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Sarah did not come back. Whatever happened to poor Sarah this tale does not tell. After the black night had swallowed her, nothing. She merely disappeared. People often remember faces, although they fade over time, but her family and few friends remembered only her smell and strangely enough did not particularly miss her.

"Sarah! Sarah!. Where are you?" What the hell's going on. "Sarah ! Please come back!"

It has to be a joke , this cannot be real. The night left no clues : no tale-tale stains or drops of blood here or there, there were only the dark school grounds and they were not giving anything away.

Freya curled up behind the bins, it was cold and windy. She felt like the little matchstick girl, left to die in the cold. It is at times like this that people begin to ponder on their lives and as the wind howled and the cold crept through her she thought about life. It was no party.

One night she had woken up knowing that no one really knew her. Her dad might think he did, but he didn't. And none of her friends knew her that well, she had only been in this town for a couple of months and she couldn't pretend she liked it. Everyone seemed so exciting, they all did things. When it came to mind she couldn't think what they actually did, but they seemed exciting none the less. She couldn't do anything very exciting, the usual stuff like swimming and tennis were pretty ordinary. She had once asked her dad if she could go skydiving or parachuting or something like that. He had flatly refused. She had tried to explain about needing to do something exciting and daring but he, of course, did not understand and did not want to. So she remained what she thought of as boring. A conclusion had been formed in her mind : exciting things happen to exciting people.

This is where being exciting leads you : behind some bins at the back of your school in the middle of the night, alone. She really would have to rethink excitement.

It began to rain. Understatement. It began to pour. Numb feet suddenly find the blood necessary to get up and run. Through the school gates and on. The park looms ahead, forgotten and empty, long ago deprived of any children with good intentions. There is no shelter, and the rain is growing wetter, if that is at all possible. The swings had a sort of flat top, not ideal but satisfactory. It seemed oddly comical sitting on the swings in the middle of the night while the rain shot down. The waiting game, some people say, is only for the patient. Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix, onze, douze.... This passed the time for a few minutes but soon got boring. Waiting for rain to stop by saying French numbers to yourself says something about your taste in games. But there was a game she used to play , back in the days when her mother was still around ; it didn't have a name. All that was required was a pair of shoes and some swings. The aim of the game was to swing as high as you could possibly get and then to kick your loosened shoes as far as possible. The winner was the person whose shoes had gone the farthest. A pretty stupid game now she came to think about it.

Looking out into the night Freya could see the moon from behind the clouds. Everything seemed less daunting somehow. The figure slid across the grass with quiet grace , its only feature was the long tangled hair that hung down its back. It was over in a few relatively short minutes. The fingers had grabbed hold of her neck and squeezed. She had tried her best of course, but her shouts were cut off soon after that. Then the pitch black had reclaimed her. The only witness a waning moon.

She was found the next morning by an old man and his dog. Apparently he had received quite a shock and died the next day. No evidence had been found, gloved fingers leave no clues. For a few days Freya was front page news, perhaps she would have been pleased.