A W A K E | c.t.h.

five.

Wednesday, april 10th. Fourteen years old.

Today is the second class of drawing portraits. She's good at it.

Malia is sitting next to Sarah Cipri, the new girl from Brisbane. She's drawing Sarah's face on the paper when she notices she seems shy.

'I'm good at sitting still,' she says to Malia.

And she is. Malia is spending the next two hours erasing, drawing shadows, and making those more realistic. Sometimes Sarah smiles. Malia can see Sarah's face coming to life on her paper and that makes her happy. It feels good to be good at something.

'Do you like drawing portraits?' Sarah asks while she strikes her hair behind her ears.

'Wow, your ring!' Malia grabs Sarah's hand and looks at every detail of it.'Is it old?'

'No.'

'It's beautiful. Can I try it?'

You can tell she's doubting.

'Never mind.'

'No, no. It's okay, try it. It's.. It's my brothers.'

'Oh really? I thought something like that. It's a real man ring. It's kind of rough.' Malia looks at it again when it's around her finger.'It's really pretty.'

'Thank you.'

'It looks better on you,' Malia says while she gives it back.'Let's get back to work. Powell is walking around.'

'You've got talent, Malia. I saw your work.'

'Thank you.' This time Malia is the one blushing.'I hope you're going to like this one.'

'Let me see.'

'Hm?'

'Let me look.'

'Not yet.' Malia says quickly. Her eyes go from Sarah's face to the paper, like she's trying to concentrate. Nevertheless she's sitting on her chair restless. In her head she hears this threatening growl. The drawing, it doesn't look good. Malia's foot taps faster and harder on the floor. Some girls look at her, she's certain they're whispering about her.

'Are you okay?' Sarah asks.

'I don't know.' Evie feels her forehead while Sarah is getting her sketchbook.

'Give me that..' she starts, but then all the colour in her face dissapears.

Sarah is now deathly pale and gasping for air as if she can't breathe. The noise is loud. It freaks her out.

'Sarah?' Malia says.'Sarah?'

'No,' Sarah whispers.'No, no.'

She's screaming. Her chair falls to the ground. She's holding on to the table while her body is shaking. Powell catches her when her legs collapse.

'What happened to her?' Powell yells at Malia.

Malia can't move. She just saw what Sarah saw.

Sarah runs out of the classroom. The door makes a hard noise as it closes. After that, it's quiet.

Powell is now the one holding the sketchbook.

'What is this?' He screams.'What ís this?'

Malia looks the other way. She doesn't understand how it got on the paper. It's not Sarah's face anymore. It's the face of a young man. His eyes bulge out of his head and his lips are swollen. His tongue is out of his mouth and there's a stain in his neck.

-

At that moment, Malia wakes up. She hates this memory, she hates that she dreams about it almost every night. It's never going to leave her alone.

She gets out of bed and looks into the mirror. She studies the face that looks back at her.

'Who am I?' she whispers.'What am I?'