Two Deaths, One Love

Mia stopped in front of a store window to check how she looked. Her long blonde hair was perfectly curled and her bangs weren't oily at all. The brand new gray and baby pink coat she'd bought was like a match made in heaven with her favorite pink skirt. Her makeup wasn't smudged in the slightest and it pulled her whole look together to make her look like a complete package. She sighed in contentment as she happily walked to her fiancé, Lance's, house.

The two had scheduled a romantic dinner date for today. Since Lance was busy juggling work, maintaining his grades, and a huge school project, the two of them were rarely able to meet up since the school year started. Mia understood and didn't mind too much, they were in the final stretch after all, but she missed him so much and had been looking forward to this date since they scheduled it last month. Thankfully, nothing came up to cancel it like had happened to so many of their dates in the past (even when they weren't busy). That's another reason why Mia took extra special care of primping herself today.

Her heart pounded against her chest in excitement as her freshly manicured nails formed into a fist and knocked on the door. It opened a bit on its own which she thought was odd. She gently pushed it open more and stood in the doorway, "Lance! I'm here! Hello?" No response.

"He won't mind if I just come in and wait for him here. We're going to be married soon after all. His house is basically my house." She smiled to herself and wiggled her ring finger, light catching in the brilliant large diamond situated on the beautiful white platinum band. She tip-toed in and gently closed the door behind her. After the door was closed, she could hear his shower running.

"Oh, he's probably getting ready still. I know! I should wait in his room for him. That'll be so cute! He'll come out from the shower and in his deep voice," she cleared her throat and began a failed impersonation of him, "Mia, I wasn't expecting you. I'm all wet." She blushed and giggled to herself, "And I'll be like, 'it's okay, let me help you dry off.'" She fantasized like that all the way up the stairs and into his room.

Her fantasy was cut short as she was violently thrown back into reality at the sight of his room. Scattered everywhere were papers, crumpled up tissues, empty snack bags and empty beverage cans. "I'll just clean up a little bit…" She knew better than to disturb his work place, it would be absolutely disastrous if she mixed up any of his papers, it was best to keep them as they were. The trash, however, could be tossed, no question about that. That's one of the reasons that they were such a great match.

Sometimes when Lance was stressed he would neglect simple tasks like eating and cleaning up. Mia was not only completely understanding, but also pretty calm under pressure. So, whenever he had a big project or exam coming up, she would clean up his lab at school and leave him lunch or dinner. He wouldn't say thank you until after whatever it was he was working on was over, and not only did Mia know that but she never expected a thank you from him at all.

His dustbin was already pretty full but she stuck her white boot into it and pushed down to make room. Her boots were new but for him, she'd happily sacrifice them. His work was more important. He wanted to be a world renowned scientist. Benefitting the world was worth way more than a pair of new boots.

Mia carefully removed the empty snack bags, gently dusting crumbs off of his papers and into the trash. It was beginning to look much nicer, except for the empty beer and soda cans he had piled in the corner of his desk. As she reached over and began to gently remove the cans from the dangerous pile, she glanced down and noticed a red stain on the open notebook underneath them. "Oh no!" she gasped, "Lance, your work!"

As quickly and carefully as she could, she cleaned up the tin tower of a stressed student and picked up the notebook to brush off crumbs that had revealed themselves under the cans. She gave it a good brush and accidentally hit it on the top of the trash can as she was pulling it out. The pages sprawled and the notebook landed on a differing page.

"Eeek!" she shrieked as she scurried to pick up the book. Thankfully, she would be able to tell what page it was on thanks to the stain. She flipped through and it found the page with the red mark. Just as she was about to put it back in its place she glanced down and noticed a girl's name on it. "Wait….what?" Mia brought the book back up and began reading the contents of the page. It was filled with the names of girls. "What is this?" she whispered to herself. Then, it dawned on her. She recognized those names. They were the names of the girls who had gone missing around town.

It felt like all of her insides were gathered in her throat and tears stung the back of her eyes. "What? No…." Desperate to prove what she was thinking wrong, she flipped through the book. In it were vicious and disgusting details of things like their schedules, where they hung out often, what would be used to capture them and...…how to get rid of their bodies.

Flustered, she flipped back to the stained page and put it back in its place. That's when she noticed, it wasn't a soda stain on his notebook, it was a bloody thumb print. Her eyes widened and her hand flew up to her mouth as she stumbled backwards in shock.

"N-no way…Okay, Mia stay calm, think about this. He wouldn't do that, he's not that kind of guy. It's probably just….he probably….is just trying to solve what happened to them! Yeah, like one of those weird internet sleuths. That's what they say, you have to get into the mind of a killer, right? The blood! The bloody print, umm it was probably just, um he cut himself and grabbed the paper. That's it. That's what happened…." Her mind was going a mile a minute.

"I should….probably go wait outside." She stood up and brushed herself off, hoping to be rid of any hitch-hiking crumbs. As she went to rush out of the door, she was met with all too familiar icy blue eyes and pitch black hair. It was Lance, standing in the doorway. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, and his hair was dripping with water. With each step he took toward Mia, she took one step back.

"Ah, Mia….Mia, Mia, Mia. This really sucks. Why couldn't you have been quiet and not let me know that you were in here. I wish you hadn't come in, I wish you'd stayed outside and waited for me….ahhhh this really sucks. I really do love you so I'm not doing this because I want to." Mia's eyes filled with tears as he leaned over and pulled out a bloodied hammer from under his bed.

"Wait, wait! Lance! No! I love you! We love each other right? I won't say anything! I promise! I swear, when have I ever lied to you?" Lance frowned at her pleas, "Mia don't. This is already hard enough on me as it is. I really wanted a future with you. Don't worry, I'm not gonna do you in like the others because I care about you. I'll make it quick. I can't risk it now that you know. I'll tell you what, I'm probably even going to cry over you. Probably a lot."

Tears streamed down Mia's face as she backed away from him. She tripped over the dust bin and fell backwards onto her butt. As he lifted his hammer she pulled her knees to her chest and put her hands up in the air, waving them. "NO NO NO NO NO! LANCE! DON'T!" she screamed as loud as she could and shut her eyes as tightly as they would allow.

She waited a moment. Nothing. Absolute silence. She didn't feel anything either.

Mia opened her eyes. Everything was dark. She rubbed at them thinking, "Oh my god, did he blind me?"

"Lance? Lance, what did you do to me?" she called out. She could feel her chest moving as if she was crying, but she couldn't feel anything. She looked around again into nothingness. "Grandpa help!" she cried out. For what felt like an eternity, she sat and cried while curled up into a ball.

Finally, a blinding white light appeared before her. She shielded her eyes.

"Would you like to move on from this world?" the figure spoke with a thundering voice that somehow reverberated throughout the infinite space.

"I-I don't want to die yet! I'm not ready!"

The figure placed its hand on her head and suddenly she opened her eyes to a dirt road and lush green field. "W-where am I?"