The Host of Hyperion

Chapter 5 - Elisabeth

I didn't sleep that night. How could I? With Mr. Martinez declaring that Carter Jobal and the rest if Dorm A and that mysteriously cryptic message and that humanoid figure that had been seen outside our window.

It wasn't that I was scared, which I was, but I was also feeling excited. If someone was warning us to be careful with what we're doing, then that meant that we were onto something and I felt that this "something" was big.

However, the more that excitement grew, the more my nerves started to rise.

I felt like I was being watched.

The grand paintings seemed to leer at me as I walked. The painted faces seemed to drill holes into me whenever I stared into their acrylic layers.

The teachers were the only things that were worse.

Mr. Wright's beady eyes seemed to x-ray right through me wherever and whenever I walked into his classroom. His smile seemed etched into his lips as though it had been carved in with a knife. The maids seemed to follow paces behind me whenever I headed for my dorm.

"Am I going crazy?" I hissed to Kennedy.

She looked deeply troubled.

"No. They're watching me, too," she glanced around nervously.

Mrs. Callahan walked by and flashed us a toothy smile.

"Morning, girls!" she said cheerily, her lips quivered in the horribly wide smile.

I fought back a shudder.

"Morning," we chorused back to her.

The once magnificent halls had become sinister and malevolent wherever I walked. Even heading down to the kitchens felt nerve-wracking as the chefs sharpened their knives and grinned at us.

"Are you sure you didn't see anything?" I pressed, still holding my knife from heavily spreading jam onto an English muffin.

Kennedy shot me a look.

"I already told you. It was too hard to see. Just definitely human. It was running really fast," she said calmly, pull apart a biscuit with unnecessary force.

"Careful, before that biscuit screams for help."

Leah materialized next to us, holding her bowl of oatmeal sprinkled with nuts and berries. She looked sullen and sleepy, but otherwise unconcerned about her surly attitude only days before.

"Hey Leah," I smiled. Kennedy arched her eyebrow but didn't say a word.

If she noticed, she didn't say anything about Kennedy's attitude.

"I slept funky last night," she stretched her arms and yawned hugely, "So much deeper than usual."

Kennedy tore eyes off her biscuit to look at me. I frowned and lifted an eyebrow.

"Deeper?"

She looked over at me with fatigue as though she had run a marathon.

"Yeah. So deeply I didn't hear Karen get up," she sighed, yawning again.

Kennedy's eyes widened an inch.

"Karen?" she repeated.

Leah looked over at her, her eyes suddenly hard.

"Yeah. What about it?" she snapped.

Kennedy didn't seem to care about her snap. Her eyebrows were traveling further up her forehead.