Blue

Chapter 6: A peaceful afternoon

The classes after illustration class weren't too interesting, which made the school day feel much longer that it actually was. Ellie's exhaustion quickly returned. In the bus on the way home Ellie went out like a light, slightly snoring with her hair all over her face. It wasn't the most charming sight, Ellie quickly realised that when her own reflection in the glass scared her as she woke up five minutes before her stop. She quickly shoved her hand out of the loop on her backpack, glad to see everything is still exactly as she left it before she fell asleep and attempted to fix her hair a little bit. She hopped off the bus when it was at her stop and opened the doors to her. Ellie smiled towards the bus driver to show her gratitude, not daring to vocally say her thanks.

She watches the bus drive off, looks left and then right before looking left again and quickly crosses the street once it's safe. As Ellie walks up to the door of the flat where she fell on her butt and cried a few days back. She quickly reaches for her keys, opens the door and goes through it, trying to avoid the place where she cried like a baby and people actually saw it. She feels incredibly stupid for making such a scene. She walks up the stairs, already tired as she reaches the second floor, feeling very sorry for herself that she has to climb up yet another flight of stairs. She counts every step silently bragging about her exhaustion. Every step she counted, twenty-seven in total, was one too much. As she finally reaches the third floor, she exits through the empty hallway, heavily breathing, trying to catch her breath. As she reaches her apartment door she untangles the keychain around her finger and opens the door, entering her home. She puts her bag on the ground and takes off her coat and scarf, hanging them both on the coat rack. She kicks her boots off and grabs her backpack again, walking towards the dining table. She puts her pack next to all the mess littering the wooden dining table: pencils, sketchbooks, an empty bag of crisps from last week.

Ellie sighs as she fills the kettle with water, longing for a cup of tea. Even though it's three in the afternoon, it feels like it's already eight. She can't go to bed though, she still has homework and it might be smart to finally eat some dinner again, since she hasn't had any the whole weekend.

Her other classes were incredibly boring. The adrenaline she got in her illustration class disappeared real quick, which made her exhausted again. The entity didn't appear in the other classrooms, which Ellie was glad about, even though she could use the adrenaline rush the thing gave her every time. But she notices that, as long as it is daylight and it doesn't get too close to her, it's actually not that scary to her anymore. It's a bit like a cheap jumpscare that gets you the first few times but gets old pretty quick. That doesn't mean Ellie isn't afraid of it anymore though, she's just getting used to it... sort of.

The kettle klicks, indicating the water is boiling. Ellie makes her tea and brings the cup to the dining table, a bit irritated to see that there's no room to put her tea down. She brings her tea back to the kitchen and walks back to the table where she piles up her sketchbooks – which makes a pretty big tower – and shoves them to one of the corners of the table, next to a bowl filled with all kinds of fruit. She puts all the pencils in a pencil case she happened find under one of the sketchbooks and puts it on top of the sketchbook tower. Even though it only takes like five minutes to clean the table she always refuses to do it, until she needs its surface for her homework. She's just that stubborn and lazy. Ellie finishes her amazing cleaning session with finally throwing away the empty bag of crisps. She grabs her tea again from the counter and walks back to the dining table, now having enough space to put her tea down. She moves the chair next to her and puts her backpack on it, giving her easy access to everything she might need. Time to do some homework.

Ellie takes out her sketch from her illustration class this morning. She looks at it again. 'It really does look like it, but adorable instead of disturbing.' Ellie thinks to herself, her head slightly tilted to the left as she observes her piece, silently sipping at her tea. Ellie kind of wonders where the real thing is now, as she hasn't seen it for the rest of the day. Not that she wants to see it, but she's kind of curious. She puts her sketch on the side of the table as she grabs another sketchbook from her backpack, containing much thicker and higher quality paper. She rips of a single sheet and grabs a pencil from the case on top of the sketchbook tower and starts remaking her character; Blue. Now that she'd already made Blue's backstory in illustration class, she can add some details of it in her piece and refine everything (not that there's much detail to put in a big black blob-like entity with a little smile and big funny eyes). Once she's happy with her piece she finishes it with adding her autograph on both the front and the back of her drawing and writes the name of the piece and the date on the back. She puts her drawing and her sketch in her backpack so she won't forget to bring it to school when she has to hand it in later this week. Ellie zips her pack with a sigh. Luckily for her, she only got some homework for illustration, so now she has the whole evening free to relax.