On the morning that her body was found, there was a quiet stillness in the air. The birds were silent, and the drafty corridors, usually filled with whistling wind, had fallen mute. Instead, it was as if the world held its breath. For that moment, everything was on pause. Someone, awake when the eerie silence had taken hold of the campus, said that you could hear a pin drop.
In that silence, dear friend, the groundskeeper found the body of Emily Pearson lying on her back, blankly staring up at the cloudless gray sky. Her body had fallen into the line of rose bushes that ran the perimeter of the girls’ dorms. When he found her, the groundskeeper had been making rounds, pruning the rose bushes, as he had done for the past 20 years.
Even dead, Emily was just as beautiful as when she was alive. She looked peaceful, like she was gazing at the sky, daydreaming. Save for the puddle of crimson, viscous liquid that had begun to congeal and sink into the earth. Emily’s ebony black hair fanned around her head like a dark halo, contrasting with the white petals surrounding her. But I am not here to describe the otherworldly beauty that our young corpse held, mainly because my opinion is biased. I am here to tell you the truth about how Emily Pearson died.
It was not the fall that killed Emily, though that had been the story before the coroner’s report was leaked to the public. Emily was thrown from her bedroom window only after she was already dead. The cause of death was not the knife lodged so deeply between her shoulder blades that it sliced through her thoracic spine and punctured her left lung. This fatal blow had occurred post-mortem. A message from her killer. Emily died from the nearly undetectable nick in her throat. That was where our love-spurned assailant had gouged a needle into her, injecting poison. “Where would our attacker get the poison?” you may ask. As part of the botanical science wing of the school, they had access to arsenic-based pesticides. Can you imagine what it must feel like to die from such a toxin? Within seconds she could feel the substance turning her blood to ice. Her brain became fuzzy, unable to process anything but the face of her killer before her vision turned black, and she lost consciousness. It was then that the one who had killed Emily felt close to remorse. But only for a second because the rage returned. The murderer stabbed Emily in the back and threw her out the window.
My friend, this is where the part of Emily’s demise ends. Knowing how she died may have been half the battle in discovering why. However, it does not include the piece that ties this ordeal together. Who killed Emily Pearson? What was the motive for ending our young protagonist’s life? To adequately explain why Emily died, I must take you back before the murder took place to the last public appearance of Ms. Pearson.
The last time Emily was seen, she had been sitting on the stone wall that bordered the courtyard. Even though classes had ended, she had her nose buried deep in a book. At that moment, Leith Wittingfeld made his way across the square, sifting through the bodies of graduating students, who were celebrating the end of a 4-year battle. A few graduates stopped Leith, expressing their joy and wishing him a happy summer. After dismissing the group with a cheery farewell, Leith walked up to Emily with a determined look in his eyes. The entirety of the final term had been full of stolen glances, locked eyes in the middle of a crowd, an inevitable pull like the attraction of magnets. Leith was madly in love with Emily, and she, him.
There was something about the young professor that drew Emily in. It was the way he dressed, the old-fashioned air around him. It was his brains, the conversations that had kept her on the tip of her toes. The way he challenged her and the way he listened to her. She could open up to him and tell him about her hometown and how she never wanted to return to it. She told him things she had only ever conveyed to one other person. So it was at this moment that he took his chance and professed his love to the beautiful dark angel. Emily had raved on and on to her roommate about how Leith had made her feel.
You should have seen the happiness on our star-crossed lovers’ faces. The unrequited love was now out in the open. If only they had known that this declaration would be for the naught. Leith’s only intention had been to make her happy. Little did he know that he had single-handedly signed the death sentence of his love because that proclamation of love enraged the killer. The two went their separate ways with the thrill of being in love. Emily floated to her room, promising to see her love in the morning. She had no idea the events that would occur later that evening.
Who then saw Emily between her departure from Leith and the time of her murder? Who gained access to the near-empty dorm room. Near empty because Emily’s roommate had presumably moved out the day before since the school had dismissed botanical science graduates a week early. Do you have any guesses yet? Or perhaps, you know the motive? I have given you all the information you need to solve this mystery. No?
Could it possibly have been someone lurking in the shadows? Someone that also carried a torch for Emily? Someone who saw the pink glow on her cheeks, how her eyes lit up when Leith told her of his feelings. Someone who felt hot with rage, viridescent with envy? Someone who felt betrayed.
Because Emily knew, she knew I loved her, and she still stabbed me in the back.
The End
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