Among Us

Chapter One - Spare Your Threats

Chapter One

Not me. Not me. Not me.

"Lain?"

She wrinkled her nose at the sound of her own name. Just her luck. "I don't know sir," she feigned ignorance, willing the teacher to choose someone else.

"You know this," he smiled, trying to encourage her.

She hated lying. She'd been told that she wasn't very good at it, but he didn't know what would happen if she answered his questions. He didn't understand that she'd been trying to be invisible in his musky, stifling classroom, her chair pulled right up against the bookcase on the back wall. It was better to not be seen. It was better when she didn't speak. She'd have preferred to have been given detention. Anything was better than this.

Lain shook her head and stared at her desk; letting her bangs fall over her eyes. She peered through the black strands. If she couldn't see him, he couldn't see her. A childish thought, but it made her feel a little better.

Mr Hefferman gave up with a sigh. "When the sun runs out of nuclear fuel, the core will contract and the sun will swell, engulfing Mercury and Venus and perhaps even the Earth."

The classroom chorused with gasps; as was to be expected at the idea of the end of the world.

Zoe raised her hand. "What happens if the Earth isn't engulfed?"

Mr Hefferman clapped his hands together and Lain flinched. "Great question, Zoe. Well if the Earth is not swallowed up by the sun, it will begin to melt."

"Like an ice-cream?" Sophia asked, grinning. Sophia's circle of friends found this analogy particularly funny and proceeded to burst into fits of hysterical giggles.

Lain folded her arms on the desk and hid her face in them. The end of the world really was not something to giggle at, but she wasn't going to be the one to tell them that.

"Indeed," he nodded and Lain looked up in surprise, thinking for a moment that she had spoken aloud.

Their teacher wasn't looking at her, he had begun to pace slowly behind his desk, rubbing his hands together as if this was the most exciting speech he had ever given. The class held on with bated breath, or at least that's what Lain assumed he was thinking.

"Whether the sun will engulf the earth or vaporise the surface of the planet, we cannot know. But should the human race wish to continue living on, we will need to leave Earth and find another planet to inhabit."

The bell tolled. One long foreboding chime.

She didn't wait for Mr Hefferman to excuse the class, Lain was up from her seat and hurrying out the door before the bell had finished its chiming.

In the main corridor it was all out war. The 'in' girls took up the most space, gathering at their lockers and drawing in crowds of admirers who were after a date for the evening. The rest of the space was left for the 'common' folk, each in their own group of likeminded individuals. Mostly by herself and the resident school outcast, Lain always went straight home after school.

The halls of the Oxford Academy on a Friday were equivalent to a heavy metal mosh pit. In this instance the phrase, 'No Pain, No Gain', was relied on greatly. The pupils flew from their classrooms and threw themselves at the crowd pressed up against the single exit doorway, moulding themselves in amongst the hundred already squashed into the hallway.

Lain collided with the pupils at the back of the crowd as she rounded the corner to the exit. She was moving much too fast to be able to slow in time and was met with the exasperated glares of a couple of sixth formers. She panicked and backed away, holding her hands up in an apology. She didn't have time for this. Her eyes flickered across the hallway at the closed classroom doors; they wouldn't be locked just yet.