Bird of Midnight

It was a normal day until she saw them.

Ingrid Mells was casually rushing to school in her brand-new hoverboard she received a couple days ago for her birthday. Head down into her phone she also got for her 16th birthday, she was absently bumping into people and ignoring their startled cries as she flew by. She smashed onto an Under Construction sign that was outside their penthouse; a gaming room was being built across the street for all the teens who lived in the building. As Ingrid crossed the intersection of Cheyrold and Braxton, she saw something dark fly by at the corner of her eye. Her mind rushed with pointless thoughts about the dark object. What was it? Was it good? Was it bad? She angled her hoverboard upwards to slow it down, and as she whipped her head around to the general landing area of the dark figure, she saw it again. The blur she saw earlier focused into what looked like a bird. A large, ebony bird with piercing ice blue eyes stared back into Ingrid's pale grey-blue eyes. After a while of staring at the bird, and being stared at by pedestrians, she quickly blinked her eyes below her glasses, hoping to still see the bird. There was no bird when she looked back.

A shove in her shoulder woke her from her trance when a familiar voice yelled into her ear. "INGRID. WE. NEED. TO. GET. TO. SCHOOL. DO YOU WANT AN AFTER SCHOOL DETENTION? WHERE MS. ALBULM WILL BE? AND WHERE RUBY DEFINITELY WON'T BE?" That last sentence got her going. What would she do without Ruby? She needed her.

While they were frantically trying to cover the remaining half mile to school in a minute, Ingrid asked her twin sister, Izzy, about what she recently saw. "Did you see that bird thing there, on the sign for the gaming room?" Izzy turned to her twin, utter confusion on her face. "What bird are you talking about? And do you think you could tell me this later, when we're not late for school?" Ingrid sighed. "Fine. But it's important, like really important, so if you insist,"

Ingrid stumbled into her first-period classroom and received the you're-late-but-I-haven't-reached-your-name-on-the-attendance-list glare from Mr. Reddings as she slipped into the seat that her lovely girlfriend Ruby Malsire saved for her. Panting, Ingrid produced a quiet "here" when Mr. Reddings reached her name. Smirking, he added a little note off to the side of the roster, next to the row with the words "Mells, Ingrid."