Lethe's Lament

Chapter 1: Awakening

Lily groggily rolled over and quite roughly smashed the "snooze" button on the alarm clock. Finally some silence. She took this opportunity to stare blankly at her feet and try to wake up a little. Her sheets and pajamas were damp, and her face was covered in little beads of water. Ew, gross. She wiped her face on the bed sheets and sighed deeply. God, a proper nightmare... That hadn't happened to her in years. And it had been such a strange one, too. It wasn't like she had any odd phobias of rivers she could remember, and her dreams weren't usually this detailed, or stuck to her memory this well.

Half remembering that her alarm clock had been flashing a possibly concerning number, she turned to the side, and nearly got a heart attack. The alarm clock had stopped flashing and now displayed "8:30". Lily's mouth fell open and a long, stretched out "shiiiiiiiiiiiit..." softly escaped her mouth. Her brain started racing to calculate how late she was, if she had time to get ready, and if she could come up with a valid excuse. Her train of thought was only interrupted by her alarm clock, which promptly and mercilessly had started beeping again. "Shut it, you dumb hunk of plastic," she muttered as she jumped up and pressed the "off" button. She decided to leave the thinking for later and sprinted to the bathroom. Having loudly smashed the door behind her, she threw her pajamas in the laundry basket and was about to jump into the shower when her own reflection in the mirror caught her eye. A single, silvery drop had just finished its journey from her eye to her jaw, and dropped onto the floor, leaving a faint, silvery trail across her cheek. With a frown, Lily started rubbing at the little stripe, but it refused to come off. She bit her lip pensively and shrugged. "It'll come off in the shower."

After a hasty wash, she rushed back into her room and slipped into the clothes that were hanging over her chair. Thank god she planned out her outfits a day in advance, that would have been a real pain to deal with now. She quickly jumped into her jeans and managed not to get a toe stuck in one of the tears, somehow. When she'd wormed herself into a dark blue shirt, blown her white locks out of her eyes and zipped up her favourite purple hoodie, she stared at her makeup stuff next to the sink through the open bathroom door and bit her lip again. It was a bad habit she'd developed as a kid, and it did show a bit on her lower lip, which she thoroughly disliked. She decided against the makeup. She didn't usually use too much anyway, and there was no time for that now.

"Mom!" she yelled while running down the stairs and simultaneously attempting to fix a ponytail. "I'm really late. Could you grab my bag for me?" She stumbled a bit, but managed to get down the stairs without breaking anything. She ran to the door and quickly slipped into her Converse, which weren't her favourites, but at least they were convenient. Just as she opened the door, her mom came up behind her holding her backpack. "Alright, I made you a sandwich. I know cheese isn't your favourite, but it's what I had in my hands anyway. Be careful, okay?"

"I'll be fine, mom. Don't worry."

"Oh, and Lily?"

"Yeah?"

Lily had already started walking down the sidewalk, and didn't stop walking as she turned her head back. Her mom opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly stopped and frowned.

"Are you okay, mom?"

"I... Don't know..."

Lily frowned, but she didn't worry too much. Her mom was often vague in the morning, and probably just hadn't had her coffee yet. She bit her lip again and turned back around..

"You can text me later, okay? Love you!"

As Lily picked up her pace and started running down the street, she didn't notice her mom standing still in the doorway, staring vacantly in front of her. As Lily turned a corner, her footsteps echoing loudly on the pavement, a single silver droplet formed in her mother's eye and slid down her cheek, without leaving a trace. Her mother shrugged, turned around, and closed the door behind her.

Lily stopped at the gate to the schoolyard, panting heavily, with her hands on her knees. The school wasn't too far, luckily, and she usually walked anyway, but she'd still only barely woken up, and the sudden effort had her limbs trembling. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. It was no big deal. People were late all the time. She just had to walk in, apologize to the teacher, and if she was lucky he would let it slide. Mr Ramone was one of her favourite teachers, and the fact that she actually quite liked History and was one of the few to pay attention when he said anything, meant he let her get away with significantly more. She nervously walked through the dreadfully silent, sterile halls to classroom 206. "Nothing to be worried about. You're only 30 minutes late" she muttered to herself as she slowly opened the door to the classroom. 

Immediately around 20 heads spun in her direction.

"Miss Thomson," said mister Ramone in his breathy baritone voice, "how nice of you to join us. Sit down. I'll talk to you after class." Lily nodded quickly and rushed to her seat, which was smack-dab in the middle of the room. She hastily grabbed her books from her bag and slumped over into the well-known History class position adopted by students all around the world.

Mister Ramone cleared his throat. "Please all continue your assignments. Since you didn't seem to be in a silent mood either way, I'll allow discussion with your neigbouring classmates. Mister Stanley, if you could help miss Thomson catch up on today's class, that would be appreciated. You can finish that drawing another day." He went back to sorting through a gigantic, messy pile of notes on his desk and, though Lily could have imagined that, it looked as if he was silently chuckling while doing so. Lily turned to Aaron who, sure enough, had a rather unflattering, half finished drawing of their Chem teacher as some sort of bridge troll on his desk.

"So, sleeping beauty. What do you think? I thought it was pretty accurate myself."

"Is that supposed to be you?" Lily pointed at the knight in shining armor facing off against the troll in the drawing.

"Most definitely it is! Don't you recognize my stunning physique?"

"You can barely lift your Physics textbook, never mind that stupidly large sword. Besides, you would never fit all your hair in that little helmet." She said, poking her pencil into Aaron's impressive mountain of brown curls.

Aaron ruffled through his hair, likely checking whether she'd secretly stuck her pencil in there again. "I'm working on that!" he said, looking excessively offended. "I'll have you know I went to the gym yesterday."

"We all did, Aaron. PE doesn't count, and all you did was sit on the sideline whining about your wrist."

"It hurt, okay?" He said, dramatically clutching his left wrist.

"Yesterday you were clutching your right wrist, you moron. Besides, only fifteen minutes after PE I saw you drawing with that same hand again."

"I don't think I appreciate that tone of voice, miss Thomson." Aaron replied, doing a terrible impression of the Chem teacher he'd been drawing. "I suppose you'll have to have someone else fill you in on today's class." He sniffled theatrically and turned his back to her.

"Aaron, come on. Don't be like that. Now what am I supposed to do for the next 45 minutes?" She said, only half joking. She expected a witty response, but was instead met with silence. "Aaron?" She said, poking him in the back with a pencil. "Are you still with us?"

A short, slightly disgruntled humming noise was her reply. She decided that  Aaron was just playing a long con, and she'd just have to get back to him in a few minutes. Slightly distraught, she started to read through her textbook at the page they left off at last time, hoping mister Ramone hadn't suddenly completely changed subjects halfway through a chapter again. She didn't notice how, in the front of the classroom, mister Ramone was staring blankly in front of him, a hand holding some pieces of paper still hovering above his desk, as a silvery droplet escaped the corner of his eye, rolled down his cheek and fell onto the desk, where it disappeared without a trace.