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It had been the perfect night.
Jonathan had been so overwhelmingly proud of his sister, she had been the most beautiful girl in the room when she had entered her coming out ball - all the eyes in the room had been trained on her, the (well deserving) debutante the absolute center of attention for the night.
She had on the most beautiful dress of ivory white which had sparkled and glimmered in the light, attracting all eyes - Jonathan had been the one to help her pick it out, she had wanted him, as her brother, to be involved in her special day.
He had stood by her side as she exchanged pleasantries with all the attendees of her ball, warning off all the unsavory and narcissistic boys with a stern glare and welcoming the well-behaved and polite ones with a warm smile.
He had gently fixed his sister's dress when one of the ties had come loose, he had gently tucked one of her flowers nearly back into place when it had fallen. Her long brown hair had been done up in two beautiful and intricate buns that lay at her ears, the hairstyle a work of art that his mother had spent the entire day perfecting - they had all wanted everything, down to the most minute details, to go to plan for her coming out ball, for her first appearance as a member of society.
Everything had been going so well.
It had been the perfect night, one Jonathan thought he and his sister would have cherished forever.
When the ball was well and truly in full swing, delicious food sitting in their full stomachs, glasses emptied, and the dance floor full - they had shared a dance, his sister laughing and kicking him well-naturedly in the shin as he made jokes about the various boys she had told him she thought she fancied, in their neatly pressed suits and their carefully gelled and styled hair. His sister, in turn, giggled and snorted as he told her about the few ladies at the ball that had caught his own eye, in their beautiful dresses and bright smiles.
As they danced and talked they both had smiles so wide that they hurt stretched across their faces, they laughed so hard that they couldn't breathe and their sides hurt, it was all perfect.
But then, as he opened his mouth to ask his sister - with a mischievous wiggle of his eyebrows to accompany the question - what boy she was going to twirl away to dance with next, the lights went out and everything when dark. The crowd of dancers surrounding them was plunged into darkness and screams split the air. As the crowd jostled and people began to panic his sisters hands were torn from his, her voice lost in the cacophony of screams and shouts as they were separated.
He called desperately for her, his worried voice fading into the pitch-blackness of the room as he was knocked about by flailing and panicking attendees, and she did not call back. He searched for her, but his fingers only grazed the smooth surfaces of suit jackets, of soft dresses that he knew were not his sisters.
But then, over the sounds of the crowd, he heard her. He heard his sister scream.
She wailed, in agony and fear and terror.
He felt overwhelming fear possess his heart, and he fought through the crowd toward the sound of his sister in pain - a sound that no brother wishes to ever hear. He fought like a feral hound desperate for a scrap of food, clawing and shoving and scrabbling towards his sister who was scared and hurt and... and he didn't know what was happening to her.
He couldn't see her anymore.
He couldn't hear her anymore.
The lights were suddenly flipped on, and Jonathan felt his heart sink. He felt his heart break.
"They're not breathing!"
Someone cried out, their voice high with stress and fear, and a gasp rippled through the crowd. Some girls fainted and collapsed onto the floor, some boys backed away in fear with wide eyes, the rest of the crowd stared in shock at something that lay in the middle of the dance floor.
His sister was stretched out on the floor, unmoving, her eyes closed. As Jonathan collapsed at her side, the crowd rushing to circle him, he knew she was dead. As his hand cupped her cheek, a tear slipping from his eye, he could feel that she was dead.
But nevertheless, he tried.
He tried to breath air into her cold mouth to force her lungs to fill, tried to press down on her still chest to force her heart to beat again. He tried and tried and tried while the crowd watched him quietly, and nothing worked.
He looked up from his sister and saw his mother step out of the crowd, and from her expression she knew the horrible truth too.
His sister was dead. She had been so young, so full of potential and love and joy, but she was dead.
There was a small piece of paper beside his sister's head, which one of the boys that his sister had been pointing out only minutes earlier, that his sister had been alive and well to smile and laugh about only minutes earlier, reached down and picked up.
'The Avenger' he said it read, and the moment it was passed is his mother and her eyes scanned the name, read the signature, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed backwards in a faint, a few of the boys acting quickly to catch her and lower her carefully to the ground.
As the attendees fled, some shouting about giving chase and finding this 'Avenger', others going for the police, others just simply fleeing, Jonathan was left knelt on the ground beside his sister, tears flooding down his cheeks as he pulled her to his chest, feeling no heartbeat, no warmth.
His sister had been murdered.
And it was him who would avenge her murder.