The Death Tree

The Death Tree: A Short Story

     Ring! Yay! Another lonely day at my amazing high school! (Note the sarcasm.) I walk down the hall with my head down as I try not to bump into people.

       Ever since middle school, I've had zero friends and even when I thought I might have, they stabbed me right in the back. Since then, I've given up on friends and decided to fly solo. It's not that bad though. I have a lot of time to myself and my schedule's almost always clear so there's that.

     As I'm in my thoughts, I feel a hard bump and fall backwards while dropping my book bag and papers on the ground in the process. I look up to see who I bumped into and see a caramel colored girl with curly brown hair sitting on the ground in front of me.

     She stands up with her book bag and holds out her right hand to help me up. I grab her hand but notice something like a dark line on her left arm. It looked like a tree branch almost. She shifts her eyes to where I'm looking and quickly re-adjust her sleeve.

     She smiles and hands me my bag and papers. "Hello, I'm Andy. I'm kind of the new kid around here and I'm having trouble finding my first class. Could you help me?" She hands me a sheet paper with her schedule on it. I take it without looking at her and scan the paper. What a coincidence, she has all the same classes as me. I slowly look at her and notice she has one blue eye and one- wait hold on- one red eye? I blink and her eye is back to the regular sky blue her other eye is. I blink a few times and hand the paper back to her.

      "Uh sure, I have these same classes so just follow me," I mutter and walk towards my first period with Andy behind me.

        We're almost to the classroom but I stop abrubtly when I get a bone chilling sensation down my spine. I look behind to see that Andy was no longer behind me. What the- "Are you okay?" I slightly jump and see Andy beside me with a confused look on her face. Something doesn't feel right. No, no I'm just being paranoid again everything is just fine.

      "Y-yeah I'm fine. We better get going," I smile a small smile and she returns it with a huge grin and we're off. Paranoia or not, I can't shake the feeling that something was seriously off with this new girl Andy.

     We get to our 1st period and Andy automatically goes to the back of the class and motions for me to sit beside her in, you guessed it, my regular seat. I shrug it off as just another coincidence and take my seat.

     A few minutes later the bell rings and the teacher begins to call out the roll. When she calls out the last name, I realize that she never called out Andy's or my name. I'm about to raise my hand, but get the familiar bone chilling sensation down my spine and quickly place my hand back on the desk before the teacher could notice me. I look over to my left to see Andy diligently writing the morning assignment on a piece a paper with her right hand but her left hand is lying on her desk twitching slightly as if it has a mind of its own. I laugh slightly to myself. That was a stupid notion. An arm can't have a mind of it's own, that's impossible.

     Andy turns and meet my eyes. She gives me a worried look and mouths 'Are you alright?' I give her a smile that probably looks like I'm in pain but I nod and quickly write down the morning assignment before she could question me anymore.

     Out of the corner of my eye I see her face contort in what seems like excruciating pain as her left hand twitches violently but it goes so quickly that I don't even know if the twitching or her pained expression was even there. I sigh and begin to question my sanity as the teacher begins her lesson.

     The next classes are just like our 1st period. We enter the classroom, Andy takes a seat in the back next to my seat, and the teacher would skip right over Andy's name. The funny thing is, no one even noticed Andy or me walk in or walk out of the classroom. I mean, I understand why no one would notice me, but I thought they would at least notice the new girl walk in the door. Oh well, I might as well not question it. I'm pretty sure I'm going slowly insane with all the coincidences and paranoia that's happening today.