day one: desperation

15 6 19
                                    

When people had a heart attack, they said they felt like someone had put a mountain on their chest. It crushed the air out of their lungs, leaving them breathless to even cry out.

Nike wondered if she was having a heart attack. Her chest felt so tight she feared her lungs might collapse, that her ribs might just crack from the strain. Every beat of her heart ached.

No.

Not Eliot.

Anyone but Eliot.

Briefly, she wondered if there was something wrong with the night, because she felt like the blackness had curved around her, tunnelling her vision. Through the ceaseless buzz in her head, she heard the smattering of murmurings erupting in chains.

"Is he being serious?"

"Is he really the Angel of Death?"

"I would never have guessed."

No, Nike tried to choke out. He's not. He's lying. Why couldn't she open her mouth?

"Silence!" bellowed the Major. "I've said no talking while voting. Anyone who breathes another word will be penalized by more votes in your name."

Silence fell like a curtain of heavy rain, gloomy and grey, but with a rushing kind of noise which sounded like blood racing through the veins.

Nike's mind was in turmoil. She can't let Eliot die. Not like this. Will the others really believe Eliot's words? No one would believe the Angel of Death would reveal himself just like that, would they?

What if he really is the terrorist the soldiers are looking for?

Nike shook her head. She refused to believe that. What? It was impossible that Eliot was the same person as the boy who ripped the heart out of a kitten with his bare hand. There was no way Eliot was the Angel of Death. She was sure of it the same way she was sure the earth revolved around the sun and the moon revolved around the earth.

Eliot Gardien was not the Angel of Death.

Against the backdrop of the whiteboard, Eliot resembled an apparition: his face was pallid, framed by an equally pale mass of unkempt hair, his eyes gazing upon death. Nike couldn't bear to see him like that-like he already had one leg in a grave.

The voting line crept forward at the pace of an indecisive man making important life decisions. Eliot had cast his vote first and had moved to the side of the front desk. Seven students later when it was Nike's turn, she wrote her own name on the voting slip, although she knew it wasn't enough.

There had to be something she could do.

She gazed around for inspiration, taking in the worn edges of the desks, a faint grey patch like a water stain and a forgotten cobweb in the corner of the ceiling, a broomstick hanging from a hook on the wall next to a dustbin. Her eyes skimmed every entity inside the class, and dismissed all of them. There had to be something. Come on, she was the smartest girl in the class.

Something clanged inside her memory, reverberating loud enough to drown the unrelenting buzz in her brain.

Anyone who breathes another word will be penalized by more votes in your name.

A tremble started at the base of her spine and spread across all her limbs. This was it. This was the answer she had been looking for. But was she brave enough to do it?

"Eliot is not the Angel of Death," she blurted out before she could lose her nerve. Heads turned her way in surprise.

She locked eyes with the Major, who looked confused for half a second before he remembered his own promise. He looked like he just witnessed someone perform a breach of social propriety, like he couldn't believe someone would have the gall to do something like that right before his eyes. He tapped on a side panel of the voting machine. "Ten votes has been added to Nike Manchovy's name for talking out of turn."

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