This Isn't About Reya

Chapter Two

The next morning, Reya set out on her daily walk to school.

Her mother wasn't quite as furious as she had expected.

Trudging through the new layer of snow on the ground, she almost considered herself lucky. Her mother hadn't even called the school or her father; she'd just fawned over the bruise and raged about the things she'd do to the Russians if their roles were reversed. 

Reya had remained quiet, not pointing out that if their roles were reversed, it would've been Svetlana with the bruise on her face and her mother ranting loud enough for the neighbors to hear. She knew her mother would realize it sometime today, and then do the same thing the next time something happened to Reya.

She watched her snow-boots as they kicked piles of the white dust out of her way. How was it that, every night, without fail, a new layer of snow fell upon the ground? Her footprints from the previous day were erased, replaced with the same clean, white sheen that seemed prevalent on most NSU planets. 

Reya shuddered at the thought. There was so much snow. Why was there so much snow?

The same grey sky as yesterday prevented any sunrise from showering the planet in orange-red light. Reya often wondered what a sunrise looked like.

"When I live in the EEC I'll see one," she reminded herself. She brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear and looked up at the ashen clouds.

After a minute of walking, she sighed at its gloom and looked back down. 

A single branch lay in her path.

She stopped. It was broken cleanly in half. And it was in the middle of the road.

The nearest tree was twenty feet away. There hadn't been any wind last night. The cleanup crews had already come through earlier, anyway. So where had the branch come from?

Reya looked up at the forest, reaching around her, closing in on her. The pine needles themselves bristled in the frozen air, but none of them admitted to placing the branch in her path.

Reya narrowed her green eyes. "What the hell...?"

Suddenly her eyes widened. Somebody had to have put it there. Recently, after the cleanup crews.

Were they just fucking with her?

Rage washed over Reya. "Damn it!" she said. "It's gotta be Svetlana messing with me. Damn her!"

Clenching her teeth, she stomped onward through the snow. She resolved to hit the skank as soon as she saw her.

******

It didn't quite work like that. Svetlana had struck Reya.

Svetlana had bitch-slapped her at the end of the day, right across the face, in the middle of the hallway. In front of everyone. 

And Reya hadn't known what to do. She couldn't actually fight back, not with Svetlana's pures right there, ready to pounce on Reya as soon as their Russian leader gave the order. She would've been massacred. So she had fled, crying, from the academy. 

Now, she walked through the corridor of pines towards her house, the sobs sending tremors through her whole body. "I'm a coward," she whispered between the shudders. 

The somber clouds were beginning to release their burdens, sending scattered snowflakes cascading towards the earth in serenity.

Upon Reya's cheek, a handprint flamed scarlet, pinpricks of blood collecting where Svetlana's nails had broken the flesh. Tears mixed with the blood and dripped from her chin.

She was full of hatred.

A breath of wind sent the tree branches on her right trembling. Reya stopped and turned to watch them, swaying in the breeze.

They were peaceful, ignorant to the troubles of human life. Reya imagined their sweet scent, fresh and green. Her tears paused, and she walked over to the viridian needles and stroked them with her fingers. Inhaling their aroma, she buried her face in them. They were soft, like a blanket.

Then the air grew still.

Something crunched in the snow before her, in the darkness of the forest.

Reya's eyes flashed open. She let go of the needles and stepped quickly backwards, away from the edge of the woods.

For a moment there was silence. Then, she called out, "Hello?"

The pines stood tall before her, unyielding.

Something moved in their lower branches.

Reya gasped and stumbled back. She tripped, and fell into the powdery snow.

A form, very tall, blanketed in shadow, shuffled forward slowly.

Paralyzed with fear, Reya could do nothing but let out a small whimper. The form shifted again, moving, it seemed, in her direction.

For several minutes, nothing moved. Then, Reya recovered her senses. Slowly, she rose to her feet and stepped back onto the road. 

The form was still.

"Hello?" she called again. "Who are you?"

Still, nothing moved. Reya began to wonder if she had hallucinated the whole thing.

She stood for almost ten minutes. When nothing further happened, Reya broke down into sobs again. "I'm losing my mind," she said to herself.

Turning, she continued her walk down the road. When she reached the edge of the woods, she turned back and stared at the spot where she had fallen, searching for a sign of something. Anything.

The only thing there was a print in the snow where her butt had landed.

She shook her head suddenly, wiped the tears and blood from her cheeks, and made her way to her apartment.

Her mother would not notice the handprint. Reya could blame the redness on the cold.