Undying Echo {1}

30 | Distant

Finishing from a long relaxing hot shower, Ethan trudged to his laptop with a towel around his neck and opened up to the prom's DJ to continue working on it.

Putting on his headphones, he clicked play to listen to his progress of the last time he edited it.

The music came in full blast, piercing into his ears, and before he even knew it, he had yanked his headphones off and was pressing against his ears protectively, his face cast in agony.

But the damage was already done, his eyes closed from the pain throbbing in his ears. More in his left one than his right.

Opening his eyes after a while, he reached his right hand to stop the music as the pain had begun to subside. But the throbbing was still there as he reached for his headphones once again, this time turning the volume down before clicking on play.

But to no avail, the pain returned in full force and the throbbing increased, a series of curses flowing out of his mouth as he quickly stopped the music. Sighing, Ethan took his headphones off and sat back in his chair, running his hands through his hair and ruffling it in frustration.

Loud thumping on the stairs grabbed Ethan's attention off his phone, and he sat up properly in his bed before the door slammed open and Corey burst into his room hurriedly.

"She knows," Corey breathed out in a whisper.

Ethan's hand shot out to grab his hair as a flow of curses broke out of his lips, and he hissed lowly. "How did she know?"

"Does it matter? News travel like wildfire around here, she probably heard it from her friends or something. Didn't you hear the bell? I nearly broke it from ringing it so much."

"I didn't hear anything," Ethan said, frowning in confusion as he scratched the back of his head, thinking that maybe he was too distracted by his phone that he didn't hear anything.

"How bad?"

"Red-eyes bad." Corey cringed.

Footsteps could suddenly be heard from the hallway, making the two boys tense up and go rigid in less than a second. And Ethan gulped, internally bracing himself for what was coming.

4th of May, 2015. After two days.

"Alright class, today we'll be discussing th–"

The classroom door opened, cutting off the English teacher before he could complete.

"Care to explain why you are late, Miss Blair?" Mr. Ronald said, giving Kaylee a look.

With her chin up, Kaylee replied. "A queen is never late, Mister Ronald, everyone else is simply early."

Snorts and chuckles were let out around the classroom at Kaylee's quote, someone from the back even hooting and clapping. Ethan's lips pulled up into a small smirk as he was scribbling random things in his notebook, following the commotion with his ears.

But that smirk soon vanished when he could suddenly hear noises. At first, he thought that they were coming from around the classroom, before realizing that the noises that seemed to beat with his pulse were coming from inside his ears.

Ethan closed his eyes and took a deep breath as the noises continued on and on. Getting a little more irritated with every passing minute with the noises still buzzing in his ear.

"Mister Bishop?"

Ethan's head snapped up and in the teacher's direction, staring at him with a lost and confused expression. The teacher raised an eyebrow, gesturing to the surprisingly empty class with his hands. "Well, aren't you leaving?"

Ethan stared at him blankly for a few seconds, noting that the classroom was empty due to the bell ringing.

"Oh, yeah, sorry." He said, snapping into action and grabbing his things and stuffing them into his backpack. Only for the teacher to stop him just before he stepped out of the classroom.

"Mister Bishop?"

"Yeah?" Ethan asked, still a little distracted as he turned to the teacher.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." Ethan said in a low distant voice, before turning and leaving the classroom with his head spinning with thoughts.