Bound by Hellfire

Chapter 3

The sudden chill on my neck dispersed the forged landscape like a curtain being closed in a theater. My head instinctively sprung up from my makeshift cushion sending static through my weightless arm. It took a few seconds for the blood to flow back to my hand and I felt the deja vu of that moment--- but like any other person faced with that phenomenon, I pushed it away as quickly as it formed.

I wiped the drowsiness from my eyes with one hand as the other tried to rub the knot that had formed in my shoulder. My eyes opened wide, my fingers tracing the goosebumps on my neck.

The chill felt fresh, like a frozen slab of meat. Feeling my neck thaw underneath my hand made me shudder. My mind slowly but surely snapping back to reality. I rubbed my eyes one final time before a blurry figure was caught in my field of vision.

Everything came into focus and I found myself staring once again at the front of the class where Mrs. Loxlen stared at all of us. The chatter of the students in the room had stopped and Mrs. Loxlen, arms crossed, began to give her first-day speech.

A familiar pit started to form in my stomach--- thinking of introducing myself to everyone again.

I took a deep breath and started to rehearse what I was going to say. Mrs. Loxlen's introduction faded away as I began to intensely focus on the words I was going to use, but my concentration was suddenly halted when Mrs. Loxlen's hand moved across the chalkboard behind her.

"I guess we aren't introducing ourselves," I thought to myself.

The thoughts of my well-thought-out introduction began to fade and we immediately dove into our first lesson on Archaeology. Some time passed and the class was about halfway over when Mrs. Loxlen pulled out a worksheet.

"Now I would like everyone to get into groups of five".

The classroom immediately erupted with chatter once again as desks slid together and friends huddled closer.

Ethan and I stared around the room. The sudden movement of the desks split the room into three groups:

The know-it-alls on one side, The populars on the other, and the outcasts left in the middle to awkwardly look around for group mates.

The dream that had shaken me to my core was now a fading memory. Looking back at it now I couldn't have known that it was the start of it all. That it would be the first of many that would lead me down a path that I couldn't come back from.

As Ethan and I grabbed our desks, I noticed a familiar face within a group of three. It was the guy that walked out during homeroom. I hadn't got a good look at his face, but his jet-black curly hair and the fact he was wearing a hoodie in the middle of July gave him away.

"He must have walked in when I dozed off," I thought to myself.

I looked down at the floor to try not to make eye contact with him, but then I remembered what Mrs. Loxlen told us---

"Try to be friends with him".

---Why did this new me mentality have to be challenged so hastily? The universe could have at least waited until the specks of sand had fully left the crevices of my eyes.

I sat my desk down and slid it closer to the others just in time for Mrs. Loxlen to put our worksheets on our desks. Ethan as usual followed my lead. My face began to tense and twist trying to put a name to his face.

"Martin? Michael---? Marco? Polo---?

He noticed my gaze and looked over at me as I finally collected my thoughts.