Classroom X

day five: panic

Warning! Mature content! This chapter is disturbing. I can't believe I'm about to write it.

Winter was months away, but the sky looked like it wanted to snow. Scanty sunlight fell through the leaves of old trees and spilled across the grass, turning green blades pearlish as though drenching them with a sheen of magic. Stodgy pots, whitewashed and filled with mud were placed in neat rows outside the corridor railing, tiny ornamental plants growing out of them, their leaves rustling in a chilly breeze. A little away, criss-crossed by the lengthening shadows of tree branches was a flowerbed, stippled with bright yellow flowers in bloom.

Juliet hugged her jacket closer as she propped herself against the railing of the ground floor corridor, one of her knees jutting out between the slats. Her hands were buried deep inside the baggy trousers she'd picked up from the clothes pile, fingers curled tight to minimise heat loss. Her wet hair fringed her face like a headdress made melting snow, a few of her platinum locks swinging in the wind. She shivered against the cold, her toes shrivelling inside her shoes. She regretted taking a shower; she'd give anything for someone to light a bonfire now, or at least make her a warm cup of coffee.

The light was fading fast, exactly like it would on a winter day. This time of the year shouldn't be having such short days—at least that's what their geography texts told them—but climate change had turned the weather patterns of the planet a fickle thing. The seasons were becoming unpredictable.

When a particularly frigid surge of wind washed over her and wriggled in through her jacket, she decided she'd had enough nature-watching. She peered down at the white bumps of newly risen gooseflesh all over her arms and pulled her knee out from between the railing slats. She should probably just go back to classroom and wait until the voting session. Seven o'clock was less than two hours away.

The thought of going back to class, however, just made Juliet want to shrink into herself. She couldn't pinpoint why exactly she hated being in their classroom; maybe it was because she'd witnessed too many deaths in there—too many murders. Also she wouldn't lie to herself and say her reluctance to go back to class didn't also coalesce from her fear of her other classmates, partly at least. She understood that not all of them could be the Angel of Death, but she also understood any of them could be the Angel of Death. At this point, everyone in the school terrified her. Even Cassidy.

She wondered where Cassidy was. Cassidy had still been in the middle of a bath when Juliet left the showers. Since she judged it was unlikely Cassidy would make a quick reappearance, she deemed it preferable to not wait around. Cassidy should be done by now.

As she began her slow walk back to the class Juliet felt something amiss. Something was bothering her, or she was forgetting something. However she'd covered a whole length of corridor before she figured out what had put her on edge: someone was watching her. And because she was already walking, it meant someone was stalking her. She swung her head back so she could try and recognise the person, but whoever it was was wearing a hood over his head, hiding their face. She quickened her pace, an uneasiness unravelling in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to shout out, call for help, but she also had this shameful feeling growing inside her that told her it was absurd to be screaming just because she thought someone was following her inside the school.

She attempted to even her breathing, calm herself down. It was probably just someone from her class—of course it was, there was no one else inside their school except for her and her classmates. Whoever was behind her was someone she knew. And most probably the person was just going the same way as her, not actually trying to follow her. She didn't know where her paranoia was coming from, as though she expected the person trailing her to bury an axe in her skull from behind. Maybe it was a product of living through the last few days locked in the school, scared for her life. But there was this feeling of danger that seemed to be nipping at her like the spirits of the dark, sinister and invisible, telling her that bad things were coming and she cannot escape.