Dawn of Fog and Glass

Chapter Two: Dawn of Fog And Glass

A sharp ringing pierces my ears. I blink myself awake; my eyes are dry. I groan and slump over, plunging my face into my pillow. My hands pin the plain white duvet over my ears.

Something pinches my foot. I scream and jump backwards, suddenly shivering, and reflexively kick the thing. My toes come into contact with Hera's stomach, and she grunts.

"Hera!"

"Get up, Arden." A hairbrush is in one of her hands, and she tugs at her long hair. It makes a faint rattling sound when it pulls through the split ends.

I groan again, my voice groggy. "Not everyone is a morning person like you, Hera."

She shrugs. "Fair enough. Get up anyway. We have Brannigan first."

The third grunt is the most dramatic of them all. Brannigan is the middle-aged, hardcore woman that teaches Apocalypse Defence Education, or ADE, the newest course in the school system. They added it to the curriculum because of the high demand for Fog Crawlers to not eat children.

Brannigan is the only person I know that is shorter than me. She's probably four-foot-ten. Salt-and-pepper hair falls around wizened hazel eyes and olive skin. Someone's asked me before if she's my mom. I slapped them in the face.

"Just let the Crawlers get me," I moan from under the covers. "Let them feast on my tiny, delicious body. Make me into Arden pepperoni and sell me in a pizza pie at the meat market."

"Okay, babe. Whatever you say," she comments, then drags me out of bed and slings me easily over her shoulder in a fireman carry. I yelp and squirm away from her grip, though she doesn't let go. I hate that she's taller than me. And stronger. Much, much stronger. Or maybe it's just that I'm light.

She forces me into the bathroom and shuts the door behind me, leaving me to my privacy. I shower quickly, then let my hair hang wet as I climb into black leggings and a very-oversized, very comfortable hoodie I stole from Orion. Familiar paint stains sprinkle the fabric here and there.

"If you don't get out of there soon, I'll leave without you."

"I've been in here for five minutes," I call back. She only laughs in response. I double-tap on the mirror, and the clock pops up in its reflection, reading eight forty-five. Maybe I have been in here for longer.

I hurriedly brush my teeth and hair, then scoop it up into a messy bun. I apply my usual makeup, plain except for sharp black eyeliner.

By the time I leave the bathroom, we must already be a couple minutes late, but luckily Hera waits for me.

"You're a lucky girl, Miss Jones."

I sigh. "Don't I know it."

The ADE class takes place in our gym, the newest part of the school. When the gym was first here, it was one of the generic ones I remember from before the Fog, with wooden floors, basketball hoops, and some mascot on the wall. Now, they painted white paint over the mascot; they set bright lights into the ceiling; they've substituted the wood flooring with mats all-around, and a fighting practice ring fits into the middle of the massive room. The gym is large enough to take up almost an entire wing of the school on the first floor, and all sixty students in each grade take ADE together. In the far-left corner, the newest toy sits, a training simulator that can fit up to three students at a time in it. The program can simulate Crawlers, starving humans, aggressive Morphs, and more, although the Morph function isn't used anymore. There have been no reported cases in years.

The class is already beginning to warm up when Hera and I arrive, so we drop our bags and rush in for jumping jacks.

"Late again, ladies," Brannigan calls from the front.