Dead Is The New Alive.

When lunchtime finally rolled by I accepted it with so much relief. The first three lessons of the day had been stiff and stressy. At the end of each lesson, a teacher would tell us to be careful when we left school. It was horrible, some of the teachers had little buggy eyes, like they had spent nights crying. But they still tried giving us all a dry smile and a word of concern.

I was sat in the library now, reading a horror story. It wasn't helping my nerves, but it was keeping my mind off Chloe. Still no word from her, but maybe I was over exaggerating, maybe she was just ill. That was possible. She had spent some time with that really ill looking builder, so maybe she caught something off him and had to stay at home. Yeah, that's probably it.

Just as I was getting to a particularly interesting piece in the book I was reading, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. Placing the book back, seeing as I hadn't actually taken it out and I had forgotten my school library book at home, I couldn't take it with me. I left the library and was walking down one of the more deserted halls to avoid the trouble of getting bashed into by older years or irritating younger years with book bags too big for their feeble bodies. When I was reaching the end of the hall, I bumped into Toby.

Toby was one of my male friends. No, not in that way. He had floppy brown hair and a pointed nose. "What are you doing down here Tanya?" He asked me, I was a little way away from tutor, and he often walked me there if we walked into each other on the way. I thought it was sweet of him, but of course he had a girlfriend. Some skank that wanted a prince charming, and because Toby stopped her from walking in front of a car, she fell for him. I thought it was a little pathetic but never said anything to spare feelings. I'm nice like that.
"I'm just walking to tutor."
"Cool, I'll accompany you. Chelsea (his girlfriend) has been a little clingy." He told me, smiling slightly as we walked up a set of stairs. I felt rather stupid for choosing this hallway, it was miles from my registration room.

We got there eventually though, Toby had told me how he was wanting to dump Chelsea, but he didn't think it would be a good idea, in case she did something drastic like throw herself in front of a car. Apparently she had threatened to do so before. Weirdo ran through my head as I walked through the door and said hello to the tutor. Miss Fernandez, she was nice. She had hugged me before when I was in trouble. Teachers don't usually do that.

Anyway, as I sat down she looked at the class with a dim, dull look in her eyes. As if she was troubled and her mind was elsewhere. "Right class," despite her Spanish name, she had a nice English accent. Much like Mr Stanojevic. "We'll continue with registration in a minute, but first I have to talk to you." Her dark troubled eyes gazed over the class. "A member of our little tutor group," she paused, maybe for dramatic effect, maybe to place her hand over her heart and sniffle. "Is missing." I froze. Looked at her. Gulped. "It's Chloe, you all know Chloe. She hasn't been seen in two days." Gasps broke out across the class. One or two people placed a hand on my back, they knew she and I were close but I didn't pay attention to them. My mouth was hanging wide open while Miss continued. "Please, be careful. We can't lose any more people. Or.." She sighed. "The school will close, temporarily." Under any other occasion, we would have all cheered. But people were sniffling, holding each other and looking sad. All I could think of was : "Oh Shit."