Ghost In The Snow

Chapter 1: Freak

Why? Seriously, this school... I've been here for 5 minutes, and I already got enough of it. I tried to pull the skirt down, but it wasn't long enough to cover my knees. I felt naked as I walked down the empty, dark corridors. Lockers were hiding the gray, boring walls. I looked down at my hand, checked the number on the small key. "223", I whispered.

After some time I found my locker. I wished it was in a corner, but sadly it wasn't. It was in the middle of a hallway. I tried to put the key in the lock, fuck yes, it actually worked. The locker was empty, nothing interesting happening, apart from the blue piece of paper at the back. I took it out and looked at it. It was a snowflake cut out of thin, light blue paper. I rolled my eyes at the childish thing and threw it out on the floor. I shoved my backpack in the locker and tried to remember where my next class was. I closed the locker, it made a whining, lonely sound in the empty hallway. I sighed. Please, when can I go home?

I panicked as the bell rang, hundreds of students poured out of the classrooms, walked past me. I knew no one. All those faces, grinning and smiling. I just stared at them, I was scared. Where could I be alone in this place? I stood still as a deer in the headlights. People flowed by like fish in a water tank, but I was drowning. Drowning in a clear but scary lake, fish's skin touching me with their snake-like, slippery skin. That was what it felt like.

Students here know where the different classrooms are. I could ask them. I should ask them. It wouldn't be a great start, if I didn't show up to my first class. There weren't many people left in the corridors. Only those jocks, who thought they're so hot, that they could make everybody love them. I walked past them, I really didn't want any trouble with them. But they noticed me. One of them whistled, but in that moment I slammed the classroom door behind me.

All 29 students were staring at me. I felt even more naked. Was that even possible? Maybe someone ripped my skin off, everyone were actually looking at a bloody skeleton in the door.

Sure.

I opened my mouth, looked at the teacher. A nice woman with blonde hair, probably 30 years old. I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything. I just stood there with open mouth, no books, no knowledge, no fucking nothing. "What's your name, dear girl?", the teacher asked after something that felt like hours. "I", I stuttered. I couldn't remember my name.

"Uh..." I looked around in the class. All the types were there. Some nerds, jocks, bookworms, some bitchy girls, a pair of lovebirds, and, when I saw the back of the class, the emos. "Your name?" The teacher looked worried. I totally forgot. "Uh, yeah, my name is, uh, Kate." I had no idea, what was my name? I was screaming on the inside, I wanted to leave, to cry, to everything else than be here, sitting, embarrassing and shaming on myself.

"Welcome to English class, Kate! I'm your teacher, Lina" The teacher smiled, her eyes were shining, trying to give me hope. Not sure if it worked. "Uh, Mikey! Can you find the books to Kate?" Lina pointed at one of the two emos. Emo boys, both of them. Mikey looked confused around, but he got up and he found a couple of books. I'm was still standing by the door. There were only two free seats. One seat free over with the bitchy girls with their fake caked makeup. And one seat over with Mikey and the other emo boy.

"Sit wherever you want", the teacher said, started to write stuff on the blackboard. I had a war on the inside of my head. I didn't know what I was doing, but my legs started moving towards the back of the class, and I sat down on a chair next to Mikey's. I stared at the blackboard, but I didn't see, what was written on it. Everything was blurry, and I felt like I was shaking. And there I was. Sitting next to the emos. I thought my goal with moving to this school was not to be a freak from the start.