Dome

1

Junior year was supposed to be normal. This was my third time moving to a new school because of mom's job, so I had gotten used to it. The looks you got when first walking in, identifying the social hierarchy, how to blend into the crowd. Each group is easy to identify, the popular boys and girls are the easiest, the girls are in their skin-tight cropped clothing and many in letterman jackets belong to their boyfriends, the boys in their sports jerseys. The nerds in nicer clothing, or shirts with messages and jokes on them, goths in eye makeup and band t-shirts. Then there was one girl who didn't seem to fit into any group, at first I thought she was the laughing stock of the school, the sad one who gets bullied, but she seemed happy and people stayed away from her. The bell rang and I went to my first class, calculus, I sat down next to a dark-skinned boy with short hair. "Hey, I'm Winston" he introduced himself leaning over to me.
    "Hi, I'm Jeremy," I replied hesitating a bit before continuing "whos that girl over there"? I gestured towards the girl that I saw in the hallway before, she was wearing black ankle boots, high waisted dark jeans with a gray shirt tucked in and over the top of it all a gray cardigan with the tip a slight red color with black wavy hair a few inches past her shoulders. She was pushing a sharp pencil into the pad of her thumb.
    "That's Smithy, she scares everyone, she's not quite right up here". Winston said tapping his temple. "I recommend you stay away from her. I heard she killed a guy. I mean after her parents died her cousin came to take care of her, and he kind of forced her to do you know what with him, she changed after that".
    "Oh..."
I went through my next few classes thinking about Smithy. I mean who could even do that to someone. I thought I had a troubled past, you know, losing my dad at seven, but this was a whole new level of intense.
At lunch, I was looking for a seat. I spotted Winson but all seats at his table were taken, so my only two options were one alone at an empty table or one across from Smithy. I walked over to Smithy, and I'm not going to lie, I was a bit scared after what Winston told me. When I put my tray down across from her she looked up at from moving her food around hers. At first, she looked confused then gave me an unsettling grin "You're not scared of me, I assume someone would have told you about me by now".
"I mean I am a little bit scared," I confessed, rubbing the back of my neck "what's that on your cardigan, is it, blood"?
"No"? She responded
"That isn't the sort of question you should be answering with another question".
"I don't have the time to keep track of the types of bodily fluids that are released onto my clothing, it just happens naturally."
" What sort of activities cause strange bodily fluids to be released unknowingly onto your clothing"?
"I can't tell you that". This was the first time that I actually got a good look at her face, she was paler than most and had a few freckles scattered across her cheekbones. Her voice had a very slight English accent, the type that most wouldn't notice if they weren't paying attention, and spoke in an eerily soothing, smooth, and slowed down tone. "Any way you probably already know this, but I'm Smithy."
"Jeremy Artison" I reached my hand out to shake hers. Her interest peaked when I said my last name. When she reached her hand out for mine I noticed the pads off all her fingers and gauze was wrapped around her palm. "I don't understand why people are so scared of you, you seem nice"?
She laughed and simply said, "Give it a few days and you'll be just like the rest of them, hiding and running for your life."
My next few classes were simple. In English a woman came into the classroom and left with Smithy, she didn't come back for the rest of the class.
The day was over and I needed to walk home. I heard my phone buzz and I went into my backpack to get it out. A text from Mom. 'I will be working late tonight, get yourself some food and to bed, love you'. It seemed funny that they were keeping her late during her first few weeks on the job, the hospital must be busy.
I looked around at the other kids leaving the school for a few seconds before heading the direction my new home was. I saw a familiar girl walking in the same direction, Smithy. I ran ahead to meet up with her, "You heading home"?
"In a way," she replied looking up from the ground "I don't really like going home, so I kind of," she paused and stopped for a moment "Do my own thing, then sneak through the window into my room later".
I nodded before an idea sprung into my head, "Hey, my Mom won't be home until later, the hospital's busy, maybe we could do something together"?
"I would like to change, and shower". She said shyly.
"Hm"?
"I don't feel safe changing and all that with my cousin around, I usually only get to do that once a week or so when he goes out". She looked back at the ground.
"Oh, you can shower and change at my house, as much as you need my mom won't mind". She nodded. We walked the rest of the way only saying a few words here and there.
When we walked into our neighborhood, she pointed at a blue house a few down from mine, "That's mine there, take this I'll be right back". She tossed me her backpack and walked towards her house. She started scaling the side of her house. She pushed open one of the windows on the deck floor.
While she was in the house I couldn't help but notice a peice of paper sticking out of her backpack. I picked up the piece of paper, unfolded it, and read it. It was a list of names, about 20. The first 9 were crossed off, I didn't recognize them. As the list went on I vaguely recognized many of them, but the last name was very familiar to me. Meagan Artison, my mom. A panic flooded over me as I realized what it was. A hit list.