To Be Feared

04. || fear and forget

The students fidgeted in their seats while they waited for the bell. Lyra entered the noisy classroom. It had been two weeks since her junior year started. Usually, she would have been overjoyed to socialize at school, but her nerves choked her up.

"Lyra," her friend sang her name.

Lyra broke out of her nervous trance. Her eyes fixated on her friend. "Stella," Lyra smiled in reply. It was comforting to see a bright and familiar face after encountering what she thought was a demon from hell.

Stella scrunched up her nose. "Sit down. You've been standing by the door for a solid minute. Did you forget where you sat?"

Lyra responded with a soft laugh and took the seat next to her friend.

"Did something happen?" Stella asked with a lifted eyebrow.  Lyra knew she couldn't lie out of this one. Stella wouldn't believe her even if she did try lying.

"Nothing. Just a nightmare," said Lyra. She really wished it was a nightmare.

Stella hooded her eyes at Lyra, who sat rigid in her seat. "A nightmare?" she scoffed. "That's it?"

Lyra nodded her head. Her gaze drifted to the front of the classroom to deny any further conversation or questions.

At last, the late bell echoed, breaking any awkward silence. History class began. Their teacher walked in with her book bag hanging on her shoulder. Her deep green eyes shot a glance at the students who simmered down once she stepped foot into the classroom.

"Good morning, class," she greeted as she settled her materials. Her voice was a strange mixture of sweet and threatening.

"Good morning, Miss Dyer," the class replied in a monotonous union.

Lyra felt uncomfortable around her, and she was sure that the other students felt no different. There was something about Miss Dyer that was off. She was too calm and collected. Her first thought was that Ace's paranoia had spread to her, but there was something so unsettling about how Miss Dyer composed herself. She was a lean, young lady who always wore shiny black heels with a blouse and skirt. She looked expensive for a high school teacher. It was two weeks into the new school year, and she never once yelled at a misbehaved student. At first, students believed it was because she was simply laid back. As the days went on, Miss Dyer started to walk in between the aisles of the desks, hovering over the students' shoulders. She watched them with a close eye instead of grading as if she was waiting for them to commit some crime. The students instantly became less rowdy whenever she entered the room.

"Doesn't she give you the creeps?" Stella had once asked Lyra. "I swear she's some type of witch."

"Class, take out your textbooks and begin reading pages 65 through 80. Take notes as you go on," Miss Dyer directed. She pinned her dark brown hair up into a bun as she observed the students scrambling to find the page in their books.

Lyra flipped through the thin pages until she found the designated page number. She attempted to concentrate on her reading, but it was nearly impossible. Her mind was too focused on the thing from the woods. She lingered on the thought that she could have probably died from God knows what. Her hands pressed against her cheeks as she pointlessly stared at the book.

"Lyra?" Miss Dyer interrupted her frenzy of thoughts. "Are you all right?" she asked from her desk.

Lyra smiled and nodded while she gripped onto her book, indicating that she was on task. Stella blinked at her.

"Dude, are you okay?" Stella leaned over and whispered.

"The dream, remember?" Lyra said. She hoped her words passed off as a mere joke.

"Right..."

—

A few classes later, Ace stumbled out of the locker room with heavy breaths. His legs felt like gelatin, and he wobbled until he caught his balance by leaning against a locker.

"Uh, hello?"  Ace turned his head away from the locker and made eye contact with a boy. The boy stared at him with a puzzled face.

"Can I help you?" Ace muffled.

"More like can I help you," the boy retorted and pointed to his locker. Ace squinted and had to take a few seconds to process what was going on.

"Oh! This is your locker," he nervously chuckled. He used his entire upper body to push himself off the lockers and began to stagger into the hallways. The boy watched Ace limp away almost in pity. It was an incredibly sad sight.

The lunchroom was packed with chattering students so Ace walked straight towards the school's library. There, he found Lyra doing her homework. His sore legs had successfully moved him to the table where she studied. He pulled the chair out and fell into the seat.

"Was P.E. really that bad?" Lyra asked without taking her eyes off her notebook.

Ace grabbed a book out of his backpack and sighed. "Bad enough to take my mind off what happened yesterday."

"I think we should not talk about that."

Ace stared at Lyra. "Why? It's not like the monster...thingy is going to disappear just because we've decided to ignore it."

Lyra kept her eyes away from Ace. "We can't do anything about it anyways. Let's just forget about it. Do you want to go eat out later? The cafe across from here has a new menu item." She tried to change the subject. She didn't think she could stand another minute having that nightmarish creature occupy her thoughts.

"But if what if that thing decides to kill another person?"

"How do you know it killed anybody? It could have been our eyes playing tricks on us."

"We literally both saw the same thing!"

"Again, we can't do anything about it."

"You don't know that!"

"Shh!" the librarian hushed them. "God, these kids..."

Lyra played with the edges of her notebook paper. She knew Ace was right, but she didn't want to admit it.

"Fine. We don't have to talk about it, but I think I'm just going to head straight home after school. You can go to the cafe by yourself."

Lyra could tell he was irritated with a hint of disappointment. She felt guilty for not wanting to discuss the supernatural with Ace, but she preferred to leave the topic alone.  The bell rang.

"Okay. Just don't do anything stupid. Please."

04/08/19
lmao this has been sitting in my drafts since two years ago so I just wrapped it up and updated sorry about it