Short Story: Something Extraordinary

Something Extrordinary

The teacher wrote an equation on the whiteboard, he sighed and copied it down in his incomprehensible notes. Math was never his strong suit, murder on the other hand was a completely different story. If a boy kills four people over the course of three days. What is the average amount of people killed per day?
4 ÷ 3 = 1.33333333 1 1/3 people murdered per day

Once there was a girl who died. She wasn't special, she was ordinary. She was a weird girl, not the type of weird that was geeky or cute, the kind of weird that parents told their children to stay far away from. Her name was Lila, she had dark tangled hair with an inch of scarlet near the bottom swooped to the left side of her head. Her piercing blue eyes were always darting around the room sparked with paranoia, the edges of the blue pools always coated in thick charcoal black lines.

Once there was a boy with short mahogany hair and a shine in his dark eyes. He had a grin like sunlight and the laugh of a child. You could cut yourself on his cheek bones. His name was Simon. He loved to take photos. He took pictures of everything, but Lila was his favorite subject. He thought she was extraordinary.

Lila had an aptitude for algebra but always found it hard to focus when Mr. Whitman's lectures started to drag on. The start of school was always the most boring because the unnecessary review seemed to go on for weeks, it made her mind wander. Besides the scarlet tips of her hair and crimson lipstick, Lila wasn't wearing any color; from her favorite ebony sweater -- it was the softest one she owned --, to her coal colored leggings, to her dark nail polish, it was all some shade of black . She let her mind wander completely zoning out until Mr. Whitman's voice became background noise to her endless spiral of thoughts. Only after three sharp poking jabs to her shoulder did she look up, "What do you want?" she snapped at the disturber-Simon Collins.

"I was wondering if you would help me with this, I'm just not getting it." Simon questioned "Please?" He was dressed like every other junior boy at Crimson Falls High School, black short sleeved t-shirt with the cuffs folded up, a pair of khaki colored skinny jeans, and the latest in Nike footwear.

Lila remembered back to when Simon last spoke to her.

-- A raven had dropped its feather when trying to ascend into the sky. He picked it up off the concrete, handed it to her and smiled as he spoke "It looks like you need this more than me."

She was nine years old at the time and didn't think much of it, "The crow probably wants it back." Lila responded.

"It was a raven." he corrected, "My name is Simon." Then he ran past her down the street to his house. --
They had been neighbors for the past seven years but they hadn't spoken since that summer day. The feather was still on her dresser where it had been for ever since. Why not help him with his math work? What harm could it cause? "Okay, first you need to combine like terms so three x plus four x is..."

"Seven x?" Simon interrupted.

"Yeah, that's right." she praised. They worked through the rest of the problem without too much trouble.

The bell rang at the end of the period, Lila stuffed her notebook into her bag, and stood to leave. Before she could get out the door, Simon caught her arm, "I still have no Idea what I'm doing," he sighed, "but you seem like you know how to do this. Do you think you could come to my house after school and help me with my homework?" he asked looking hopeful. Was he crazy, they weren't friends? "I will pay you to tutor me." It wasn't like Lila had plans, but they had only just met for real. She wasn't sure if she could trust him, but she could use the money.

"Fine, twenty bucks an hour." she purposed.

"Fifteen," recanted Simon.

Pausing for a moment before responding "Deal."

After the last bell rang Lila went to her locker where Simon was waiting. He looked directly at her and stated, "You have beautiful eyes, did you know that?" She gave him an odd look and turned to open her locker ignoring the misplaced complement. Unfortunately they had missed the bus to the Grave Street, so they had to walk. About two streets over, he said something quite strange, "Have you noticed that Stacy, Jenny, and Quinn haven't been in school lately?". As soon as she heard the mention of their names, she felt the sense of dread like a prickle on the back of her neck. Those three had been terrorizing her since grade school.

"Why would I have noticed that they weren't in school?" she replied a trace of panic in her voice.

"I thought you guys were friends. You seem to talk every day".

Letting out a chuckle, she said, "They just like to mess with me".

When they got to Simon's front door, he wrestled his keys out of his front pocket with a jingle and turned the lock. As soon as he opened the door, she could tell that something was wrong. The smell was strange and very strong. It reminded her of spoiled groceries. She held her sleeve to her nose and asked, "What is that?".

"I'm not sure but I thinks it's coming from the basement", he answered knowingly. He motioned to the door that lead down stairs and she thoughtlessly, walked ahead of him. As she came to the bottom step, she witnessed the basement walls plastered with pictures of her and the source of the stench.

There on the concrete floor of the basement, lay the missing girls. Their bodies were pale and each had gashes, bloody with gore. She screeched and turned to run but it was too late. Simon was positioned in the middle of the stairs and caught her in a bear hug. "Simon, what have you done?!".

"Don't you see? he yelled. "I did it all for you! I thought you'd be happy. Proud even... They had it coming...the way they treated you! You know I've always loved you. We are meant to be together. YOU KNOW THAT!"

Lila spat back, "You're a psychopath! "Let me go!" The first time she saw him he gave her a raven's feather, the last time she saw him he took her life.