Classroom X

day one: suspicion

It had been a long, sleepless night.

Ken sat folded in on himself at a corner of the classroom, arms hugging his knees in a death grip. His eyes were bloodshot, having cried for hours into the night. Last night had been the worst night of his life—he couldn't even get a wink of sleep.

If he closed his eyes he would see Diego in his last moments, his eyes roving from face to face, all of them turned away from him. Everyone else had the excuse that they didn't know what was going to happen, that they could never have imagined that Diego was going to be killed. But what excuse did he have?

He should have stepped forward.

Done something.

Stopped the execution.

He was the class president.

Dammit, he was Diego Emryse's only friend.

Was?

He felt like throwing up.

Dawn was breaking outside the huge glass windows of the classroom, light scattering upon the mist that had descended over the motionless trees. The chatter of morning birds filled the terrible silence, pulling Ken's mind out of the dark place it had gone to. He became aware of the crick in his neck only when he straightened himself, all his joints aching after being locked in rigid angles for the entire night.

He let his eyes sweep over the room.

There were others sleeping in the room: some on desks pulled together, a few upon a huddle of bags, some on chairs with their heads resting on their desks, encircled by their arms.

It had been late when they went to sleep. It was going to be a while before they woke up again. Ken shuffled to his feet, then stooped down again so he could pick up the cellphone he had left on the floor next to where he sat. He switched it on and tried to send a call to his mother. A cheery female voice informed him about a lack of service. He terminated the call and instead attempted to link his phone to the internet, only to get a pop up screen announcing poor signal connectivity.

Defeated, Ken switched off his phone again. There had been no signal and net connectivity the entire night. He didn't need to be a genius to guess that their sole connection to the outside world had been severed on purpose. Did the soldiers think they might call for help? Did that mean they were being held illegally? Or did they just not want the world to know what exactly was going on at Dom Adams? What story did the soldiers cook up to serve their parents? Did their parents know what was happening to them? Did they know Diego had been killed?

Diego.

Ken's lungs burned.

Slowly, Ken made his way towards the classroom's door. Someone had closed it last night to keep out the chill. Heloise was sleeping on the floor next to the door, head nestled into a makeshift pillow made of a spare bomber jacket. There were still traces of  dried salt trails on her cheeks from crying her eyes out last night. Ken knew Diego's death had shaken her. After the soldiers had whisked his body away, she'd spent a long time trying to wipe his blood off the floor with pages torn out of notebooks, intermittent sobs racking her body. Next to her, Ken thought he didn't deserve to be called a class president.

Ken trod past Heloise gingerly, trying not to make any noise by dragging his feet even though they felt too heavy for him to lift up. He opened the door and slipped out of the classroom, then closed it again behind him.

There was a cold breeze blowing, which played with the satiny leaves of garden plants and pressed up against Ken, causing him to shiver. Ken climbed down the stairs and walked onto the stone-paved courtyard of the school. Tiny shoots of grass squeezed their way between the grooves of the loosely packed stones, their heads springing back up after Ken had stepped on them absently.