A Land of Despair

May I Have A Pencil.

Come Monday morning, it had been a week since I fell ill. I missed the attendance call to get a review from the nurse, Tina and Mike came with me. The nurse though, had not yet reported for work, it seemed she played by her own rules.

"The sports festival is coming up, it'll be over the weekend. Should we go." Tina inquired of us, masking the order as a question.

"You guys can go if you want, I can't be bothered," Mike spoke as he put his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie.
He wasn't part of any sports team, but he was allowed to attend as a spectator, any students where if they registered a quickly enough.

They were so different, Tina and Mike, in looks and personality.

"I won't go if you guys don't go," She looked at us waiting for a response. Though I could tell she really wanted to go.

"I'm going." I stated, hoping to put an end to this conversation before it turned into bickering. I had to go, I was the team captain.

As the room grew silent, Tina looked around and took a step closer to where Mike and I were seated and whispered,
"Shall we inform the group that we won't be going there this weekend because of the school event then?"

Before I could react, Mike, who normally had a cool demeanor about him, was already on his feet,flushed with panic, he held his sister by the shoulders in a tight grip causing her to she flinch.

"Don't talk about such matters on school grounds, ever. Next time you have a question, swallow your thoughts. Understand?" He sneered.

Tina seemed to loose her composure seeing her brother that way, she must have felt powerless so she slowly nodded.

I casually put my hand on his wrist, Tina had gotten the message and it was time he let her go. As his hands fell to his side, his expression changed, his gaze falling towards the door, I turned, only to lock sight with Hope, eyes wide.
Winter standing right next to her.

How much did they hear? The room felt heavy, none of us knowing what to say.

Tina, now back to normal, turned to look at the two. She took a step closure to seem more assertive, it's was like she hadn't just been shaken to the core a few moments earlier.

"What are you two doing here?" She spat.

Winter immediately looked away, not one to participate in any sort of confrontation.

"I came to give you your review, the nurse is off today so I was told to do it." Hope replied, her gaze never leaving mine.

"And what about you, Controller?" Tina was relentless with her questioning, but Winter never seemed to acknowledge her efforts.

Hope had turned, this time to face Tina, as determined as ever, "She's with me, I asked her to come!"

That statement made me feel a certain way, it angered me to know that she would willingly stand up for Winter... Winter was only here because her parents had come as part of the controllers plan to diversify the earth with more of their species. Her parents, like all the others, had adopted the most human of names, and called her Winter Sunflower. She had a name like ours but she wasn't one of us.

None of them were!

"This is the human sick bay, she has no reason to be here! Whether you asked her to or not!" My voice was thunderous, it surprised even me. It was unlike me to loose my temper so easily.

Winter turned and left the room, the others didn't move. Hope looked torn, she wanted to leave immediately as well, but she didn't. Instead she walked silently to the file cabinet, took out a file, signed it and put it back.

"I've signed your file, to say that you're doing just fine." She mumbled as she left the room.

As the three of us walked back to our class, I stayed silent. The twins argued about weather the two girls heard us or not, it didn't matter though, they wouldn't know what we were talking about even if they heard.

The technology class was just beginning as we took our seats, the teacher gave us some work to do by ourselves because she had to leave the class room.
There were some drawings to be done in the work we were doing.

I didn't have a pencil.

Hoping to ask Mike to spare me one, I caught him drawing with his pen, he offered a smirk when he saw me staring.

Tina was of no help either, as she too was asking a girl near her at the back of the class, for a pencil.

I looked forward, Hope had not turned to me during the whole class. She was normally trying to strike up conversation so she sat facing the side to be able to look at me and the front easily.

She always had her glittery blue pencil case with her, filled with everything you could think of that could fit, including glitter pens. I thought of asking her, then I thought of just drawing with a pen like Mike, but the latter was less appealing.

"Hope," I cleared my throat. "May I have a pencil?"

She didn't respond, or turn back to smile at me like she normally would, instead, rummaged through her case, pulling out a perfectly sharpened pencil with an eraser hat she placed on my table without saying a word. I figured she was still upset about the situation earlier.

She would get over it eventually. I didn't care, did I?

The rest of the day went by slowly, and I felt the weight of it though anticipating our P.E lesson, because there was no need to sit quietly and think for that class, my body had to do some work.

It seemed the coach was eagerly waiting for our arrival as well, he worked us to the bone. We had drills upon drills and they didn't stop coming.

During our break, I sat down on the track, Tina lay down next to me panting heavily her arm over her face, she couldn't even speak without taking deep breaths.
I watched Hope curiously as she approached the coach, she hadn't said a word to me all day.

A generally chatty person, always willing to fill up any gaps of silence with her voice. Sometimes I thought she spoke not caring what others thought and more because she enjoyed the sound of her own voice.

"Are you trying to kill us coach, we are only children." Hope joked
He looked at her and showed her with his notepad.
She giggled in all her glory.

It annoyed me, what was she so happy about?I looked away.

"That girl," Tina started, still on her back...she didn't seem amused, "she walks around like everything is fine and everyone loves her, if she only knew that most of us didn't. All the teachers let her get away with random stuff, as if she is so perfect. Who does she think she is."

My eyes darted back to her, she was standing next to some of our other classmates and they seemed to be having an interesting conversation with each other. Then I looked at Tina, it made me wonder if there was something that I was missing.

Our training lasted well after school time was over, the coach bellowed about how he loved that we lived in school grounds and could train all night if we had to, but he let us leave after a while.

The locker rooms were closed by now, that meant we had to clean up at the dorms, as I was packing up my things, I found Hope's pencil. I stared at it for longer than necessary and held it tightly.