Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) (20 page)

“
You must be the Roxeths,” she spoke dully, unamused, unmoved and exhausted by everything around her. She gave a deep sigh of profound boredom. At first, Tammy and Robbie were mistaken by her appearance, expecting her to be a playful teacher. But as soon as she opened her beak of a mouth to speak, they realised that this was a whole other story because clearly, red seemed to be blue.

Okay, here
’s what needs to be sorted out: physically, Miss Strottman is not the hag I make her out to be – actually she was
rather
elegant and seemingly charming. But her attitude will just drive you to suicide! Pardon the exaggerated language but she was snobbish – no doubt about that. She behaved as if she had lived alone her whole life and
fed
off your sadness. She never smiles. She never puts down her glasses and she
definitely
doesn’t sympathise. Given her ways, I think detention would be reroofing the building and fixing the plumbing in the toilet on the second floor but for
us
,
having to look into her sadistic eyes would be punishment enough.

She wasn
’t really old; I’d say about early forties. Her facial bone structure was sharply defined by the slightest hint of rosy blush on her chalky skin. She was tall and slender with her blonde hair tightly held up in a bun. Her eyes were a glassy grey that somehow sparkled like her diamond earrings and her nose was crooked and long. She had a flare for wearing black pencil skirts with white blouses. She also wore tanned stockings with sleek, black shoes and every
time
she walked in, I hoped she would trip in them. Her teeth were pearly white and perfectly aligned.

See? She truly had the best disguise for a woman who probably ate children. I’d give her that. I guess the devil truly
does
wear Prada. In fact I quite remember a kindergartner crying when he first laid eyes on her. Poor kid! He might have to undergo intensive therapeutic sessions in his adolescence when the nightmares of the demon teacher begin to manifest.

She
sat herself down at her desk and opened the register; leaving the rest of us to stare at her horrifying glory in silence. She
knew
we were. I guess she liked the attention. A pencil dropped to the gleaming, chequered-tiled floor with an echoing clink and her eyes raced up to the class.

Still looking at us
with eyes so squinted it formed waves of creases and wrinkles around her sockets, she stretched her hand out to the corner of her desk and wrapped her long pencil fingers around her flask – then taking three, long, disturbing sips of coffee, each separated with a spine-chilling two-second interval of silence. She clicked the bottom of her pen and looked back down at the register. She then began calling names.

I looked out
of the window at the gradually-changing light grey sky; darker shades were building up above. But I was stopped in my tracks. My eyes stopped wondering and I craned my head to the window; nose rubbing the glass and my already goggle-sized eyes trying to take in more than they could see. There, in the distance sauntering towards the tree, was a figure dressed in total, absolute black. I strained my eyes,
trying
to get a clearer vision of who it was underneath that tree. But the greying sky outside seemed to agree with him and merely made him a silhouette; an entity whose face I would never be able to see from the distance. I blinked hard, trying to clear my eyes again – as if that would help.

But he was gone as soon as I had reopened them.
I looked around, desperately trying to see who it had been.

With a sudden startle,
I jumped back, almost falling backwards from my chair. I saw the figure in black skim past the window, his hands behind him languidly and all I could identify on him was that he wore an all-black Cressile uniform. No trace of white. Who
was
this student? I had never seen this person around before – and, mind you, I had been here for about nine years since childhood. His school crest had hints of white but that was the only other tone apart from the all black I noticed on his clothing. He had long, strong, black shoulder-length hair that contrasted with his extremely pale paper-white skin, but it covered the side of his face and I therefore couldn’t get a good enough look at him during the one second he used to skim past.

He merely wandered past the window br
iskly and faded away. I blinked numerously, shocked, whilst staring through the glass. I quickly looked down. I had jumped up in surprise and all eyes in the class were on me. Miss Strottman ground her teeth together; her jaws moving side to side with the sound of crackling gravel.

“
Is there…something the matter, Mr Blue?” her voice sharpened.

“
No, miss. Sorry, miss,” I quickly sat myself down and she resumed taking the register.

“
What was all that about?” Robbie asked. I was stumped. I didn’t know how to react to his question.

“
You really didn’t see that guy?” I hissed undertone.

“
What guy?” Jaden joined.

“
That dude dressed in black!” I answered, my heart pounding. Suddenly, without
any
warning at all, the room became brighter –
only the room
. We wondered what had happened. We never noticed until we looked out of the window.

The sky was
black. The lightest shades of grey noticeable were
way
in the distance – but when I looked closer, it wasn’t grey…it was day; a pure light blue sky. Cressile, on the other hand, was underneath a wide sheet of jet black misty clouds, but it was more than that. The clouds had disguised themselves as night. The sky rumbled and quick flashes of lightning forked in the poisoned heavens. The whole class had leapt out of their seats to observe the scenery.

“
Back to your seats, ALL OF YOU! It’s just nature, deal with it!” Miss Strottman snapped, at which point those who were standing rushed to their desks. It was odd, however, that what seemed to grab my attention was a single drop of rain, rolling down the glass window ever so gently. As if it wasn’t strange enough that the sky had turned black and I saw a figure only I
could see, as soon as that drop of water gently touched the bottom frame, dissolving into the wood, the sky instantly broke out in a meteoric deluge that we could swear was exploding its way through the roof. It looked like a storm outside, only the winds weren’t so vicious. The class yelled in excitement as we jumped back at the thunderous rain that fell together in surprising unison. But we, the Vernaescians, knew this wasn’t anything near a rollercoaster. Again, I got the feeling that trouble was coming. No, not even that…it was
here
.

And there he suddenly was again, leaning next to the tree
’s trunk underneath the leaves, staring directly at us; at me – but I couldn’t make out a face. The darkness that befell our area complimented the figure; this silhouette. Who was this person, Mr so-called Trailian? If so, wouldn’t everybody be able to see him? The Vernaescians at least…

The bell was rung again. Miss
Strottman shut her book, almost angrily.

“
Time for assembly,” she said sharply and undertone. No matter how low she spoke, you were expected to hear, understand and follow, even
if
the sky was decomposing into water and collapsing around us.

“
I can’t believe you guys didn’t see him,” I still complained as the whole class began standing up and laughing from the excitement they felt.

“
Look, maybe they’re side-effects; hallucinations,” Jaden suggested.

“
Side-effects from what? I haven’t TAKEN anything!” I interrupted him. Tammy stayed shut up about the whole situation, listening intently. The whole class immediately single-filed like programmed automatons.

“
You’re overreacting,” Jojo said quietly as we marched out of the door.

“
No, I am not,” I fired back through gritted teeth.

We walked out into the corridor. The thin hallway
leading us to the double swinging doors at the end of the corridor on the classroom’s left was something only this class had. The whole of the right wall (which faced the classroom door) was made of a long panel of glass, every now and again having a thin pillar separating them. I looked out to the sky and saw how dark it was; letting out biting waves of rain. I looked back down and my heart skipped a beat. As we were robotically marching down the corridor, so was he. He was there again, looking forward and marching like we were but with his hands behind his back. I quickly tugged on Jaden’s sleeve.

“
Look there he is now,” I directed.

“
A.J., what are you talking about? There’s no one there.” At that point I slowly let go of Jaden’s sleeve and looked at the figure in disbelief. He really couldn’t see him – none of them could. I was trapped in my own mental nightmare at which point I became shell-shocked.

And a
ll that intensified as he turned his head to stare at me, with his mouth clamped shut and no expression shown on his paper-white face, or read in his lifeless black eyes. I knew why he scared me so much…

He was me.

His eyes were like voids. They led to nowhere but nothingness and absolutely no eye-whites could be spotted. I was awestruck and my heart was tightening. I wanted to slow down and examine him, but I didn’t want to risk stepping out of line and facing Miss Strottman’s wrath. We were drawing closer to the double doors. Just when I was about to walk through them, I quickly moved to the back of the line.

Jojo, Jaden, Robbie and Tammy didn
’t notice. I stood alone in the corridor; staring through the window at – well…
me
.

“
Who are you?” I asked. His face was plain and unmoved; unblinking, undisturbed and unbothered by the rain that was beating on him. I inhaled lightly. He just
stared
at me. I blinked ordinarily but as soon as I opened my eyes, he had vanished.

“
Like I said before,” I quickly jumped and turned around only to find him staring at me from behind. “I called them.” His voice was sharp, and unsettling. But that wasn’t what clicked. I had
heard
that phrase somewhere.

“
I called them;
I called them…
” I thought to myself. He carefully raised his palm to me and I watched attentively as the creases in his palm rushed to the centre to form the words he just said. ‘I called them’ in
monstrous
handwriting.

“
It was you!” I hissed angrily. He still bore no expression or emotion, but simply lifted his chin to gesticulate to the door behind me. I looked through the swinging doors’ two rectangular windows. I saw the class marching and finally the last few students branching to the left. But I was doomed. I choked as I noticed a teacher, directing a tall man wearing a crimson and black suit with slick-back hair towards me. The nanosecond he made eye contact with me, both of our hearts exploded with raging emotions – his with delicious, twisted excitement and mine with demented fear. It was him…
the Grinner.

He instantly began marching to
wards me with his broad shoulders pushed out. He ran his hand over his glossy hair. I panicked. Who was going to save me now? The others weren’t even here. I looked around but my doppelganger was nowhere to be found. I was completely alone. I became more and more anxious as the Grinner got closer; I quickly rushed inside the classroom and dragged out a chair. Suddenly, just before he walked in, I threw a chair at the glass wall but it only cracked. The doors abruptly flung open violently. As soon as I turned my head to see the Grinner approaching, he shot his hand out towards me.

Many
translucent, grey-looking hands stretched out from the left wall and floor. They resembled that of shadows and those that had restrained mum earlier. My hands and arms were bound and so were my feet. Gently, I was being raised above the ground. The Grinner marched to me until at last we stood face-to-face. There was nothing stopping him now.

“
I’ll attempt to make this as quickly as possible. But being quick won’t mean painless.” I struggled to break free of the shadow hands’ grip, but they were too strong. They held me so firmly, my limbs felt stiff. I was choking and my face was darkening to plum again. My head trembled as I tried to strengthen my neck against the strangling whilst thick blood began to drip from my nose.

He frighteningly grew his ear to ear grin and his face
began to glow once more, with the hellfire burning within him burning holes in his skin and exposing the smoking, glowing orange flesh underneath. His eyes grew larger and completely switched to black. His long reptilian tongue snaked out of his mouth threateningly as he moved around me delicately.

“Your death…will mean so much. You will pull us out of the ground….and save
ussss
,” he hissed.
He malevolently opened his clenched fist, ejecting long, sharp and dirty, thick nails. I slowly shed a tear – this wasn’t how I ever imagined I would die. He pulled his arm back, gaining momentum. I trembled, but as soon as the shadow hands felt the vibration of my timidity and fright, they stopped it all together by holding me stiff – rendering me somehow paralysed.