NIGHT CHASER ---- original ---- HIATUS

Chapter 2: An Uneasy Feeling

Elena sat in class, silently counting down the seconds until lunch. 10, 9, 8... 3, 2, 1.

Ring!

Elena jumped up in her seat, excited. Today, lunch was lasagna, and, in contrast to other schools, their school's lasagna was absolutely amazing. Add that to the fact that she sat with her two best friends every day, Evan and Yamilia, and you had one happy Elena

Elena stuffed her school supplies in her locker, slamming the metal before anything could fall out with a loud clang. All of the little Sixlets and Sevvies, even the eighth graders stared. They knew nothing. Once you got to ninth grade, the only thing that mattered were grades, sports, and of course, getting to lunch.

Elena looked longingly out the window. If the cafeteria had more windows, it would be perfect. The snow was the softest around. She lived in the secluded mountains of Colorado, amongst traditional mountain folk, who also went to school here at Emerson School. The population was so small, they only had one school, but it was split up into tiny wings for each division of school. Elena was so excited for high school. At her secluded mountain school, ninth grade was considered middle school.

"Hey!" Yamilia caught up with her. "Aren't you sooooo excited for the play?" Her voice was enthusiastic and bright as always. Yamilia was very involved in extracurriculars and took part in the play as well as tennis and Karate.

"Um, sure!" Elena brightened up her voice so her feelings wouldn't be hurt. Yamilia was outgoing, and yet quite sensitive.

"I know! Like, OMG, the costume they're using for Sebastian is soooooo cute! Honestly though, I feel like Lekana shouldn't have gotten Ariel, in my opinion, her voice is too deep. But I'm super duper excited to play Ursula! I mean, she's a little dark, but it's always fun to play the villain, don't you think?" Yamilia talked in Elena's ear all the way to lunch. Elena found that the best strategy was just to smile and nod. She loved Yamilia to bits as well as her other best friend, Evan, but Yamilia could get very talkative.

Elena and Yamilia walked into the cafeteria, where they spotted Evan looking around for a table. Elena grabbed his hand and yanked him to a table that had a few seats left.

"Um, could we sit here?" she asked tentatively, without looking to see who was there.

"Of course you can!" came a very familiar voice. It was Elora, her good friend from elementary school. Throughout middle school, they had never had any classes together. There were only two Core teachers for each grade. One taught Social Studies and Language Arts, and the other taught Science and Math. Elora was in the smaller, advanced math group, which had math in the morning, and Elena was not. Evan was also in advanced math, but they had specialists together. By some chance, Elora and Elena had never had any specialists together.

Elena smiled back at Elora's warm gaze. She had missed her friend, but they had drifted apart after not having any classes together. She sat down happily, glad she was sitting with her old friend, and not some random stranger.

"So, it's Evan and Yeah-me-lee-uh, right?" Elora gave a friendly glance at Elena's more recent friends. But there was no jealousy. Elora had her closest friends, and Elena had hers.

"You got Evan right, but I'm Yamilia, pronounced like Amelia. It's a common mistake. Yamilia is a Spanish name."

"Oh, cool! And you're Evan?" she asked Evan, who had been sitting quietly. Evan was very shy, but when he was with only his friends, he was a little more talkative. He nodded an affirmative.

Soon enough, a teacher dismissed their section of tables, and everyone got up to get a good place in the lunch line. The school lasagna was legendary, at least in their little mountain town.

After Elena had gotten her lunch, she sat down, immediately digging into her lasagna. The pasta part was perfectly al dente, with a wonderful moistness. The thickness was just right, so it wasn't too crumbly, but it wasn't like she was biting into a block or rubber either. And beyond the pasta, the sauce was just right, with a tremendous amount of flavor, and nice, texturing tomato chunks. And the pasta wasn't drenched in sauce either. Elena's mother did that, which she hated. But there also was a good amount, just enough so you could get a good taste. And of course, the cheese, nothing more needed to be said. The cheese was Parmesan. It was simply perfect.

But, as all good things did, lunch had to come to an end.

As Elena trudged to her next class - math, of all things - she thought about Elora. She wanted to reconnect with her. Elora had been a great friend, but they never saw each other much.

Elena entered math. Yamilia followed, bouncing behind her. Elena smiled to herself. She was glad Yamilia couldn't hear her dark thoughts.

There's London, staring at me again. Why does the most popular girl in school have to despise me? Why am I such a failure? I bet it's my hair. It's black and frizzy, the complete opposite of what all the popular girls have, blonde and straight. Or maybe my skin. I mean, it's literally the color of coffee! I wish it were lighter.

"Are you thinking about your skin again?" Yamilia sighed. There weren't a lot of black families in the mountains. They were mostly native, with olive colored skin, but a lot of white settlers had moved in too.

"What? No." Elena dismissed the question. How could she tell Yamilia, beautiful, friendly, outgoing Yamilia? Surely Yamilia didn't have those thoughts. She was Yamilia. Elena pushed the hindering thoughts out of her way, and went on with her routine, simple, boring day.

**********

Elena woke up in a cold sweat. She had dreamed that London and her minions had become authority in the mountains, and left anyone who wasn't cool enough out in the cold snow to die. They had been reading off names, and there was only one left. The most uncool of them all. And when London read off the name, it was none other than Elena's own. What made it worse, was that Yamilia and Evan were deemed cool enough. And they were smiling from up on the stage, where honored kids - the coolest of the cool - were standing. They didn't so much as glance at her, waving ecstatically to the crowd. And then London tossed her out the door like a piece of trash, and Elena sat there, cold and shivering. But soon enough, the whole town was out there, joining Elena on the mountaintop, staring, wondering what would become of them, and hoping they wouldn't be the first to starve, including London. Everyone was in mortal danger, and no one knew who had put them in it.

Mountain dwellers took their dreams very seriously. But if something wasn't directly said, it meant something still, it just wasn't entirely clear what. And Elena had a feeling something was wrong, something was wrong at this very moment. Something suspicious and terrible was happening. Elena felt it in her gut. And she knew this wasn't a fluke. Elena would get together with Evan and Yamilia tomorrow, to figure out what. But, at that moment, Elena settled back down in her warm bed, uneasily turning onto her side, wondering what to make of the dream.