Even After Death

A Perfectly 'Normal' Day

Anastasia

"It feels like we haven't had a normal day at school in the past week," I say while staring at the door to the school. 

"Can't disagree." Flynn is standing next to me, his hair is hanging over his face and he subconsciously brushes it out of his eyes. After a few more moments of staring at the door, we walk in. 

And, no one looks at us. My jaw almost drops to the floor. No rude comments, no whispering, and no attacks. I stare at Flynn and he just shrugs. 

The bell rings and we split up to go to our separate classes. I have History. After sitting down in my normal desk I open my notebook. 

"Welcome class!" I look up at the teacher, he's a middle aged man, slightly grey hair and golden eyes. For some reason he's always enthusiastic about teaching. Not that I think thats bad, he's probably the most interesting teacher at this school. 

"Today we will be going over the importance of the elders." I have to resist the urge to faceplant into the desk. Everyone here already knows how important the elders are. This class is going to be someone telling us that we have to respect the elder. I pull out a pencil and start scribbling in my notebook. I've never been a good artist, the best I can do is draw a stickman. Maybe one day I'll learn. For now though, it's stickmen. I mean there cute. 

After filling a few pages with stickmen doing stupid things, like jumping hoops, the bell rings. 

Mr. Enthusiastic explains our homework and we all leave the classroom. as I walk to my next class I try to understand why everyone is so quiet. I mean it's a highschool, it's never really quiet. But nobody is attacking me, mentally or physically. It's unnerving. 

Flynn is standing at the door to out next class and I wave. He smiles and waits for me to walk over to him. 

"You won't believe what Mrs. Sakura did in Music," Flynn says while he sits down at a desk. I take the desk beside him while he explains how the Music teacher animatied a pianos keys and they  all got stuck in her hair. By the end of the story I'm laughing with Flynn. 

"Man, I wish I could of seen it. All we learned," I do quotation marks with my fingers, "in history was how important my parents were." Flynn grimaces and before he can explain what he thinks our English teacher appears from under his desk, he looks like he just woke up from a nap. Which doesn't make sense because I know he had a class right before us.

"Hello Class, open your textbooks to page 83, and read the story." His voice is groggy and tired. 

~~~

After English we have lunch, so Flynn and I sit on the grass next to the baseball field. 

"That story was so boring, like Icarus was so stupid," I complain. 

"That's the point, Ana. He made a stupid mistake, and it cost him his life." Flynn and I spend the next few minutes complaining about Icarus and the stupid wax wings. 

"I'll be right back I have to use the bathroom." Flynn stands up and walks off. Once he's out of sight a girl walks up to me.

"Wow, I can't belive you got a boyfriend." Her voice is condescending but I just sit there confused. 

"I don't have a-" It dawns on me what she means. "You little shit!" I stand up and she runs off. I can feel my face heating up. 

"What's wrong, you look like your about to kill someone." I spin around and Flynn starts laughing. "You look like you just saw a ghost!" He lay's on the ground still laughing and I sit down next to him. 

"It's not funny! You scared me!" Flynn just keeps laughing while I wave my arms around trying to explain myself. 

~~~

After school I walk back home and find mother sitting on the steps to out house. When she sees me she stands up. 

"Honey, how was school." She smiles at me and I have to blink and make sure it's my mother talking to me. 

"Uhh, good, I guess." Today was so normal it was scary. 

"That's good. Well, I was wondering if you wanted to help me decorate the house for Halloween?" 

"Sure." I stand there bewildered for a moment. Did mother just ask me to help her nicely? Shaking my head I run into the house after her. 

The entire experience of decorating the house is awkward, mother keeps trying to make small talk even though she's never tried before. It's like she's trying to make up for all the years she treated me like a pawn. But each time she asks something I answer in one or two words. Usually yes, no, mhm, maybe, okay, or nice. Once we finish decorating she hugs me. I don't remember the last time she hugged me. 

She thanks me for the help and I rush to my bedroom. Plopping down on my desk I stare at my hands. I know that I told my parents how I felt about the whole 'I don't wanna be elder' thing. I just didn't expect this. Shaking my head I pull out my notebooks and look at my homework. I decide on doing my English class homework. 

Assignment:

- Write an essay explaining the importance of Emotions.

- be sure to explain how they contributed to what Icarus did.

I stare at the assignment for a second before shaking my head. An essay on emotions? What? 

I turn to faceplant onto my bed when I see a large book sitting in the center of it. 

I go to pickup the book when a familiar voice comes from behind me.

"Some things are better left unknown. Do not open the book Anastaisa. It is not yet time for you to see what lies ahead." 

I spin around and see... nothing.