The Crow's Song

Chapter 2

Ellie quickly rushed down the hallway with her cloth backpack thrown over her shoulder, trying her best to at least be less than ten minutes late rather than twenty minutes like yesterday. She also tried her best to stop knocking textbooks out of other student's hands and colliding shoulders with angry teenagers, but they just stood in the hallway, oblivious to a teenage juggernaut sprinting down the hall in full throttle.

“Watch it!” A girl shouted as Ellie knocked her papers and books out of her hand, sending them flying in the air.

“Sorry!” Ellie called over her shoulder. “Not.” she scoffed to herself, chuckling as she turned the corner in the hall, leaving her wake of destruction behind.

Ellie's boots squeaked on the polished tiles beneath her feet as she maneuvered around a teenage couple in front of her, taking down the petite girl in a peach dress.

“Sorry!” Ellie, again, called behind her shoulder, trying to hold back her laughter as she watched the girl fall on her bottom and almost take down her boyfriend in the process.

When Ellie finally reached her classroom, she quickly opened the door and hurried in, shutting it behind her and stopping to see her Professor standing with his back to her, shuffling through papers.

“You're late.” He accused, giving her a side glance.

“Sorry, I know, Marcus, I woke up late this morning-”

“Elspeth, what did I tell you about calling me by my first name? In school, I am known as Professor Gartland, not Marcus.” He grabbed a large, old dust covered book that Ellie had dusted off each time she had it but it seemed to have collected more dust than it had last time, and turned, connecting their eyes as he handed it to her. “This is your sixth time late, I should give you a detention-”

“You and I both know that you don't want to do that, Professor Gartland.” Ellie chuckled and plopped her old cloth backpack on her desk and sat in the seat, setting down the large book titled “Weapons of time”. Even though the title was barely visible under the thick layer of dust, she still knew what it was called.

She swiped her hand across the leather and looked at her hand to see it covered in the dust. She shook her hand out with a disgusted face and wiped the access on her jeans, opening the book to the page they left off on.

Ellie looked up to her graying professor to see him writing gun names on the board in a time line form, the oldest version of guns to the newest version of guns. Ellie recognized the gun names instantly, knowing each one on the back of her hand since her and Cain had always discussed their favorite guns and often fought about which one was best.

Her professor often confused the gun names and Ellie had to constantly correct him, and she knew that was the only reason she was actually passing this class. Ellie didn't care much for weapon history, but she loved weaponry. If someone else taught this class, she wouldn't hesitate to skip and go to the music store or get some dark chocolate from the candy shop next door, but Professor Gartland was Ellie's favorite teacher. He never treated her like a little kid or even a fragile little object that needed to be protected at all costs. Even though Ellie had a special gift of seeing things other people couldn't, she still was a teenage girl, and Professor Gartland respected that.

Ellie felt eyes on her, and she instantly recognized the eyes to be her little companion Edgar, waiting at the window for her.

“Seems Ed wants to join your lesson.” Professor Gartland said, looking up at her from over the rim of his glasses with a smile. Ellie looked over to her little black crow perched on the window sill, tapping his beak against the glass.