A Young Adult, sci-fi novel - Red in my Head

Chapter 2 - The Banshee

"You disgust me, Joe. Can't you just use a fork? Honestly," Arthur teased, rolling his eyes.

Joe scoffed, holding up the flimsy plastic fork provided by the lunch ladies. "You mean this plastic fork?" He wiggled it, and the two of them broke out in a fit of laughter, loud enough to turn heads.

The school prided itself on its safety policies, so everything in the cafeteria is plastic or cardboard. As a result though, that meant that eating something like a steak wasn't just incredibly frustrating— it was borderline dangerous. One wrong move, and you could end up with a chipped fork edge cutting your gums. That was how the school worked. They didn't fix problems; they replaced them with worse ones.

As their laughter subsided, Arthur asked, "Are we playing Escape Blue 3 at your house after school?"

Arthur and Joe had been inseparable since the age of 5, on their first day of kindergarten. Arthur had spent ten minutes crying after his mom had dropped him off, sobbing like an abandoned child. That was when Joe had wandered over to him with a lollipop in each hand, offering one with a toothy grin. That single gesture sparked the beginning of their friendship, conjoining the pair at the hip.

And almost every day after that, Joe had shared something from his lunchbox—a cookie, a pack of crackers, a little carton of juice. Arthur never said it, but those snacks weren't just a kind gesture; they were the only food he had to eat some days.

"Ugh, I wish, but my dad said that—" Joe began, but his words were cut off by a scream.

It wasn't just a scream—it was a raw, high-pitched shriek that sliced through the cafeteria noise like a blade. Arthur and Joe froze, their heads snapping toward the source.

It was the girl who always sat across from them at lunch—Annie's best friend. Arthur had never cared enough to learn her name. She was just another rich, goody-two-shoes type with perfect grades and a perfect life. Arthur knew enough about people like her to warn Annie to stay away, although she was never one to listen. That was Annie, she was the type of friend that could be bought. Arthur would never dare to say that out loud though, especially since she was Joe's girlfriend.

"What the hell..." he heard Joe mutter under his breath, but Arthur didn't respond. His attention was locked on the girl as she stood trembling, her eyes wide and glued to her plate, her pupils dark—as if she was looking at something that wasn't actually there. She looked possessed, transported to another world, a world of nightmares. It was eerie, terrifying.

The cafeteria noise had completely dulled as all heads turned her way.

Arthur's chest tightened. There was something about her face—the terror etched into her features, the way her mouth hung open screaming—that made his stomach churn.

And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the screaming stopped. She collapsed to her knees, as if she was back to the present.

"Holy crap," Joe breathed, breaking the silence.

Arthur felt his pulse in his ears as whispers rose around the cafeteria, spreading confusion like wildfire.

Annie was already at her side, crouched down with a look of deep concern. Always there to help her out. That was why Arthur hated Annie's friend so much. That girl thought money made her above everyone else, that she could buy herself friends, buy herself sympathy. Buy herself his friends.

Arthur watched Annie's lips move but her voice felt distant, muffled by the weight in his chest.

A nudge on his shoulder snapped him out of his thoughts.

"She okay, bro? I wonder what happened. She's usually, like, super quiet. Weird," Joe said, echoing exactly what Arthur was thinking—not that he'd admit it.

Arthur clenched his jaw, his cheeks burning as he stared at the helpless scene in front of him. The girl seemed... gone. Her blank, dissociated expression was burned into his mind, and he couldn't shake the image of the way she had looked at her plate—like she was staring into something horrifying, something only she could see.

Before he knew it, the two girls were leaving the cafeteria: one helpless, the other helping.

"She didn't even touch her food," Joe muttered, drawing Arthur's gaze to the untouched plate. Another thing to add to his list of reasons to hate her—wasting food.

Well, that wasn't going to happen under Arthur's watch.

He was starving, anyway. Ignoring the judgmental looks and muttered scoffs from his friends, Arthur reached for the plate and dug in.

Disgusting school lunch was better than no lunch at all.

"That's messed up, Arthur," Mark commented, his tone a mix of disapproval and amusement.

Arthur rolled his eyes. "She wasn't going to eat it, anyway. Imagine letting this delicious, high-protein meal go to waste," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

The real reason was simpler: he was starving, and he couldn't afford to care what anyone thought.

"Since when do you care about the environment?" Joe quipped, nudging him with a grin.

Arthur chuckled inwardly but didn't answer. He just kept eating.