Dead

4┊Inner Killer Fantasy

┆ Kaia ┆

On my way out the door, I glanced habitually at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes were brown, the darker recesses of my pupil expanding out into a slightly darker iris, perhaps the colour of parched summer soil. My hair matched my eyes; brown, sometimes golden in direct sunlight, sometimes dark with grease.

 “Kaia, if you don’t get a move on, you’ll be late.” My father’s voice sounded from the kitchen, snapping me out of my trance. “Well, later than you already are,” he warned.

“I’m leaving, dad. See you later.”

“Be home on time today.” He cautioned, referring to the time I had returned from Mattie’s house yesterday.

I nodded vaguely. “Sure.” Reaching for the door handle, I stepped out into the crisp air. Glancing at the gathering storm clouds, my mind made an immediate decision for me; I was better off catching the bus to school, especially since it would be quicker considering how unfashionably late I’d woken up this morning.

Unfortunately, in the forthcoming winter time, minimal sunlight filtered through my curtains to serve as my alarm clock – instead, my room was perpetually dark and shrouded in hues of midnight blue and arsenic grey, much like the depressing evening before. I could barely track the sun in the sky, even now.

The bus came after precisely two minutes. Predictably, it was full of the rebellious school kids who stuck to their habit religiously of being rebelliously late and notoriously loud too. I shoved my way through the narrow aisle, eventually sidling into an empty row near the back. The disconcerting conversation with Matilda yesterday was slowly slipping from my mind, but it still lingered there, playing at the corners of my psyche, teasingly.

A few moments later, someone slipped in besides me. I instinctively shifted closer to the window side, glancing at the person next to me. My eyes widened very slightly. It was the boy from the computer room. Max - Maxiumus – Indi’s brother. Max, with the dark hair and dark eyes, though now, closer to him, I saw they were almost an indigo-black, red at the corners where there was usually a translucent sheen of white.

His head twisted, catching my stare. I quickly looked away, mortified at my obviousness.

“Do I have something on my face?”

I looked at him sideways from the corner of my eye, shaking my head quickly.

“Then why were you staring at me?” I didn’t expect him to be as straight-forward as he was, and nor did I anticipate him engaging in conversation with me – a rather awkward one at that.

I swallowed. “Sorry, I was just seeing who sat next to me. Are there no other seats available?” I inquired, biting back the offensiveness that threatened to infiltrate my tone.

One feathery eyebrow arched high on his forehead, lips curling not unkindly. “Do you have a problem with me sitting here?”

I shook my head. “No – I was just wondering.”

“Well I’ll answer your wonder. No, there are no seats left. Turns out there are more kids who come late to school than I’d thought. It looks like sleeping in late is in fashion.”  

My mouth opened in a small circle, indicating I understood. I shifted in my seat again, mentally speculating if he’d remembered me from the computer room. I highly doubted he would. People have an awful tendency to stare at someone – well, through someone – and seemingly see them, but not see them. It felt like people stared through glass, only to realize that the object they were staring at wasn’t important enough to really see.