In Love With The God Of The Underworld

Chapter 3: Him

"Persephone, hurry up, you're going to be late for school," Dee said to me. It was four in the morning. The nearest open school was three hours out of town. During the first weeks of the Depression many schools, factories, and small buisnesses shut down. Leaving many without jobs and homeless. Dee filled me in with the economic crisis. She was one of the lucky ones who had a job and a home. Dee was a junior high history teacher. 

School was only five hours long for four days, because thats all the city could afford to light and heat the place. No lunches, and no buses. 

School 66NY was an old brick building, nothing really special. The lawn was over grown, and surrounded by an electric fence, that had no electricty. A few of the windows were boarded up, and the name the school had been orginally was torn down. The outline of the words could still be seen faintly. 

"I'll see you at the end of the day," Dee said as we got out of the car. I nodded in responce starting to walk up to the building. 

"Persephone?" I turned to look at her, "Be safe," She told me. I gave her a small, reassuring smile. 

The inside of the building wasn't any better then the outside. Old, rusty lockers lined the walls. The paint was peeling and the tiles on the floors were cracked in many places. I took out a folded piece of paper from my back pocket. It was my locker and schedule information. I sighed quietly to myself and started off in the direction of my locker and first period class.

Everyone stared at me when I entered first period. It was unusual for someone to be absent for many weeks and come back. They all assumed I died. 

"Welcome back Miss Jones. I hear you suffer from amnesia?" The teacher spoke up, breaking the silence. He was tall and geeky looking. His receding hairline was a light blonde laced with gray, and his green eyes showed nothing but kindness behind his soda can glasses.

"Yeah," I said dumbly.

"Well, I am Mr. Behr and this is History. Your seat is the last seat by the windows," He told me pointing in the direction of my seat. I smiled gratefully and walked over to my seat.

"On another note we have a new student," Mr. Behr continued, "His name is Nicholas Sterling," The girls in the class looked at each other in excitement, "Come on in Mr. Sterling".

The door opened to reveal a tall boy, he was my age, and his hair was spiked up in the front. He was wearing a black tee shirt, showing off his muscles, with a worn leather jacket over it, and dark wash jeans.

"Welcome to School 66, anything you would like to say to the class before we start?" Mr. Behr asked  the boy.

"Nope," His smooth, deep voice rang out. His eyes seemed to find mine, locked in an intense stare. I shivered slightly under his gaze.

"Then you can take your seat behind Miss Greene. Coraline please raise your hand," Mr. Behr told Nicholas. Nodding, NIcholas walked over to his designated seat. He walked with an air of arrogance, and danger. Like he was stalking prey.

"So you really don't remember anything?" A girl walked up to me and asked. She had short brown hair, dark brown eyes and thicker rimmed glasses.

"Yeah," I responded.

"Oh, I'm Emily. We hung out a couple times," She smiled slightly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nicholas staring at me, "Persephone? Whatcha lookin' at?" She asked turning around. 

"Nothing," I said quietly. Emily turned back around and looked at me. She squinted at me,

"Your left eye is a gray, while your right is a blue..." She trailed off. I moved my gaze to Nicholas again,

"Uh, yeah.. the doctor's said it was a side effect from the medicine they gave me when I was in a coma," I told her. That was a lie. They were always like this, or, I assumed they were always like this. I saw colored contacts on my dresser. I couldn't get myself to put them in. I saw Nicholas raise an eyebrow, as if he heard my statement and new my lie.