The door's hinges squeak as I enter the classroom. Someone should probably get some WD-40 on that sucker. Focus, I tell myself. Don't let them know about the curse. I take a deep breath and walk further into the room. The teacher pauses her lesson to turn around and give me a cold stare.
"Axel Morton, I presume?" She asks, staring me down. But I don't look away.
I look her right in the eyes and say, "Yes, ma'am."
She gives a hmph, then turns around to her desk to mark me as tardy. She turns back around and says, "Well then, take a seat." She gestures towards the rest of the classroom, which was filled with peering eyes all staring at me.
I could already guess what they would say to their friends as soon as I sat down.
What a weirdo. Why was he so late? What's up with his hair, doesn't he have a hairbrush?
I shove these thoughts aside and take a seat at the back of the classroom. I close my eyes and clear my mind, fighting against my curse. When I open them again, the teacher, Mrs. Russel, was already continuing her lesson.
"Alright," she addresses us, holding a notecard in her hand. "Please take out your textbooks and open to page forty-seven."
I sigh as I prop my bookbag up on my lap and pull out a thick textbook. I set in front of me on the table that I shared with no one and dropped my bag back onto the ground. I kick my bag under my seat and flip through the pages. I land on forty-seven and then look up to see that Mrs. Russel had been writing our lesson plan on the whiteboard. Her marker squeaked as she finished her sentence. Then she turned around to face us again.
"English is more than just a language," she begins, sounding dramatic as all teachers do when starting a new lesson with a new class. They think they can trick us into liking their class if they make whatever we're doing sound important. "It's a world of feelings and emotions just waiting to be released. If you write without passion, you aren't truly writing." She goes on for a while longer, but I get distracted by a dark head that seemed to be peaking into the classroom. Whoever the head belonged to stood outside, crouched down in front of the window. The shade from the building made it hard to see exactly what it was.
But I knew this creature all too well. She was my curse. She would follow me around and wreak havoc wherever I went. There was no escaping her. I had been to two different pre-schools, four elementary schools, and now I was here, at my very first middle school. And she just had to show up again. This thing was the most destructive being I had ever encountered in my life. And she had latched onto me. I don't know how and I don't know why, but she did. Now, she's always there. Watching. Waiting.
I had once caught her at an elementary school, her hand stuck in one of the lockers. She tugged and tugged, but couldn't get free. So, being the nice kid I was, I walked up to her and got her unstuck. There weren't any other kids in the hallway, as I had been on my way to the bathroom during our morning time. She had been less of a shadow then if I can recall correctly, and more like a human. She was in the section of the hall that had a broken bulb, though so I might be wrong. But, she looked pleasantly warm back then, a bit rambunctious as she kept slamming into the locker like that would help her get out, but she smiled at me sweetly as she gripped her wrist that had been caught.
Don't ask me how she managed to get stuck, because I have no idea myself. But, if you did ask me, I would have to say that she was probably a shadow demon. Maybe there was some kind of mess up as she passed through the hall causing her shadow-like hand to get stuck somewhere where no light was. She would have been one with the other shadows inside of the locker, so maybe that has something to do with it. All I know now is that ever since then, bad things have been occurring around me.
"Mr. Morton!" Mrs. Russel's voice knocks me out of my thoughts and I look away from the shadow to see her face two inches from mine. "You can go to lunch now, Mr. Morton," she says coldly. My first day and I already managed to screw up my first impression with my teacher.
"Oh, sorry," I say, gathering all my things together as she strutted back towards her desk. I sling my book bag over my shoulder and head out into the hallway.
A few students wandered the halls, but most were already at the cafeteria. I enter through the big, swinging doors and grab a lunch tray. I place myself in line behind a blonde girl. She appeared to be talking to the brunette on her right. I didn't mean to, but I overheard their conversation as we all went through the lunch line.
"Have you heard about the new kid?" the blonde asks her friend. But she doesn't wait for her answer, she just keeps talking anyway. "I hear he's been to four different schools." She pauses to let her friend speak.
"Why?" She asks.
"Who cares, Rebecca?" Blonde interrupts. Rude, I think to myself as I plop some mac 'n cheese on my plate. "He's a freak, that's all that matters." I almost drop the spoon at her words. I finish with the mac 'n cheese and walk away from the girls. No one ever counts the pre-schools, I think to myself as I sit down. But that wasn't what I was upset about.
I decided right then and there that this school was definitely going to be my last. I would fight for my place in this school. Even if it meant fighting my curse.
Author Notes: Part 2 in this series! I hope you enjoyed it! I wrote a bit more this time for your viewing. Be sure to let me know of any mistakes I made. Thanks for all of your support!
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