Marked

Chapter 1

Everything around me was like a phantom in shades of grey. People around me walked by in a blur, they were rushing to their classrooms, looking for each other. I was just walking by with only one destination. There was so many people, so much life and yet so many colors that I felt like I couldn't see.

Or maybe I was just depressed. School can do that to you when you can't find any way to keep up.

When I reached my locker I was granted with my dead looking reflection, there were dark crescents under my eyes and my skin seemed paler than ever, evidence of all the hard work I had been putting into my studies but it never seemed to be enough. I had been studying all night long. I dreaded every single test I had to take, a piece of paper shouldn't be what measures my worth.

"Hey doll" someone said behind me, "I see you tried to eat a notebook last night" she said as I turned around to greet her. "Honey, zombies look more alive than you do right now" her voice was tinted with a form of concern only she could possess, this was one of the things that made her who she is, that I could never possibly relate to anybody else.

"Ha-ha, very funny Jen" I say as I try to fix the mess that I call hair. "I barely slept last night, but still I come blank when I try to remember what I studied yesterday, Iamfreakingout!!" I pulled on my hair and gave up, that's another lost cause, my hair has always been a wild mass of unruly light brown hair.

"Don't frown hun, someone could be falling in love" she singsonged, producing a shy smile across my lips and momentarily making me forget about the not hot mess that I am. Jen seemed expectant for an answer, posing with an inquisitive frown.

"I doubt anyone would bother taking a fall for me" I replied, shaking my head. She just rolled her eyes, like she normally did when she pretended to be annoyed.

"Come on we'll be late for class" she said, grabbing my wrist dragging me across the hall.

Our chemistry classroom possessed its usual attire, bleakness, boredom: a clean constitution of gray walls, no posters, no colors, the only thing that made it bearable was the double pane windows, casting a perfect view of the woods; of course my school had to be in a forest in the middle of nowhere.

Jen and I just walked to our all too familiar place in the back; some say it's the best place to get distracted, I say it's the best place to hide from my teacher every time he asks a question. But then again, there is always Jen to shove me into my studies.

Mr. Simmons began role call as per usual; minutes passed as he scrolled through the names in the list, while simultaneously zombie like responses ecoed across the room.
"Wow, the gloominess is perceptible," Jen muttered under her breath.

"Well not everyone has you chemistry apt brain" I say jokingly. Jen just rolled her eyes dramatically and glanced at her perfectly manicured hand.

"I know, I know it's a gift" she chuckled, her voice full of pride.

Mr. Simmons, with a face full of effort stood up from his chair. He could barely stand without his cane, he poised himself with a hunched back and shaky hands, yet he had endured this way for years and may as well for many years to come. And I couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't relieved him of his position yet, he surely was of age. My train of thought was interrupted by several rushed breaths.

"I'm hoping for good surprises on this term Miss Johnson" Mr. Simmons said as he handed me my test. "Good luck".

I turned to Jen but she was completely absorbed in her test, I could feel sweat in my palms and a feeling of unsteadiness in my stomach. But all I could do in every way was my best.

I read through my test, but I may as well had been reading pages worth of gibberish, I didn't see words on print, I saw symbols and drawings, terrible and morbid ones at that, and as I flipped over the pages where it should be a blank space I only saw strange designs and more strange drawings of birth and death, of love and hopelessness and in the very last page a question that said who do you believe yourself to be?

"What are you talking about?" whispered Jen in a barely audible tone and at that I realized that I had said the question aloud.

"Nothing" I whispered back, she gave me a doubtful look and then turned back to her test, not before glancing at my still unused pencil.

In what felt like seconds later Mr. Simmons was already standing up picking up the tests, "your test results will be given tomorrow, best of luck" he said as he walked to the front of the class. "You may be dismissed."

I stood up and raced to the door with the symbols in my mind and one question looming in my brain "who did I believe myself to be?"

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Author's note
Chapter 1!!! It all begins here hahaha
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