Reincarnate [Isaac Lahey]

Chapter Four

Swinging the bag back and forth, Lena glanced around at the familiar faces that she walked past every Thursday at three-thirty. It was the same route, same faces, same cars, even though it was a fairly big town everyone had their routine. It was the same routine every day and it was a routine that she'd memorised the pattern off. Any minute now she was going to walk past an old man who was walking his golden retriever and then after that, she'd always bump into her mother's friend at the post box on the way home from her meeting with her mother.

Taking in a breath, she pressed the button at the lights and waited for the light to turn red and for the Greenman to make an appearance. Leaning against the post, she listened out to the siren of a fire engine and the cars all parted to the side for the truck to speed past. She wondered whether it was a cat or the old people's home.

Soon enough the light turned red and the beep of the lights rang out giving her and a few others who were walking home from school the signal that it was safe to cross. She didn't see her mother's friend at the post box, their strange meeting must have been running late. Tucking her hands into her blazer pockets, she continued on the short walk home.

As she got to her own road, the sight of the fire engine soon came into vision and her peaceful smile fell from her face as she picked up the pace. Flames enveloped the three houses, one of which was her own, and there was a crowd gathered around. Dropping her bag, she raced down the street and pushed through the crowd.

It was her house that was in the centre of the fire.

"Mum?" She shouted, looking around the crowd, "mum?!"

13 people died in that fire.

Wincing, she pulled a faded mint green ruffled cami dress over her body. It had a floral print with the flowers being white and it sat over a white cropped fitted t-shirt. Not that you could see that it was cropped since the dress was on top. It had been a week and as there were no problems she was allowed to go home. It was strange though, there was another girl who'd gone through the exact same thing at the school. Lydia.

It was odd to her and it didn't make sense.

Styling her hair the simplest way she could which involved getting an orange plain bandana and using it as a headband, she grabbed onto her schoolbag which was prepacked with a couple of crystals to help her get through the day before grabbing onto her docs. Leaving the bedroom, the faint chatter of her father sounded through the room causing her to be as quiet as possible.

"Red eyes Al, red. I brought her here to get away from all of that crap."

Frowning, she crept forward and leant over the bannister as much as she could to see if he was down there. "They were chased out of this town six years ago. They'd be stupid to come back and I can't just pack up and leave now, can I? She's going to know something's up..." the voice grew blurred to the point she couldn't hear anything and she leant back and away from the bannister.

Waiting a moment, she clutched tighter at the edges of her boots which still sat in her hands before walking down the stairs slightly louder than usual to indicate that she was going down. She knew if she crept down then he'd be wearier and more cautious. She didn't want him to do that at all.

As she got to the bottom, he popped his head around the wall from the kitchen, "are you sure you want to be going to school?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'm already behind. I should probably avoid missing anymore," she sighed out, slowly taking a seat on the stairs so she could pull her boots on.