Under The Shadows

Chapter One

"Miss Melendez, I'm afraid that you're not in this class anymore"
Isabelle studied Mr. Pérez for three seconds before deciding that she was calling bullshit.
  "I'm sorry Profe, but last I checked, I was attending this institution that you so call a high school. And the last time I checked was five minutes ago." She said as she crossed her arms. She had never liked her physics teacher anyways, she decided. Besides, he gave her a weird, creepy feeling.
        The man looked at her in slight shock, probably out of seeing her react like this when she was usually non-confrontational. Probably.
        She didn't mean to be rude. Well, actually, she did, but she didn't want to get something bad on her record for it. She had been answering in sarcastic and/or rude comments and monosyllables since yesterday, probably because she felt like she wanted to punch something, anything, every excruciating second that passed before her. Sometimes she didn't know if she wanted to shoot someone or cry on their shoulder. She hated it.
     "Do not disrespect me, Melendez. And if you want to complain, go to complain at the office." Mr. Perez said and smiled as if he had won the argument. The piece of shit has the audacity to look smug, she thought.
She stared at him in the eyes with the most emotionless face she was physically able to put on - Even when that feeling of dread that came when she looked at him arrived- and said, "Fine." and walked - no, stormed - to the office. She wished that Renzo could be there to make his usual comments, which were usually mildly rude, but extremely funny, to her, at least. It was ridiculous that this was happening three months into the school year, besides, the school kept everything on paper, since they seemed to think that modern technology was witchcraft, so her name couldn't suddenly disappear from all those papers.
          When she got to the main office she greeted Carolina, the secretary, of who she's friends with, but the woman acted as though she didn't know Isabelle, which besides making her angry, also made Isabelle act as if she didn't know her. She walked into the principal's office without even knocking and stood in front of the old woman's desk.
          "May I help you?" Mrs. Figueroa said with her principal voice as she lifted her eyes to meet Isabelle's.
          "Yes," she said, suddenly angry for some reason, "Yes, you may help me." she tried to stabilize her breathing to calm herself down before she continued speaking, or else she would end up saying or doing something that she'd regret, "Profe, it appears that someone took me out of my class' roster, I'm in 5th year, section B, can you please check it? Mr. Perez won't let me in the class even when he's seen me there since the beginning of the school year." There you go, polite and precise, they should give me an award for this.
           The principal looked at Isabelle, seemingly puzzled, and said, "Dear, what's your name?"
           How can she not remember my name? She's been calling me by my name -names- for two months now, what the hell? She almost answered sarcastically, before she remembered who she was talking to, so she swallowed her indignation and answered Mrs. Figueroa's question, "My full name is Isabelle Natalia Melendez Arvelo, but you would know that already, and my cedula number is this one" She said while she handed a piece of paper with her ID number to the woman, even though Mrs. Figueroa never asked for it.
          Mrs. Figueroa grabbed the piece of paper, stared at it then stared at Isabelle in a weird way, and took the ID number with her to ckeck the student records. When her principal came back, the woman had a puzzled look on her face when she sat back on her desk, as if she was arguing with herself about something. And when she finally met Isabelle's eyes, she could've sworn that for a moment, Mrs.Figueroa's eyes looked weird, but that moment was gone when the lady started speaking again, "I'm sorry, honey, but there is no Isabelle Melendez in 5th year, you're not even on any of the school's records, besides, I've never seen you before, and Carolina doesn't know who you are either" What the fucking hell? Is she pulling a prank on me? I bet Renzo's behind this. I'm going to murder him. Mrs. Figueroa's voice sounded eerie, Isabelle noticed, after her mental rant, and then it went back to normal when the lady continued talking, "Dear, are you sick? I can call your parents and tell them to pick you up from here, do you want me to call them?" Isabelle got a good idea of how her face looked at the moment based on that reaction, and she probably felt how she looked.
         Strange things had been happening to her these last days, for sure, but this was impossible. There's a difference between weird things happening and people completely forgetting her, virtually erasing her from existence.
          The feeling of wanting to punch something and cry at the same time came back. She still hated it.
           "You're joking, right?" She said when she finally found her voice again, disturbing a tense silence, "Renzo! Come out, you fucking idiot! This is an extremely lame joke, I expected better of you"' Now Isabelle was screaming desperately at seemingly nowhere, which appeared to unnerve Mrs. Figueroa and Carolina even more. She didn't care, she was probably going crazy.
Why does Mrs. Figueroa look scared? She's been in this job for 20 yeers, she should be doing better than this. She hasn't been acting like her bossy self this whole time. Isabelle shoved those thoughts out of her mind, she would think about it later.
            Isabelle went over to Carolina's desk and looked at the secretary, "Cut the bullshit, I'm tired, paranoid and sleep-deprived, do you know who I am? Tell me the truth" she said to Carolina, enunciating each word slowly. Carolina looked at Isabelle with fear in her eyes, and dripping from her voice, "No, I don't know who you are, I'm sorry" And Isabelle could tell that Carolina was telling the truth, well, at least her truth.
The thing about the truth, as it turns out, is that it's different for everyone.
            Isabelle stormed -no, flounced- out of the office, directly towards her now apparent ex-classroom. She saw one of her friends, and, as aprehensively as humanly possible, Isabelle asked the other girl where the physics teacher was.
            "I think he's still in the classroom, even if it's lunch hour," the girl answered with a kind smile, "Oh, and, by the way, I'm Diana Arias, are you new at this school? I could show you around if you want."
            Isabelle was going to throw up, "Nah, I don't think I need a tour. But thank you anyways." Was all that she was able to say before she practically ran toward her classroom. Mr. Pérez know something, and I'm going to find that something out.
             "WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENI-"
           The teacher in the classroom was not Mr. Perez.
     Sure, he was an old man, and gave off a worse vibe than Perez, but Isabelle was 99% sure that it was another guy. The other 1% was in case at some point in the day she hit her head hard enough to get temporary blindness.
            The creepy old man turned around slowly -apparently he had both of his legs messed up- and looked at her, "And" the teacher said calmly, "who do we have here today?" Gosh, even how he speaks when he's nice is creepy.
             "I'm Natasha Arabelloa, and I wanted to know where the physics teacher that came before you went" She didn't know why she used a fake name, or how she had managed to make a serious question sound stupid, but she didn't really trust the guy, and he made her nervous.
             He walked a little bit closer to her, probably in an attempt to look puzzled, "I'm sorry, miss Arabelloa, but the physics teacher that came before me left this school five years ago, so I wouldn't even want to know where he is, if I were you"
             She wasn't stupid, and she understood a veiled threat when she was presented with one. And in that moment, she knew that the man knew what her real name was, and probably many other things that put her in danger. Ohh, I know that I'm in danger, alright, even if I have zero idea about what the hell is happening. She was definetly going to be sick.
              When she got on the bus to go back home, and started to go through what had happened that day, she realized that she had not been paying a lot of attention to the creepy-dangerous-old-man's feet. And in that moment, it hit her, the reason for his ridiculously exaggerated limp
His feet were in reverse, pointing to the back when he was facing the front.
             The moment she got home, she threw up.