Temere Mortis

Chapter Nine

With a speedy hand Isla wrote the date on the top right corner of her notepad in cursive script, '03/09/2018'. Well, she attempted to write the date. At the exact time her pen hit the paper a pointy elbow collided with her ribcage and knocked her hand off course. Isla cursed softly under her breath.

"Psst," a voice hissed to her left. "Coffee after this?"

Isla turned to find Alex smiling brightly at her, her cheeks rosy. She raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Why so flushed?" she whispered back. The red in Alex's cheeks deepened.

"I had to run to get here, someone didn't wake me up!" Alex accused her flatmate jokingly, giving her another playful nudge. Isla rolled her eyes.

"You're buying this time,." she conceded, turning back to face the front.

"You're going to want to buy me the coffee when you hear the amazing gossip I have for you," Alex announced smugly. "It's about our esteemed Miss Teen Queen Manchester sulking at the back of this very room."

Isla glanced around the lecture hall, individually observing the many faces peering back at her from the audience. Eventually, her gaze landed on a dark-haired girl sat on the back row. Her usual gaggle of followers sat to the side and front of her. Her lips were resting in a gentle pout and her eyes were glassy. Alex was wrong though, she wasn't sulky. Isla would have called her sad, devastated even.

"Emma Nakamura?" she asked Alex, although the clarification wasn't necessary. They'd been calling her an assortment of names for years, Miss Teen Queen Manchester being a favourite of Alex's.

"Mhmm," Alex replied cheerfully, in the same voice she always uses when she's holding onto a particularly juicy piece of gossip. She squirmed in her seat uncomfortably as if trying to stop the knowledge from bursting out of her. Eventually, she said it all at once. The words blurred together in the rush to escape her mouth.

"It'stheeleventhyearanniversaryofherparentsdeath," Alex whispered quickly into Isla's ear. Her best friend stared blankly at her in response.

"Come again?" Isla requested sarcastically. "Maybe slower this time?"

Alex huffed unhappily, enunciating every proceeding word carefully and quietly.

"Her. Parents. Died," she announced slowly in hushed tones. "Eleven years ago, today." Isla gasped. It took every ounce of good will she possessed not to turn around and stare at the poor girl.

"Was it the TM?" she asked, shocked. Alex nodded. "She's been in the support group for eleven years?!" Alex nodded again, this time with a smug smirk on her features.

"Guess she's not as perfect and put together as she seems," Alex replied, just as the lecturer began to talk in a low drone.

Unsurprisingly, Isla found she couldn't focus on the lecture. Her thoughts repeatedly drifted back to Emma and her sad eyes at the back of the lecture hall. She was reminded, guiltily of when her mum had told her not to judge a book by its cover when she was younger. She found herself feeling achingly sorry for the girl she had always openly despised.

Isla was pulled out of her thoughts by a sudden thumping sound on the desk beside her. Shocked, she nearly gave herself whiplash as she spun her head to face the noise. Alex was laying face down on the desk. Her pen lay limply in her right hand where she'd been pretending to write notes. Her phone lay poised in her lap where she'd been texting. Gingerly, she poked her best friend as if trying to rouse her from a deep drunken stupor.

"Alex?" she whispered. "Everyone's looking, if this is your new way of sleeping in class it isn't a very good tactic."

When she got no response, she began to panic.

"Alex?" she said, louder this time. She shook her shoulder more violently. "Alex?" she cried, despairingly. With a firm grasp on her best friends head she turned it to the side in one swift motion. Dull eyes stared back at her.

Isla screamed.