Hatchetfield.

Richie Lipschitz x Reader

The classroom feels colder than usual. It's eerily quiet, and nothing is visible outside the windows, as if there's a heavy fog.

On my left sits Grace Chasity, twirling a pencil with a pom-pom on the end. For some reason she's wearing all white. White hair clips, white sweater vest with a white bow, even her normally pink shoes are white. She's filling out a test, and I realize that the same test is on my desk too, empty. Even odder, I'm wearing all white too. I don't even think I own a piece of white clothing. There's only ten minutes left of class, and I haven't even written my name yet. It's not that the questions look very difficult, in fact I'm sure I'll ace this test as I always do, but my pencil case seems to be missing. Something tells me it's not in my bag. I poke the girl in front of me, Stephanie Lauter, and she looks back at me, equally as panicked as I am. She wears a white and grey flannel over a cropped fleetwood mac shirt.

"Hey, can I borrow a pencil?" I ask her. Steph and I aren't friends, but we've worked on a couple group projects together before and tolerate each others presence. If it weren't for Max Jägerman, we would probably hang out. She glances around the room and leans closer.

"I'll give you a pencil if you fill out my test for me," she says. It's a fair deal, honestly, since there's no way I'm asking Grace fucking Chasity for help. I sigh. "Deal."

She hands me her pencil and I rush through the multiple-choice questions. They're about as easy as I thought. I finish in record time and slip the paper forwards inconspicuously, trading it with Steph's empty test. And then, just when I thought I'd gotten away with it,

"CHEATERS!" screeches Grace. "Butt out, Chastity," Steph says, but all three of us know that won't happen. Just as Grace raises her hand to announce our treachery to Ms. Mulberry, I wake up.

The alarm on my bedside table throws a tantrum as I reenter the world of the living. I feel incredibly confused for a second, before I realize it must have been a very realistic dream. I should've realized, what with all the white clothes. When I open up my closet doors, I'm greeted with the familiar dark void, with only a few streaks of color throughout. Much better.

I consider writing the dream down so I can remember it, since it was so realistic, but I find that the whole thing is still very vivid in my mind. What an odd thing to dream, though. Luckily, we don't have a biology test coming up anytime soon.

-

Nevermind.

As soon as I entered second period biology, Ms. Mulberry announced that there would, in fact, be a pop quiz. And if that wasn't enough, I really had forgotten my pencil case at home.

So here I sit, in the same situation that I had dreamt earlier. On my left sits Grace Chasity, again, wearing almost the exact same outfit she wore in my dream, except it's pink and blue this time. The pom pom on her pencil is bright pink. In front of me, Stephanie Lauter, wearing a dark green flannel. Odd.

It might be a little superstitious, but I really don't want to ask Steph for a pencil. I glance to my right, and make eye contact with the anime-guy I've sat next to for years. I don't think I actually know his name, which makes me feel a little guilty.

To be fair, though, I only know like five kids' names at this school: Max Jägerman, Grace Chasity, Stephanie Lauter, Ruth, and I'm pretty sure one of the cheerleaders is named Brenda. I don't really make an effort to learn, since I prefer the simplicity of being a loner. Sure, half the school thinks I'm secretly some kind of serial killer-occultist-cannibal, but I honestly don't care. That's what I tell myself. As soon as I graduate high school, I'm getting the hell out of Hatchetfield and never coming back.