Prison continued...

“Wake up!”
Violet lay in darkness, as the newborn rays of the sun struggled to crawl into her room, they were reddish orange now, hardly enough to wake her up.
“Wake up, Violet”, she lay comfortably.
Rose took it upon her to shake her sister into awakendom.
“What is it?”, an irritated Violet.
“Nothing, you in a mood for a morning walk down by the bridge?”
“Yeah”, she murmured, “ give me a moment”.
She changed into morning clothes.
She tied her hair into a ponytail, and together they walked out in their sneakers.
The wind was on their face, last night’s storm had left in it’s wake several small puddles here and there.
They walked past familiar houses, some of them had flowers in the window. The shops had their shutters closed, they wouldn’t be doing business so early in the morning. There were a few people on the road, and no cars. The air was fresh, and it filled Violet’s lung. You see, Violet is generally considered as a beautiful woman, a redhead with long hair till her waist, not too thin around the corners but well built, with a tapering waist. Boys in the town had her on the talk. It’s girls like Violet who with their charm and natural ease start many gossips among social circles. Violet was generally unaffected by this kind of talk, she stuck to her friends who were nice to her. Rose too was a beauty but being four years younger to her in age, she hadn’t really seen society as such much less experienced the tender touch of a man.

Their parents were well off, and the family was a loving one, there was no need for anything other than what they had. But Violet had a secret.

Violet studied at the university, she was a research scholar, and was currently working with a senior researcher on some government funded research; some research she was not at liberty to discuss. It’s not that the town folks would exactly comprehend the scope of her work, but the curiosity remained.

Quite recently one of their fellow researchers had disappeared, and there was a police investigation on that matter. The police had come to their place to question a teary eyed Violet, but they could not get much out of her. They had their lemonades, thanked the family and left.

This man, David, was an eyecatcher, the girls at the university used to swoon about him, and he was not completely unnoticed by Violet, but no romantic entanglements sprung between them, they were casual friends, their conversation was limited to the usual “Hello, goodbye” out of research discussions. David was a senior and second in charge after Professor Gupta. He used to be seen frequenting the bars and pubs of the town after hours, usually with female company.

Otherwise there was nothing quite noticeable about their research group. They were all normal, ordinary human beings who liked to immerse themselves in their work.

They walked past the fountain, away from the town a bit towards the woods to reach the bridge. Upon reaching there, they stopped for a breath.

“It’s lovely isn’t it?”, said Rose, “How I love the rains”
“Oh, me too. It’s just the weather. It’s fantastic. You want to walk a bit into the woods?”
“Yeah, sure”
They walked into the woods, there was a dusty road for horses, they followed the horse track. After venturing for a while, they came to a clearing. Violet sat down, followed by Rose, Violet lit a cigarette.
There were eyes watching them from behind bushes.
Violet pulled a long drag on her cigarette, kept it inside her lungs and let it out in a funnel into the air.

Something jumped at them.
Violet’s eyes were dark.
She could hear Rose screaming.
“No!”, she screamed, and fought tooth and nail with her assailant. But quickly she lost consciousness as a crunching blow fell on her jugular vein.