her and landed partially in a puddle. She silently groaned and fished around in her pockets for a buck, looking down as she did.
By the time she raised her head again, the man had disappeared. Another silent groan. That ruined her day. She tossed the loonie at the old man with a shaggy and unwashed beard who manned the counter and grabbed the newspaper off the ground.
At a second look, only the corner was soaked and everything was still legible. Not that she could give it back.
She walked along the street, people in business suits streaming around her. She had her nose buried in the paper.
“Another Black Rabbit murder, eh?” she mumbled to herself as she walked.
The sun rose higher in the sky, illuminating the street and casting long shadows. She shivered only once as a breeze swept by, carrying the smell of a polluted lake with it and going straight through her gray t-shirt. Fall was evident, marking it a year since the first Black Rabbit case.
“Beatrice Grey was discovered by a search party 34 hours after the first report of her disappearance. The official statement from the police is that she was raped and strangled to death.” Aria’s eyes went wide and she shivered again, not from the cold this time.
The crowds were beginning to disperse, she noted dully as she glanced up, stopping at an intersection. Soon, the streets would fill again, only with tourists and still more traffic. She waited for the light to turn green before walking on.
Though the sky above was blue as blue could be, dark clouds approached from the west, carried by the wind. There would be a storm by nightfall. Anyone else who noticed them scowled, but Aria smiled. She loved thunderstorms.
Her thoughts turned to the paper in her hands. That a girl, not much younger than her, had been a victim of the Black Rabbit was frightening. Even more so, the dump site of the body was only half a kilometre away.
She scanned the article again. The end was the same as usual. For anyone with information on the Black Rabbit’s whereabouts to come forward.
Like anyone would do that.
She recalled her reaction to the first killing a year ago. Another young woman by the name of Sara Witford. That killing granted her murderer his name: Black Rabbit. Across her chest had been Japanese characters, transliterated to the pronunciation of “Kuro Usagi.” In other words: Black Rabbit.
He was famous, infamous really. Nearly 70 cases had been chalked up to his doing. Each one had the characters for Black Rabbit scrawled across their bodies. It inspired a cult-like fandom. More so than Jack the Ripper.
They were all “Rabbits.”
Aria turned at another corner and went inside an internet café. No one noticed her. She pulled up to a computer and signed into a chat room, one she had created a month ago. Dedicated to the Rabbits.
The response was immediate.
“Morning, Grey Rabbit.”
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