Last night's rain dripped down from the gutter, splashing Kora's shoes, and the damp moss soaked the back of her shirt as she pressed herself against the old wall, She peeked around the corner straining to hear the voices inside, voices that belonged to the strangers.
"We shouldn't even be here." Hissed a woman, "Could we not have waited till we arrived back at the capital?"
"It won't matter, not now, not now that the eliminations have already begun." A new voice stated coldly and matter of factly
"Murders. Not eliminations. Murders, at the very least you have to acknowledge the truth of what you ordered to happen."
"You know very well no one ordered the killings, and do you truly believe they are the wrong thing to do? Sacrifices have to be made to keep order in this world, the creators we had to eliminate committed the crime that led to their end, it was their choice, we simply are executing the punishment for that choice."
Kora then heard a footstep toward the door and moved farther down the side of the building so she wouldn't be in view if they actually came out. But whoever moved toward the door didn't exit, instead paused and simply said in a hushed voice, "Someday you will learn the fault in your reasoning, and when you do it will be far too late."
She crouched hoping for someone to exit so she could see who the voices were, but no one left the building. Silently she counted to 120, then peeked around the corner into the building, but no one was there, the room was completely empty except for a couple of dusty old furniture.
Kora looked around in disbelief, the floor was covered in dust, she should have been able to see the footprints of anyone who was there in at least the last 24 hours, yet there was nothing. She scanned the room, cluelessly, she had seen the pair walk into the building, so where were they?
She was about to head out, frustrated when a carving on the doorframe caught her attention,
Korastine,
Come back here tomorrow night. I can't let them find you first.
Trust me.
Before she could fully process it Kora heard a cluster of people approaching. Silently she cursed herself for not remembering the timing of the festival happening down the street. There was sure to be a decent amount of foot traffic heading past the building. She grabbed a rock off the ground and quickly scratched out her name from the message, she didn't want to be connected to whatever was happening and tried to leave as covertly as possible. Why did the strangers always have to meet at such a conspicuous location?
She attempted to put the note out of her mind as she headed to meet Peony and Will, but failed completely.
She couldn't decide if she should follow the instructions on the note or not, after weeks of following them around trying to figure out what was happening there was no way she was just not going to go at all, but she definitely was still considering bringing along someone. But who would she even bring? Based on the conversations of the strangers she'd heard so far, if she could bring authorities, they'd definitely take this person into custody, and the logical side of Kora's brain said that the person probably was either crazy or a criminal, but for some reason, she didn't think that was true.
Which left her with two other options, go alone or bring Will or Peony. She couldn't just hide this from them, but bringing them meant both putting them into whatever danger the stranger posed, and admitting that she'd been hiding her investigations on this for weeks now.
As she approached the library she knew there was only one option, an option that would take a lot of explaining and apologizing on her part.
Kora swung open the door to the library almost tripping as her bag caught on the door, spilling papers all over the tiled entranceway. Several people glanced over and a middle-aged man in a suit bent over to help her pick her mess. Embarrassed, she quickly thanked him and rushed into the library, away from the staring people.
"Kora!" Will's familiar voice called dragging her attention over to a table where he and Peony sat.
She hurried over and sat across from them wondering why they weren't at their usual spot at the far corner of the library
"Some people were already sitting at our table when we got here, and it didn't really look like they were heading out soon." Peony stated answering her unvoiced question.
"More importantly, why did you ditch us earlier? You trailed off mid-sentence and rushed out."
"Hey, I did say I had to go. Kora said indignantly then paused. "Sorry, I actually really need to talk to you guys about that." She traced the lines in the wooden table, avoiding finishing, "A couple of weeks ago I saw these two people talking, and when I looked closer it was like I couldn't make out either of their faces, like they were just a blur, and no one else even seemed to notice."
She paused and glanced up from the table trying to gauge their reactions so far, both of them looked skeptical, like they were waiting for a logical explanation to what she described. "So I decided to try and follow them a little way, and they headed to that old building on Persince St. but they never came out, so I tried to forget about it, but I saw them again walking in the direction of the building the next day, so I tried to follow them again, and this time I heard them talking in the building for a few minutes, and again they didn't come out, it was like they just disappeared."
"You are joking, right?" Peony said, still not believing the story, which was understandable.
Kora ignored her, "Then I didn't see them again for about a week and a half but I kept checking, but today when I checked, they were there. I heard them talking, then they disappeared again, but there was this carving on the doorframe, and it was a message to me, like it had my name in it.
They stared at her for a moment before Peony broke the silence "Well what did it say?"
"They want to meet me there tonight, and it said to trust them."
"Please tell me you aren't gonna go." Replied Peony already shaking her head.
Will smirked, "it's Kora, of course she's going. The better question is whether she is gonna let us go with, or if we have to follow her like a couple of stalkers
Kora rolled her eyes, "Of course I'm gonna let you go with me, why would I even be telling you guys about this if I wasn't."
"Hold up. I'm still against going, but if we are gonna do this then we need more information on this than. What exactly were they saying?" Peony interjected looking rather nervous
"Well it sounded like there were two of them, a man and a woman, the lady seemed to be slightly mad at the man for ordering murders to happen or something, but it also seemed like they were friends or at least were on decent terms. And they called the people being killed "creators".
"Wait, you're trying to tell us that we could possibly be meeting a murderer tonight, a murderer who knows your name? What if they are planning to kill you?"
"Then we should go find out who they are and report them to the police, either way, we should go." Interjected Will
"Also they were talking about creators, they didn't mention anything about me" added Kora
"So what? Are they going around killing artists or something?" Will asked, and Kora couldn't tell if he was joking or not.
"I have no idea what they are doing, that's why I want to go, and I don't know if we can find out anything, but they have to have a reason for wanting to meet with-"
"What time is night?" Peony cut in, holding the note
"What?"
"All the note says is 'Meet tomorrow night.' What time is night?"
"To be safe, we should probably be there by nine." Will answered, "Before that is most likely just considered evening."
"I don't think this is a good idea. A stranger, who knows your name, wants you to meet them alone at night, you can't really be considering doing this, especially if they were serious about the murders.
"Listen I'm going, you can decide whether you want to come or not, but if you are meet me at the corner 25 st and Main at 8:30 tonight, alright? I need to go home and check on something."
"What do you need to chec-" started Will
"You'll find out if you come tonight" Kora said already grabbing her stuff, "I gotta go, bye!"
Peony looked at her dumbfounded as she ran off, "What do you think the chances of her dying tonight are?"
"I'd probably say a good 40%"