Blue

Chapter 7: Strange photos

Yesterday's peacefulness did good for Ellie's sleep. With a calm and tired mind she went to bed (still ignoring the dark corner but not feeling afraid, for once) and with a calm and rested mind she awoke. The only little downside to this was that she was awoken by the early alarm, indicating a new day of school is about to begin. Ellie threw her covers away and walked towards the dresser on the other side of the room to get some clothes before going to the bathroom for a nice, quick shower. The water was relaxing on Ellie's head and shoulders, making her feel cured of all the fear and paranoia she had had the last few days. Ellie washed her hair and drew funny dogs and kittens on the glass door. After she was done showering she put on her clothes. Fully dressed, Ellie walked towards the kitchen to make some breakfast and tea and went to the dining table to make her backpack school ready (checking if everything's in, packing lunch and a bottle of water and a cookie and an apple). Ellie ate her breakfast and drank her tea and, as she still had some time to spare, washed the dishes afterwards. After brushing her teeth she put on her coat and scarf. She also made sure to put on a beanie so her hair wouldn't get too cold or even freeze, as it was still a bit wet. She grabbed her backpack and left after locking her apartment to walk towards the bus stop, feeling fresh and ready for another day of school.

*****

Today began with art history, which – unfortunately – is incredible sleep-inducing and boring. It's not the history, in fact, some subjects are actually really interesting. It's because of the teacher, Mr Abrams. He's an old, slow man who should have retired a few years ago. He manages to teach in such a monotone and uninterested voice that it's very difficult to stay concentrated. Today they talked about ancient Egypt and it's peculiar hieroglyphs, which normally would be really interesting, but not with Mr Abrams as a teacher. Ellie tried to stay concentrated on the matter but after a while she just couldn't do it anymore and she started to stare out of the window, her chin tiredly leaning on her palm. Ellie wondered about the entity, who still hadn't bothered her. Ellie was glad about this change, but is still left her a bit curious as to why it even made her life miserable for those few days in the first place. After sixty long minutes the school bell finally rang, meaning the lesson was over.

After art history it was time for one of Ellie's favourite subjects: storytelling. Ellie loves telling and making up stories. She has done so her whole life, each story filled with incredible detail. She also made up a few short plays she and Jack could play a part in when she was younger, Jack always nailing his role much better than Ellie, even though she was the one who made up the story. Nowadays Ellie always has a little journal with her, if she gets and idea or gets inspired by something she writes it down. The content of the little journal helps Ellie when she lacks ideas to draw or when she has a huge writing block, and of course it's fun to read in it. Which reminds her... maybe she has to write about the entity in her little journal. She didn't get to write as much as she'd like last weekend because of all the paranoia and because it's very dark and difficult to write when you're curled up under the blankets in your bed like a burrito.

Storytelling is taught by Mr Oliver, even though everybody calls him Roy. He's a young fellow with a huge passion for storytelling, which makes him a really good but also a really strict teacher. He really watches your grammar and he manages to find every single spelling mistake in your work.

Today's class was a bit of a continuation of last week. Last week they had to write a poem which describes either a feeling or an atmosphere. This hour Roy allowed his students to continue writing.

"Brilliant storytelling takes a brilliant amount of time, ladies and gentlemen," Roy would always say. "Which I shall give you."

Ellie managed to finish her poem this hour. Her poem is about a peaceful empty ruin of what used to be a great kingdom. Now it's remains belong to the queen of Failureland. Roy was very impressed with Ellie's poem, even though he detected five spelling mistakes. Ellie rewrote the poem on another sheet of paper and fixed the mistakes before handing it in to Roy. Not long after, the school bell rang again.