Chapter 6

Her history class was one of the largest she had. There were around thirty-five students in it, all of whom had moved the desks into groups to sit with their friends. Arder sat in one at the back of the classroom with Lexie, waiting for the teacher to arrive. The room was on the third floor, with an entire wall made up of six individual windows. Staring out through the glass, Arder watched the trees and bushes shift back and forth in the wind.

"Are you sure Cyrus never mentioned that he had a son?" Lexie asked. She sat in the desk next to Arder, her head laying in her arms.

"No," Arder said. "Isn't that weird?" Turning away from the window, she looked around at all her classmates. It was strange for her to have known them for almost her whole life, yet not know anything about most of them.

"Yeah," Lexie agreed, "where was he all this time?"

"He said he lived with his mom," Arder replied, pulling her textbook out of her bag. Knowing the teacher would arrive soon, she got out all the supplies she would need as well.

"Why is this teacher always late?" Lexie sighed, looking up at the clock on the wall. "You want to meet at Cara's after school?"

"Sure, I think I'm working anyways," Arder confirmed. Opening her mouth to speak again, her eyes widened when all the lights turned off. "Lexie?" she called out into the darkness. When there was no reply, she started to notice how quiet the room had become. The other students would have normally been screaming or trying to find out what had happened by now. But everything was silent.

Is this some kind of cruel joke? Arder wondered. With both hands outstretched, she stood up from her desk and thought back to the windows that had no blinds. Even if the lights went out, the windows were supposed to illuminate the room. Except everything was pitch black, an impossible darkness conquering any speck of light.

"Hello?" Arder yelled.

Reaching up, she felt the glass window against her palm. She squinted in an attempt to see outside, but it was no use. "What's going on?" she whispered to herself. She backed up from the window, tripping over a chair in the process. A groan of frustration escaped her lips as she pulled herself up with a nearby desk.

More cautious than before, Arder tried to find the exit. She moved her hands across the wall, taking small steps toward the front of the room. Finally feeling the door, she tried the handle. She turned it, but then realized it was locked. Heaving a sigh, she sat down in a chair with a thump.

Then she heard the distant sound of a scream, causing her to fall backwards out of her seat. Ignoring the pain of the arm she had fallen on, she jumped to her feet and pressed her ear against the door. The voice sounded eerily familiar, yet she had no idea who it was. The cry wasn't like the ones you heard when children were playing though; it sounded like suffering, like infinite pain. When she heard nothing else and the screaming had stopped, Arder drummed against the door repeatedly. Despite her throbbing hands, no one opened it. She stayed locked in the room, pounding on the wood until her hands were in pure agony. She sank down onto her knees and leaned her back against the door.

The scream sounded again and Arder froze. She listened to it, trying to figure out why it sounded so familiar. She stood up and, in a desperate attempt, tried the handle again. The cry rang out over and over, but this time it wasn't just an unidentified scream. It was someone she knew quite well. In that moment, Arder knew she had to get to her. It was all that mattered-- if she wasn't okay... Arder didn't even know what she would do..

The redhead thought about breaking the windows, but she was on the third floor and would never make the fall. With the shrieking still continuing like a record stuck on repeat, Arder sank back to the floor. She felt useless, and that in itself was painful.

"Sophie," she mumbled, praying her friend was okay.

When the sound never stopped, Arder squeezed her hands into fists. She continued to knock on the door, hoping someone would open it so she could find Sophie. She leaned back after a while, begging for it all to end, when something unexpected happened.

She fell backwards. The door was open. Arder rushed out into the hallway, not even stopping to wonder how she had gotten out . But in the back of her mind, a nagging voice was telling her the door had been locked seconds before, and that it couldn't have just opened.

She sprinted through the school yard to the second building, only knowing where she was going because of the faint lights ahead. The clouds had covered the sun, casting a dark shadow over the school. The girl ran through the fog until she reached her destination. She threw herself against the door and continued to run down the halls, following the screams until she reached the theatre. She stopped at the entrance and looked up at the center of the stage.

Sophie was laying there. She was covered head to toe in blood, her limbs twitching. Arder had no idea what was happening to her friend, who was coughing up more of the red substance. There was an odd looking knife in her chest surrounded by blood. It looked like an old knife, with familiar red stones on the handle. Sophie let out another strangled cry, and Arder jumped up onto the stage.

She got on her knees next to Sophie and reached out. That was when everything went dark again. She called the name of the wounded blonde girl, but there was no answer.

It's happening again.

This time, when the darkness receded and she could see again, Sophie was gone and Arder was back in the classroom with her friends.

"I think you fell asleep," Lexie teased, pushing the other girl's shoulder. But Arder wasn't laughing. It had felt so real to her.