The Pages of Death {Complete}

Tuesday, March 15th

Tuesday, March 15th

I woke up slightly sweaty and my blanket in tangles. I had had a nightmare about the book coming after me and killing me, though I don't actually remember the death. Just the horrific chase.

After arriving at school just before the bell I was walking to home room when I bumped into a guy. He had been holding papers and a few books and they all flew around the hall in chaos.

"I-I-I'm s-s-so sorry miss," the boy studdered, frantically grabbing at his belongings.

"Hey man it's all cool, no hard feelings," I replied as I started to help him. Many inconciderate people just kept walking and I had to yell and lunge at one to keep them from stepping on a paper. I picked it up and saw that it was a class schedule. "I thought you looked new! Is this your first day?" I helped him situate his stack back onto his arms.

"Yeah actually," he replied. "I was trying to remember which homeroom I had, that's why I was looking down and didn't see you."

"Ah like I said, no biggie. I'm Bealle by the way. Maybe I could help show you around. What's your homeroom?" I spoke. "Oh and ya gotta name?"

"It's nice to meet you and I'm Baron. My home room is um... Thaddeous? Schmu?"

"No way!" I cheered. "You and I can walk together, I have him too. You're going to have so much fun in his class, he really is a great teacher."

Off we started towards the classroom. When we arrived everyone was already there, save a girl named Maria who was absent. The room went from silence to an awkward silence as I stepped in after Baron. Baron, who as you could tell is not fond of the limelight, went still and turned a slight pink. I simply side stepped around him and marched confidently up to Mr. Schmu.

"Hey Mr. Rad Thadd," I said. "This here is new student Baron, who is now my friend." Yes. Yes I did just claim a friendship to Baron, whether he likes it or not. Be it a one-way relationship or not. Baron finally recovered his senses enough to walk- shakily I might add- to the front of the room right next to me. He held out his hand to Mr. Schmu.

"It's nice to meet you Mr... um.. What do you want me to call you?" Baron asked.

"Anything you'd like, my good sir," Mr. Schmu relied shaking Baron's hand. "Mr. Thaddeous, Mr. Schmu, Mr. S, Mr. T. Anything except Mr. Rad Thadd." He added the last part looking at me with a glare that wasn't really a glare. Mr. Rad Thadd was smiling.

"Okay. Where should I sit?" questioned Baron.

"Anywhere you'd like, Baron," Mr. Schmu geastured grandly around the room.

"I'm starting to catch a theme," Baron said while smiling. "It seems pretty easy going in here."

"It usually is," I chimed in. "Here Baron, you can sit next to me. On my other side here is my best friend Mayella." Baron and I sat down and Mayella turned toward us beaming.

"Hello, new person," Mayella said.

"Hello, beautiful friend of Bealle," Baron said, knocking me into shock. Even though we had just met five minutes ago, he had shown nothing in that amount of time to show him being so straightforward. I couldn't blame him though, my best friend was a hottie (in the straightest way possible). I looked at Baron and saw his mouth slowly open as his cheeks turned a slight shade of pink. His eyes were wide and I can only assume that he not only shocked me, but also himself. "I-I m-mean um... friend of beautiful Bealle... I mean friend beautiful of Bealle... I- uh Bealle friend of beautiful.... I'm just gonna go stab myself now."

I found the way Baron studdered kind of cute and one look at my friend told me that Mayella thought the same. She was sweetly smiling at him, still a minute blush present on her face from the compliment that was almost quite literally thrown at her. We were both kind of chuckling, until his last line. I'm just gonna go stab myself now. My mind quickly flashed back to the news report from last night about Eddie, who had been stabbed thirteen times. With Baron saying something like that, who knows? Maybe the book will hunt him down to take up his offer. But that's crazy, books don't hunt people. Even so, the idea of him stabbing himself is a gruesome one.

"Bealle? Bealle?" I heard a worried voice call to me and I slowly was brought back from the black cavern my thoughts had drawn me into. Looking up, I see Mayella crouched close in front of me with Baron and Mr. Schmu standing bent over right behind her. I blink a couple of times before figuring out that it had been Mayella calling to me. "Bealle, why are you crying? What's wrong?"

I wipe at my cheek and it comes away wet. Huh. Guess I actually was crying. Maybe I was just overreacting to something Baron said that I should have taken lightly, but after the revaluation I came to yesterday that lots of people from this very high school, people that I know, were dying right next to us, it was just too much.

"I-" I start as my voice cracks. I shake my head as I clear my throat and start again. "I'm sorry guys, I didn't mean to worry you. I guess what he said just triggered a bad memory." I never said when the memory was...

"Bealle I didn't mean for any of this, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to upset you of memories past," Baron says. I just shake my head. Slightly pushing Mayella out of the way I stand up and motion Baron to give me a hug. After a hesitation, he complies.

"It's not your fault at all, Baron. I simply overreacted. No need to apologize." I pull away from the hug enough to look at his face and continue to hold his arms. "But promise me, promise me, that you will never even joke about killing or harming yourself, okay?"

Baron looks at me with bafflement and unasked questions raging in his eyes, but simply replies, "Okay."

After this situation everyone sat back down and classes after that were going along with the same boring quietness that had been since the beginning of the whole incident with the book. The book. Oh my, I'm really going to need to tell Baron. But how do I explain to him that the reason for the whole school being an eerie stillness is because a book is going around murdering everyone. That the reason I started crying all shell shocked is because a book stabbed someone to death. That the reason sixty-eight people, sixty-seven of which attended Barnaby High, are dead is because a book that is only filled with paper and ink has murdered them all using their worst fears.

I decide to wait until Mayella is with us at lunch so that I can have some backup help me out. Honestly, if I hadn't lived here during the entirety of these events and watched all of the news reports, I wouldn't believe if someone told me an idea as preposterous as this. But I have been here the entire time. I have seen every single news report about each death. I have seen the last Facebook and Instagram updates from the poor people that are found dead within the hour. And I have experienced the denial of such events and also the day when things slowly start to change to where you understand and accept them for what they are. I have. It's time now for us to warn Baron, to try and help him, and to get him to understand and stay safe.

As Baron and I are heading to the cafeteria, Mayella runs up to us. This is surprising considering her last class was all the way across the campus, and I usually beat her to lunch. She stands breathing hard for a moment, though it it is shorter than someone who isn't on the track team and used to running all of the time. I guess that explains how she got here so fast- she ran.

"What's up, May?" I ask using a nickname from elementary school times.

"There was a body found in the cafeteria with its head stuck in the tray that the lasagna for lunch today was in and it looks like a girl but they're not sure and the news is that since they have to clean that up and students can't eat lunch here that school is cancelled for the rest of the day," Mayella finishes taking a huge gasp of air.

"Dang girl, breathe!" Baron comments smiling, then frowns. "Did you say a dead body?"

Mayella's face matches Baron's as she replies. "Yep. Number sixty-nine." Baron's jaw drops.

"Sixty-nine? What the heck is that all about?!"

"I've gotta go," I say as the edges of my vision darken. I try to turn around and swivel too much to be normal. How could there possibly be another one? Sixty-nine people. One more person killed that makes the hit list of this book. Found dead in the school cafeteria. Only one other person has died on school grounds, and that person was found in the janitor's closet. The earth seems to be floating up to greet me. Or maybe I fell. All I can remember are my last thoughts, which I will later be sincerely ashamed to admit.

Who the heck is afraid of lasagna?