Alicia,

 

If I'm not wrong, you usually stay back in the theater room after class to clean out the stage and put away all the chairs.

 

DO NOT do so today. You are in danger. Leave the room as quickly as you can and stay as far from it as possible.

 

Avoid being alone at all costs.

 

-Lilac Eye.

 

Laura Gibson, frankly, didn't expect her drama teacher to heed the warning; too many times before had unsuspecting victims dismissed her messages as having no consequence or being mere pranks, leaving Laura to work around her original plan of removing them from dangerous situations. 

 

Perhaps it was the growing popularity of "Lilac Eye" that forced people to think twice before shrugging off the letters written, presumably, by the mysterious vigilante.

 

In the end, whatever it was that compelled Ms. Alicia Saxton to take the warning seriously, didn't matter. Laura silently observed as her teacher hastily picked up her brown bag and hurried out of the room at the end of class, eyes nervously darting left and right.

 

Thank goodness she didn't stay, she thought. The danger of being spotted only made things all the more difficult.

 

As the rest of the students took their leisurely time in moving out of the room, Laura quietly went over to the wall facing the school grounds and drew the curtains on all the windows, ensuring that the empty room couldn't be seen by anyone from outside. No one questioned her. In fact, it was doubtful anyone even noticed her, as she had long since mastered the art of blending in. The subdued colors of her clothes and the ponytail she kept her dark brown hair in kept a casual, indistinct air about her.

 

She glanced at her watch as the last of the students trickled out of the room. 10:31 AM. Three minutes before the would-be killer breaks in from the door to my left.

 

Pushing up her glasses that had slid down due to her anxious sweating, she briskly walked over to the storeroom at the back containing stage props and stepped in, closing the door almost all the way, leaving only a slim gap for her to look outside from.

 

10:32 AM. Laura's green eyes moved up to focus on a single stage light hanging roughly above the spot where the man would be standing after entering through the door that connected the room to the outside grounds. The plan was a far stretch, but it was the best one she had.

 

10:33 AM. She focused even harder and soon felt it. The stirring sensation rising within her as her mind's eye opened up and forced her to see her surroundings in eerily magnified detail. If she concentrated really hard, she could accurately envision all parts of the room- the shape of the footprints on the wooden stage directly ahead of her, the words on the script left on the teacher's desk, even the singular crack on one of the windows.

 

The familiar feeling of euphoria followed, as her right eye started feeling cooler and cooler. She welcomed the cold in her eye, feeling the rush of adrenaline flowing through her veins. After going through this process countless times before, she had grown accustomed to the usual proceedings, and could even picture the green color in the right eye's iris bleeding away like honey, giving way to a bright lilac hue, as she had seen once in the mirror.

 

She supposed Lilac Eye was not the most creative name for her alter ego, but then again, creativity was hardly what she was known for.

 

10:34 AM. She held her breath.

 

A loud bang echoed throughout the room as a door was flung open, followed by heavy footsteps moving rapidly across the wooden floor. Laura heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being loaded, accompanied by heavy breathing on the gunman's part.

 

Silence. Nothing but tense silence as the man slowly registered the fact that his victim was not here and Laura registered that he was standing nowhere near the stage light she had planned to strike him with. Or any stage light, as she had hoped would otherwise be the case.

 

This is terrible. I need Plan B. Her mismatched eyes desperately searched the room.

 

There weren't exactly any objects that classified as weapons in the theater room and, even if she found something in the storeroom she was hiding in, she couldn't exactly leave her hiding spot and run towards a potential killer armed with a gun.

 

Speaking of which, the man had started walking towards the back wall to look through the three rooms used for storage lined there, leaving Laura at risk of being caught.

 

Clasping her shaking hands together, Laura skimmed her eyes along the bare, yellow walls, finally letting her gaze rest on a metal ladder leaning against the wall to the left. More specifically, the wall that the man was walking along.

 

Yes!

 

Focusing her thoughts, she felt the glow from her lilac eye brighten, creating a faint gleam of purple in front of her, as the mental image of the ladder falling forward, hitting the armed man directly on the head and trapping him underneath it, formed in her mind's eye. Tingles floated on her scalp as her entire head started feeling light and cool.

 

She heard the sound of impact, followed by something falling to the floor. Peeking out through the gap in the door, her previously tensed body relaxed as she saw the man lying unconscious on the floor, the metal ladder dumped right on top of him. A quick check on Laura's part, armed with a wooden hammer, confirmed that he was out cold.

 

She wasted no time in calling the police and informing them of the break-in.

 

 

***

 

"Where the hell were you?" Serena whispered harshly to her friend. Laura had slid into the group of students assembled in the courtyard in the nick of time, quietly taking her place next to her closest friend, Serena, who had been sitting beside her boyfriend, Josh.

 

"No time to explain," Laura calmly responded as silence fell upon the students due to a man, followed by his wife and son, picking up a mic.

 

"Good morning, students! I'm Taylor Thurston, and this is my wife, Penelope, and our son, Alastor."

 

The school had decided to organize a presentation on creative reading and writing, and had invited two writers as guests to lead the event. Unsurprisingly, none of the students seemed very interested, even as the couple talked about writing fantasy fiction, involving dragons and superpowers.

 

Superpowers. Laura's face held a knowing smirk.

 

The presentation dragged on, giving Laura time to focus on calming down from the previous adrenaline high and center herself. She had been using her unique powers to stop crime for quite some time now, so the process was quite routine. Admittedly, the first time she had gotten a vision of a robbery about to happen, she had done everything to dismiss it. The vision coming true a few days later was when she had realised there was something special about her. Combine the gift of foretelling crimes with telekinetic powers that caused one of her eyes to change color, and there was no going back.

 

The blaring of police sirens suddenly pierced the peaceful atmosphere previously surrounding the school.

 

The students, teachers and presenters turned to see men and women in blue uniform entering through the front gate, giving way to chaos as loud chatters and shouts filled the air. Teachers ran over to the officers, demanding to know what was wrong, as the confused jabbering of students kept increasing.

 

In a matter of seconds, almost everyone had been informed about the break-in attempt. Alicia Saxton was already telling the few officers still standing outside about the letter she had received from the well-known vigilante, Lilac Eye. Excitement erupted among the students at the news.

 

"You hear that? Lilac Eye was here! In our school!"

 

"She. Is. A. Hero."

 

"Oh my God, do you think he's still somewhere around here? Can you imagine meeting him?"

 

In the midst of all this, Laura had quietly moved to one corner of the courtyard and hidden safely behind a tree. There was no reason for her to worry as she knew the intruder would easily be caught and taken away. She smiled at the uproar her alter ego's name had caused. She found it amusing how her classmates idolized Lilac Eye.

 

Taking a deep breath, she turned her head to the sky, feeling contentment flood her body due to the knowledge that she had stopped an awful crime from happening. The sense of fulfillment afterwards was always the most rewarding.

 

A hand suddenly grasped her arm, making her turn sharply. Looking up, her eyes met with none other than the son of the two visiting writers, grinning at her.

 

"Hello, Lilac Eye."