FULL ECLIPSE (Book #2)

𝕰𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙

As I'm walking into school, I notice Jace is leaning on the black gates and playing with a yo-yo. Didn't take him to be the sort to care about his grades. I mean, all we boys cared about at school was making it to the finals in baseball; not the finals in exams.

"Jace," I grab his attention.

"Sylvester, whaddup," he looks sorta embarrassed.

"You here for the pop-up classes?"

"Uh, yeah, actually," he scratches his head. "The folks forced me to go to get my grades up."

"Hey, no judgement."

We head into the school grounds together.

"Why you here though? We both know your grades are immaculate," he kinda exaggerates.

"Haha, yeah nah, still got some shii I needa work on."

"Fair enough. Oh, bro, how's that cut of yours from basketball? What was that kid's problem, man, sheesh."

"Tell me about it. I'll manage though," and turn my elbow over for him to see.

"Ooouch," he grimaces, "now I can never have bbq sauce."

This has probs got to be the longest convo I've had with Jace. We never spoke at school, just the casual 'hey's' and pumping everyone in PE. It's weird though. The fact that I know him in ways more than he knows himself. I know his survival mode, the lengths he'd go to save someone. Or, if I reword that correctly, the lengths he didn't go to save someone...

"Hey, listen," Jace stops walking. "After this catch-up class, me, Sam and everyone, we're going to have a harmless baseball match at Ross Reserve if you wan-"

"Bruv, hold up!"

Jace gets interrupted mid-sentence by the one and only Bray.

"Dean, I was waiting for you at your place..!" he huffs out as he catches up to us. "Amber said you'd gone already. Your Mum gave me some food though."

"Yeah, my bad," I tell him. "Came early."

"Jace," Bray looks at him with an obvious distaste.

"Brayson," Jace greets him with pursed lips.

To be honest, Jace couldn't care less about the tension. Whenever he feels it's uncomfortable for Bray, he just leaves. Guess that's something I've liked about him. He knows Bray's harmless and is just holding an old grudge. But at this point, they both need to put their differences aside.

"See yous around then," and Jace gives me a nod before walking off.

Bray sighs, "why do you haveta be friends with him?"

"He isn't so bad, you know? Once you get to know him, I think yous would make great friends." I speak on facts because that's exactly what happened in the apocalyptic world.

"He's a dick."

I scoff, "yup," there's no convincing Bray that they're actually besties in another dimension.

"Anyway, Dean, I suck at Bio, so come with me to that catch-up class first, yeah?" Bray asks. "Could use your help, you explain it lots better than Ms."

"Done deals," surely Ella is there too.

❖

Bio class is running and quite a few kids have shown up, not Ella though. Many questions are being asked, chattering from all around. Students enter and exit as they please. I continue helping Bray out with whatever he's struggling with to keep myself distracted. Ella has to come into Bio at one point or another because everyone struggles with this subject, there's no doubt she'd miss it; unless she's coming tomorrow. Fuck. I just wanna prove to her that she has it all wrong, that's it. Then she can do whatever she wants.

Just as I was about to ask Bray if we should check out the other pop-up classes, a figure walks into the room. My eyes flicker when it comes into contact with hers. It's like a matchstick has been lit, and for a moment, the room turns a cosy warm orangey colour. Then she breaks the eye contact so ruthlessly and it felt as if the imaginary lit matchstick was blown away way too early. Now is just technicolour blue. She walks past me like a stranger and takes a seat somewhere in the back.

Great, she mad-mad. I mean, what was I expecting? That she'd smile and wave at me?

I blink.

❖

"Boys, time to get up!" Dad nudges us awake.

What? I open my eyes and I'm back in the warehouse, in the apocalyptic world. That was way too fast. All I did was just blink. A single blink. I take a moment to adjust as literally half a second ago, I was in another dimension.

"Alright," Dad announces to the group, "now that everyone's got some shut-eye, we need to make moves. We've got 2 hours and it'll take us 1 hour to meet at the checkpoint, more than enough, but not too much as we don't want to be sitting ducks."

"Dad, are we sure about this?" I ask him. "Black Eden's Hill could be filled with lurkers and we don't have enough ammo. It'll be tricky."

"Not that tricky," he reiterates. "We're going underneath it."

"What's with you Sylvesters'," Jace mutters. "First, over it? And now underneath it?"

"What you and most of the people in this town don't know is that we are standing on a tunnelling system abandoned decades ago," Dad explains. "Luckily to our advantage, it'll walk us through the majority of Black Eden's Hill."

"Great," Jace remarks, "going through a maze to get into another one. Just great."

"It's a lot safer this way, Son," Dad reassures him. "We can do this. We're all set, we all know what to do. We've been over the plan quite a few times now. We get this done cool, calm and collectively. Get you kids to safety before the nukes. Only then we can relax – for the most part at least. Any questions?"

No questions.

"Let's go rolling then," he rolls up the map.