Lucas ✔️

Thirty-Two

I scurried down the hallway, holding my bag close to my chest as I looked away from the stares and tried my hardest to ignore the whispers. Janie sent me a sympathetic look and pulled me along, chattering loudly as though her words could drown out the judgement around us.

"... and then I told him that we would go out after, is that okay with you?" she said, her voice indicating that she was looking for an answer.

"What? Yeah, of course," I replied hastily, having zoned out of our conversation a few minutes ago. She looked hesitant but sent me a huge smile, gripping my arm tighter as she muttered thanks.

We made it to the lab room, both of us nodding at the teacher and slipping into our seats. I was eternally grateful that we were lab partners, as it meant that was one class I didn't have to stress about - Janie was always making sure I was getting decent grades in class, and she knew exactly what I needed to study for each test.

There were Bunsen burners on the tables and I groaned internally. I absolutely hated doing experiments and would continually take theory over it any day of the week. Janie grinned at me, loving experiments, and pulled out her book, ready to take notes. As the bell rang and the teacher began talking, not wasting a single minute, Janie started writing hastily and I took the initiative to zone out.

Outside I could see a few ghouls banging on the window, trying desperately to make it inside. The largest one flew back and dove forwards again, smashing against the glass so loudly the girl sitting closest to it jumped and looked. She couldn't see them, but she could hear them, and she turned to her partner, looking shocked as she asked him, "what the hell was that?" He shrugged and looked away, seeming unimpressed with her disinterest in the lesson.

"Lil?" Janie said, poking my arm lightly. "You ready?"

"Yeah, I have no idea what we are doing," I admitted, having the gall to look slightly guilty as she rolled her eyes at me.

"I already knew that. Here, just read this and I will grab what we need." She passed me her notebook, smooth handwriting covering the page with numbered instructions before she headed to the back of the room, collecting whatever equipment we needed.

I skim read the instructions and furrowed my eyebrows, feeling more confused as she returned, placing a few items down and handed me a beaker.

"Can you fill this with 250 milliliters of water and put it over the burner?" she asked, shoving it into my hands. "Heat level four," she said over her shoulder as she headed to the front of the room to grab a metallic-looking product from the teacher's desk.

I opened my mouth to refuse, but she was long gone by the time I looked away from the beaker in my hand. I moved through the throng of students moving around the room, each of them collecting their own items for the experiment, and pushed my way to the sink, filling the beaker as accurately as I could. As I spun around, I bumped into Pearl, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, red-lipped bombshell who I was eighty percent sure had hooked up with Cole at a party a year or so ago.

"Oh, sorry," she mumbled, looking down at me distastefully before glancing at her beaker.

"My bad," I replied quietly, shaking my hand to flick the split water from it. "You're going to have to refill," I said, nodding at her beaker which had a lot less water than it needed, thanks to it now being on my jacket.

"Yeah," she said, nodding and moving to the sink awkwardly, her eyes glazing over me as though I barely existed. I mean, I knew she hated me, but usually, she was a bit more vocal about it.

I raised an eyebrow at and shuffled away, spotting Janie in line at the desk, waiting to get our allotted amount of whatever-it-was. I screwed the beaker into place and plugged the Bunsen burner in, double checking everything was in place.

"Do you smell that?" Jake asked me, stopping by my desk and pushing his glasses up higher.

"What?" I asked him, pausing with my hand over the dial to the burner and looking up at him.

He squinted across the room, his nose scrunching slightly as he sniffed loudly. Jake was the typical science-nerd, except he was decently popular due to his soccer skills. I had only talked to him a few times before, mostly awkward interactions through Cole or in-class group assignments. Honestly, I think I used to have a crush on him and his doe brown eyes, but that died out pretty quickly after Dad died.

Just another thing you stole from me, Dad.

"Hmmm," he paused and sniffed again. "Nothing, I just thought I smelt something weird." He shrugged and grinned at me, one that didn't seem to meet his eyes like it used to. I shrugged in return and turned the burner on, spinning the dial quickly.

As soon as I turned the Bunsen on, I was on fire. I jumped back in shock and yelped as the fire started at the edge of my jumper, quickly working its way up the flammable material. I waved my hand around in shock, gasping in fear as the fire singed my arm. My eyes caught Janie's across the room, hers wide in fear and horror, and I began to scream as the fire finally touched my skin, the putrid smell of burning skin wafting around me.

I couldn't even think about doing anything other than jumping around like a maniac, arm waving crazily until the teacher yelled for everyone to move. She was too far away, and I was burning, literally. I began to scream as the pain sunk in and the shock wore off. The fire licked its way up my arm even further and struggled to pull off my jumper unsuccessfully.

A loud banging noise rang through the room, even louder than my own screams, and I could feel my eyes subconsciously being dragged towards the window to the side of the room. The ghouls were there banging against the window as roughly as they could, again and again and again, back and forth into the window pane.

Two hands roughly grabbed me and pulled me to the sink, swiftly pulling my jumper over my head, leaving me in only the singlet I wore to bed, and flinging it into the sink they were dragging me towards. I cried out as they ripped the material from my singed wrist, layers of my skin having ripped off with it. Deep down I knew it was all they could have done at the moment to save me, but I still cursed at them with tears streaming down my face.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I cried, looking down at my singed wrist which stung in pain. The longer I looked at it, the more I realised it wasn't that bad, it simply hurt a lot and looked extremely red. If anything, I was simply missing a few bits of skin and had gained a few small blisters. Somehow, the fire had barely even touched my skin.

"It's okay Lilith, you'll be alright," a soft voice whispered from next to me as they dabbed some type of burn cream on my crusty skin. I looked up and met the doe-eyes of Jake, who squinted at me and sent a reassuring smile that had me biting my lip in pain and nodding along, hoping the sweet words he was whispering were true.

"What happened, Lilith?" the teacher asked, looking wholly unimpressed with me as she stood with her hands on her hips.

"I- I don't know," I mumbled, wincing in pain as Jake wrapped my wrist with a burn gauze tightly, even though I wasn't sure I needed it. I was extremely lucky he had acted so fast, as I could have been nothing more than a charcoaled body on the floor if he hadn't managed to get my jumper off. "I literally just turned the Bunsen on and I caught on fire."

"That is absolute nonsense! Something-" Jake cut the teacher off quickly, pulling me to the side.

"It wasn't her fault," he said, pushing me slightly towards the open arms of Janie, who pulled me in tightly for a hug as I tried to stop the tears running down my face. "I smelt methylated spirits. Someone must have spilled some near her counter."

My eyes flickered over to Pearl, who was conveniently looking away from me. There was only one way I could have gotten methylated spirits on myself.

"Send her to the nurse for a check-up," the teacher said to Janie dismissively, acting as though I wasn't even there. Oddly, I didn't even care that she was being so rude. All I cared about was Pearl and the smirk pasted across her face awkwardly, with a pair of dead, empty eyes that didn't match.