The Student

Chapter One

 Don't try to sleep through the end of the world. It doesn't work. First of all, you've got everyone screaming for help, which is a major issue. Second of all, the weather is just bizarre, so hail is coming through your roof and a whole bunch of other bad things like earthquakes and snowstorms. Did you know that there is a type of tornado with snow in it instead of just dirt and air? Weird, huh. Well, I'm ahead of myself. I'll take you back to when it all began.

Wednesday, December 14th. For once, the night sky wasn't cloudy, and we had a blood moon. It's a naturally occurring thingy, but NASA hadn't scheduled it. Astronomers were dazzled and confuzzled. I was looking online for last minute Christmas presents, going through the waves of white Santa Clauses and red nosed reindeer. I missed the way Christmas used to be. You know, a family that decorates together... whatever. But there was a joy, a happiness that fades with age. Don't lose that happiness, kids. You're gonna need it.

My mother walked past me, glancing at the computer, then repeating the same line of Frosty the Snowman over and over again. She walked away, almost narrating what she was doing. My dad yawned. That's all you'll ever hear about him.

Yeah, still living with my parents at the age of sixteen. Figures. Well, almost every sixteen year old still lives with their parents, but when I was little, I thought I'd be all mature and beautiful and have a big fancy dress and a sweet sixteen. Turns out we can't afford 'big fancy dresses', even if it is the apocalypse.

My parents were fluff!Catholic. I say fluff!Catholic to mean that they believed in God and the devil and everything, but they weren't mean about it. I loved them for that. To me, the whole Catholic thing was a bit too much. God, angels. It all felt more like a fairy tale with some good morals, and some really out of date things (Leviticus, I choose you!), but it's really up to you to decide what you believe. I guess, since the apocalypse really did happen, someone was on the right track.

So, everyone was hype about the blood moon, and the next morning, I felt really crappy. The TV was on. It focused on a war that had been going on for a while. A terrorist group called HORUS was abusing the religion of some peace loving, God serving people. I felt bad for them, because I knew people who believed in that religion, and I could see their humanity. This morning HORUS had attacked a defenseless town by some famous river. The footage was horrible. The people refused to join HORUS' cause, and everyone was massacred. There were bodies in the water, their faces smeared, out of respect, by the news station. Blood changed the color of the water, making it look worse. I went back into my room, breathing with my head between my legs, trying to calm down.

Those type of things made me sick... innocent people getting hurt. Like those old pictures of Jewish camps during World War Two, or the people trying to reach their loved ones across the Berlin wall. I calmed myself down, watching the video of all the falling stars that NASA had put out a few days ago. The brightest one led the pack. It was beautiful.

Everyone needs some beautiful things in our lives. I see beautiful things every day. It's often in silence, when I pretend to read or draw, and secretly stare at people. I know it seems weird, but people are comforting when they don't know you're looking. They're so perfectly human. Often, they trip and glance behind themselves, making sure that no one saw and instantly regrouping, pretending like it never happened. Some people make weird faces, or mouth words and song lyrics. Some people know exactly what they're doing (or at least look that way), and some people look totally lost (Okay, you've got to admit that's you- I'm not sure what section of a library this would end up in- Spiritual, Teen, Fantasy, Religion, et cetera, but no matter what, it's in the wrong section).

I had gotten so used to the day to day patterns of my life at this point. Going to school, sorta learning, eating, sorta learning, impatience, going home. I was surprised at the weird change to my schedule. When I got to lunch, everyone sat in silence, me unaware of what was happening.

"Hey guys." I said with my mouth full of okay cafeteria food. "Wazzup? You know, if normal kids were here, they'd say our table wasn't lit today."

"Angel, please stop." Andie said, her voice shaking. I stopped eating, and swallowed.

"What happened? Is everything okay? Which celebrity was it? It was cancer, again, right?" I asked. Everyone stared at me, all five of them. Wait. No. There weren't five of them. I was the fifth. Someone was missing. In my head, I did a roll call.

"Where is Clare?" I asked. "Is they sick? Oh... did Clare move districts?" I asked. Clare wouldn't be the first person to suddenly change schools in the middle of the year.

"Angel, Clare committed suicide yesterday."

A lot of things went through my head. One of them was that I was originally trying to write a more funny story about life and it just got super depressing. Another was that Clare had taken our Econ project home with them, so I wouldn't be able to finish it.

"Oh." I said, nervously, not wanting to voice my first thoughts. We sat in silence. I said earlier that I like silence. But this silence was different. I didn't like this silence. "When is the funeral?"

"On Christmas." Andie replied. She tucked one of her long strands of black hair behind her ear. Usually, her hair was in braids. Today it was down, almost straight. It looked weird and unnatural. I wished that she didn't change her hair.

"How are they gonna bury them? Like... with what pronouns?"

"Parents are going with birth pronouns."

"Oh. That sucks." I said. "Traditional?"

"Traditional." Andie sighed. I watched her. Her eyes were weary, heavy. We fell back into that horrible silence again. I looked to the others to see if they had anything to say. Clare had always been a more quiet person. We knew that their father was a jerk, who sometimes got drunk. We knew Clare had loved fiction, just like me. Also loved music and poetry. They had read the poem 'I, Too, Sing America' once for us. That was their favorite. Clare wasn't black, but you don't have to be black to relate to that poem. Langston Hughes talks about how people mock him for the way he was born, and make him eat alone. He says that someday, he'll be eating side by side with everyone else, and they will understand that he is just like them.

I personally loved the poem 'Nothing Gold Can Stay', by Robert Frost, but that was mostly because it was in the book, 'The Outsiders'. I suddenly had an idea of saying a poem, maybe even one that Clare had written, at their funeral. An excerpt from 'The Alchemist'? Or play the slow version of 'This is Gospel' by Panic!at the Disco. Andie seemed to read my mind.

"We're not invited. Family only." She said. I sighed, slumping into my seat. Now that I had nothing else to think of, and we were still in that horrible silence, I couldn't help but realize that Clare wouldn't be coming back tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next.

I guess that didn't really matter, since it was Revelations.