The Isdïra Complex

Caught by a bus

The school bells rang and therefore set an end to the day. No one had paid much attention to the lessons anyway, but the teachers understood that - they had to go through the same situation. They all sat in one boat with the pupils.
It started only a few weeks ago when some students from the college on the other side of the street passed away one by one as if death itself had decided to encircle them. Of course the cases could also be coincidential and possibly didn't even have a connection to one another. For that the ways how the few students had died were too mysterious: One of them had been locked in the basement where there were some chemicals stored which weren't used that often by anyone of the college. That already sounded a bit strange, as the student apparently had died of thirst. The second and third one had both jumped out of windows on the fifth floor and their dead bodies had looked like anything but not delicious.
The fourth one of them was Charles. From that point in time, Miranda didn't even know that he existed, and still she felt something when he died - something like losing one of her soulmates, if you could even take that expression seriously.
Miranda would describe soulmates as people you had a connection to. She always thought you had to know those people to actually be soulmates, and that's what she still believed. The only thing that bothered her was the stitch in her stomach she felt at the end of the lesson.
The stitch which Charles didn't feel as he had gone to the bathroom and was now standing at one of the sinks, washing his hands, looking in the mirror. Maybe it just was his curse that the plug of the sink fell under the faucet and made sure that the water would gather in the sink. Maybe it also was his curse that he hadn't slept that much tonight which made him fall asleep out of nothing and his head fell in the sink which steadily filled itself with water.
Or maybe the Isdrad had used their might to control him and his actions sothat he would die.
At Miranda's school momentarily no one worried about that. They all wanted the day to end so that they could play later on outside with their friends on this warm, sunny summerday in this August. Trying to forget about those few incidents which took place at the college. If only there weren't the teachers that reminded them of it...
"I know that you haven't focussed much on the lessons we've hadbin the past couple of weeks and I understand the reason for it," Miranda's teacher said. "But as hard as it might seem, we have to move on and make our peace with what happened." It was one of the teachers who was way too disciplined and cold-blooded to actually understand what was going on in the head's of the pupils.
"Yeah, sure, just ignore those four deaths of college students," one of the other girls in class said. "It's not like some of us have seen two of their corpses on the street the other day."
"Evelyn's right," one of the boys agreed, sitting on the other side of the classroom. "Why are we even here? Aren't we suppose to stay at home until those cases are solved?"
They kept talking for fifteen more minutes which Miranda used to slowly breathe because of a feeling of nervousness which had overcome her.
When the discussion of her class had ended and they prepared to leave the room, she didn't move. Some of Miranda's friends had already asked her what was going on and as she wanted to answer, she couldn't.
"Come on, Mira, what's going on?" Senna was one of her friends she knew from elementary school and they've always spent a lot of time with each other. It was funny how they ended up in mostly being in the same classes ever since.
Now Moranda felt Senna's hand on her back.
"What's the matter with you back there?" the teacher said and didn't show any oh so slight emotion. "You're supposed to go out and have fun, do your homework and come back to..."
"Just lock the room and maybe we'll even experience Josh's destiny and also die of thirst!" Senna knew the name of the first dead student because people at the school here had talked about it.
"Miranda, come on!" the teacher insisted. "Get up and let's go! I have some more things to do and don't have any time to waste on..."
A couple other girls still were there, taking Miranda's situation seriously, especially when she spoke: "I saw something in front of my eyes. I don't know what it was, but something bad happened... again."
"What did you see?" Ireene, one of the other girls, asked her.
Miranda shook her head, as if she wanted to forget about it. "Someone else must have died. I've seen a sink full of water and someone drowned in it - a boy, just a couple years older than me."
"It's probably just a nightmare you've been through," the teacher exclaimed. "Wait, you haven't been asleep, have ye?"
The girls didn't listen to him.
"What about the boy? Do you know who it was?" Ireene said.
"No, I haven't seen him before."
"So what should we do next?" Senna asked.
Miranda shook her head again, totally overwhelmed by the pictures she'd seen. Where had she been? Had it been a vision or preminition? "I'd just like to go home and relax, that'll probably help."
They left the room.
"Finally," the teacher sighed. "Don't forget to do your homework, girls."
They didn't say goodbye to him but just left without another word.
... which again was only part of the truth because they kept talking about what Miranda had told them. She tried to answer more of their questions, but in the end she only said something which sounded right to her. And unfortunately, there's a small difference between guessing and knowing.
They went to their lockers to get rid of some backpacks and books for school, then left the building through the huge glass doors on the South side.
Senna still was worried about Miranda and that didn't change when the latter said she wanted to go home alone and needed time only for herself to chew through her problem. Was it even a problem?
"No, wait, I can come along with you!" Senna countered.
The other girls had gone home already, excelt for Ireene who now decided to push herself into this conversation: "Listen to what Miranda wants and respect that, Senna. That's how you can help her most."
Miranda herself nodded. "That's exactly my point. We'll see each other tomorrow again anyway, right?"
"Yes, but..." Always when Senna had started sentences like that she'd given up on what she wanted, and this wouldn't be an exception, she believed. She didn't make it one now and therefore gave in.
"Then see you tomorrow," she said. "If you need someone to talk to other than your parents, call me." And off she went.
Ireene did the same after exchanging some more words with Miranda: "Everything will be fine. The vision or whatever it was probably doesn't have a meaning. You'll forget about it in no time, I promise." Ireene smiled at her.
"Thank you. I appreciate your efforts to comfort me." Miranda tried to smile back, but it didn't look authentic.
That didn't bother Ireene. "See you tomorrow."
"Yeah, see you." Miranda still was lost in her own thoughts. She crossed the street to walk along the college - that was the way she always took to go home.
Before someone could yell "Watch out" a school bus bumped into her and dragged her thirty feet along the streets.
Senna was already gone.
Ireene saw her die.
Nothing would be the same for them from now on.
The sun shone and kids ran around in a waterpark close to the school, but still far enough away from the street so that none of them had noticed the death of a high school girl.
So far also no one had noticed what happened to Charles.
Only Miranda could add another piece to her puzzle as she woke up somewhere in the Isdïra Complex in a bath of her own sweat.