Hidden Darkness

Chapter 2

       Once monday came I went back to school, against my mother's wishes. She wanted me to stay in bed in case I was hurt or traumatized or something. The minute I walked through the doors, all voices stopped and all eyes rested onto me. Next thing I know I'm swarmed by teenagers talking to me, asking questions, congratulating me for escaping, high-fived me, and got some hugs from some of the girls. I don't know about the first few, but I definitely didn't mind the hugs.
    Throughout the whole day I was basically asked what had happened, how I escaped, if I saw the killer or not. It started out pretty cool, but it started to get on my nerves. Right when my last class of the day was about to start, the door opened and once they saw who it was, all conversation stopped. A kid at our school, Eric, had many bad rumors floating around him. Witchcraft, cannibalism, possessed by a demon, weird superstitious rumors.
He's almost always quiet, droopy or angry or threatening, or just uncaring. Well, that's who walked in. He almost walked past my desk but stopped and glanced at us. He wore his usual large trench coat, jeans, and boots today. A strange combo, but who's gonna tell that to someone so scary?
"The hell are you guys crowding around Emsly for?" he asked, sending a chill down some of our spines. "Matt witnessed one of the recent murders from the serial killer and survived," said a girl to my left. He looked unimpressed. "So? He didn't stop it."
"But he survived it. He could've died."
"People survive countless dangers every day. It's normal, I don't see any reason for praise." Eric began to walk to his seat. "Why do you have to be such an ass, Eric?" the girl added. Eric stopped just before his seat, turned back and stared a cold stare into the girl's eyes. She moved back against me, holding my arm a little.
I don't blame her, that stare was scary as hell. "Let me answer your question with a question. Why does the world have to be so shitty?" The whole room was silent as he slipped into his seat. The girl who stood up against Eric decided to sit in the empty seat next to mine for the day. We didn't talk much, just did our work in silence.
Which isn't strange. If Eric speaks, we all shut up. He has that kind of hold on the students, but he only uses it if he wants silence, which doesn't happen a lot. I still don't understand the praise, just like Eric. I only escaped, I didn't catch the guy.
But I guess the attention is good. When class ended I began walking towards the exit to catch the bus until I started to feel like I was being followed. I walked through a few hallways to test my thought without turning around. I kept hearing the same footfalls in every hallway. So I decided to turn around.
I did so right in the middle of my walk and saw the poor thing jump. It was the girl from my class and she looked like she got caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. "Why are you following me?" I ask her. "I wasn't following," she said without looking at me. "Is that why we've been passing the same library three times in the past two minutes?"
She quickly looked up at the library and began to blush a bit. "Okay, I might've been." I have to admit, she was being undeniably cute. "What for?"
"I dunno. I just was." I thought for a moment. "What's your name?"
"Amelia."
"Well, Amelia, you were following me for no reason whatsoever?" I noticed that Amelia began  shifting on her legs without looking at me. At this point, my classic guy dumbness cleared and I realized why she was following me. I crossed my arms and looked at her. "Amelia, would you like to go grab something to eat?"
She looked up at me surprised and excited. "Really? Now?"
"Sure, why not? Now it is. Come on, let's go," I say while turning around and smiling only slightly wickedly. I hear her laugh and say, "Okay." We walk out of the school and make our way to a small italian restaurant near the school. We walk inside, I of course, holding the door open like I should, and seeing the 'seat yourself' sign then finding a booth to sit at. Almost immediately after we sit down a waitress walks over and says welcome and asks what we would like to drink.
I order a root beer and she orders a sprite and as we waited we begin to talk. "So do you follow me often?" I say jokingly. She giggles a little and says, "No, not really. I mean, after what happened with Eric, I was scared so I just followed you. In case Eric wanted to teach me lesson for speaking up against him." The waitress then arrived with our drinks, I said thank you, and she quickly went over to finish what she was trying to finish.. "You could have followed anyone else. Why me?"
She just shrugged and sipped her drink. I take a sip from my drink too while thinking. "Well, I'm glad you did." She looks up at me and says, "Why is that?"
"It's not everyday a guy gets to eat with a pretty girl." I swear to God, I did not know that what I said was that smooth. But I found out when she blushed and smiled, so I went along with it. "I thought it was pretty brave. When you stood up against him."
"Really? I'm not usually that brave."
"Why is that?"
"I dunno. He was attacking you, I just acted." I raised an eyebrow. "So what you're saying is you were defending me." She looked away and nodded then sipped her drink. The waitress came back, gasping a little. "Sorry about that, what would you two like to eat?" I looked at Amelia and ask, "What would you like to eat?" She thought for a moment then said, "I'm in the mood for pizza. Is that okay?"
"Of course it is. A medium pizza please. Is pepperoni okay?"
"Yes, please, I love pepperoni."
"Then pepperoni, please."
"Okay, that's a medium pepperoni pizza. Coming right up." The waitress jogs off and we go back to talking again. "You ever been here before?" I ask her. "I have, but only like twice. I love the pizza here but I haven't tried anything else."
"They make pretty good calzones. Deliciously cheesy."
"Yeah I heard," she said while smiling. It looked like she was really enjoying herself. The waitress came with the pizza and walked off saying, "Enjoy your meal." We each took a slice and began eating. Once I had swallowed my first bite I started up our conversation.
"So tell me about Amelia. All I know about you is that you're a girl, you're very pretty, and that you like pepperoni pizza." She looked at me while chewing, swallowed, then wiped some pizza sauce from her mouth. "Well, my full name is Amelia Marie Hemsworth, my favorite color is green, I like to read, and I'm a little shy."
"Wait, your last name is Hemsworth? Like Chris Hemsworth?" I say, interested in the possibility she's related to a celebrity. "Oh, no not at all," she laughs. "It's just a coincidence. Although I wish I was related to him, that would be cool. So what about Matt Emsly? What about you?" I was almost done with my slice and swallowed another bite. "My full name is Matthew Charles Emsly, my favorite color is orange, I like to do anything active, and I'm pretty easy going."
"Active? So I'm guessing just sitting in a restaurant isn't all that interesting is it?"
"Amelia, if that were true I wouldn't have asked you out on a date." That seemed to have caught her off guard. She looked up at me while blushing and I nearly laughed from her shock. "D-date?"
"Well, yeah. Did you not want to go on a date?"
"No, no, I just didn't know you would like me like that."
"Is there anything not to like?" She laughed. "You're pretty smooth."
"I can't help it. I was born for it," I laughed. "So did you hear about what they're planning to do for the library, lately?" We went from subject to subject until the sun started to sink. Once we noticed, I payed for the food and placed the rest of the pizza in a box and we left. I, of course, couldn't help but leave some extra dollars to the tip for the hard-working waitress.
We walked for a while together, still talking, as it began to snow. Her house wasn't too far from the restaurant. She lived in an apartment on the first floor. "Well, we're here," she said. "Sadly," I added. We both laugh and just stood there for a bit. "I had fun tonight, Amelia. You are very interesting."
"Me too, Matt. A lot of fun." Then she did something unexpected. She kissed me on the cheek and walked up her steps then opened her door. "Bye, Matt," she laughed while leaving me out there in the cold. I can feel myself smiling like an idiot.
I snapped back to reality and started walking to my house. I walked for several minutes, still thinking about the day and Amelia and I's date. I should have been paying attention. I was suddenly grabbed by something, pulled into an alleyway, and then held up in the air. I began to panic and tried to scream but something covered my mouth and prevented me from doing so.
I recognised the tendrils almost immediately. Then I saw those glowing white eyes. It was the murderer. But my shock was only added even more once I realized that I recognized who it was. There was enough light from the street lamp to show the familiar trench coat, jeans, and heavy boots that he always wore. It was Eric.