Cady Williams & The Walled Cities: A School to DIE for

Chapter 3: Outcasts

Cady's cellphone rings loud and repeatedly. Normally, Cady keeps the alarm ringing for a few more seconds and adjusts the alarm timer for another 15 minutes, then she would go back to sleep. It is a weird experience for her waking up in another place for the first time in years. She literally thinks that she is still in her small comfortable room with her huge closet near the window and her hippopotamus stuffed toy that smiles at her every time she wakes up. It hangs on drawer knob near her bathroom door. She did have sleep overs before at Autumn's house but that was a long time ago. However after noticing that the pieces of furniture are different she realizes that she is no longer at home. She is fearful that her companions might get angry if the phone would ring again so she gets up to click a button on her phone to deactivate the time of the alarm. Still trying to get her bearing, she looks around the room. Her two companions have left. She checks her phone again and sees that is 5:32 pm. She then gets up from her bed. She turns the lights on near the entrance door. She squints a little to adjust her eyes from the brightness of the light and heads towards the bathroom. She knocks at the door. No one answers.

"Good! It's empty." She tells herself.

She washes her face and grabs a small green cloth from the side of the sink.'It smells like raspberry shampoo.

"This must be the same towel Latoya dried her hair with." She tells herself as she confirms her judgment by pulling out a few bleach blonde hair strands from the towel.

"Gross!" Cady tells herself as she looks at her sour facial expression on the mirror.

She extends her hand and reaches for a new military toothbrush kit. She knows that she can use one of them since there are only two left. One for the new girl, if she would ever come live with them in their room. There are two other kits that are already used and messy which is clear to her that Gloria and Latoya had already used them.

Cady brushes her teeth quickly with the almost tasteless toothpaste.

"At least it's minty. Kinda." She tells herself.

Cady pulls her hair back and grabs her purple rubber band from her white comfortable shorts and ties her hair into a ponytail. She then goes hurriedly to the huge cabinet and grabs a black jacket from her drawer. She wears the jacket with such comfort then goes to her bed to sit as she puts on her blue sneakers. Cady finally goes out of the room and onto the hallways. With much awareness, Cady manages to retrace her steps based on how she entered the dormitory. She passes the noisy hallways with much ease until she leaves the dormitory. She looks at her cellphone and sees that it's already 6:05 pm, five minutes later than Hayden's arranged meet up.

Cady rushes through the green cemented floors of the campus and makes it to where the buses are parked. She stops for awhile and catches her breath. She goes to one of the buses and looks at her face in the side mirror of a bus. She fixes her hair and takes out her jacket and ties it around her waist as she does not want to perspire from all the running around. After she collects herself, she continues her way towards the designated place, the red light post.

Cady approaches her destination but stops for a while and glances at the people she sees hanging out around the red light post.

"Where are Alex and Hayden? Did they leave me coz I was late?" Cady tells herself.

Just when Cady is deciding if she will walk towards the people or head back to her dormitory, Cady hears the familiar sound of Hayden's voice.

"You made it!" Hayden shouts to gain Cady's attention as he reveals himself from the crowd.

"Yeah, sorry I'm late. I had a long day making friends with my roommates." Cady tells Hayden as she comes towards him and gives him a hug.

Hugging is not really a friendly gesture Cady gives her friends. The only people that Cady really hugs are her parents, but hanging out with the Echo girls somehow manifested their mannerisms onto her.