Numbered

Chapter 1 - A Day Almost Like Any Other

He sat with his fist against his cheek, his eyes half-closed. Mrs. Cornell, his math teacher, was boring the living hell out of him. Why did every class have to be like this? His parents were blaming him for his bad grades, that he was not paying attention and they wondered why. Well, here was their answer. He was about to nod off, when something hit him in the back of the head.

"Zeke, stay awake man."

"I'm trying."

"Bullshit. Looks like you're falling asleep."

"Silence," Mrs. Cornell barked. "Unless you both want detention."

She returned her attention to the white board and began writing again. Zeke looked at the clock; five more minutes to go before lunch. He looked at the white board, upon which Mrs. Cornell was writing a bunch of numbers. He did not care to process it. Class was almost over; it was not worth bothering with. He looked down at his desk and began tapping his fingers. He looked back at the clock. Four minutes left.

Fuckin' hell, Zeke thought. This was torture. Wasn't there some sort of law against cruel and unusual punishment? Did this not classify? He laid his head down on his desk. If it wasn't for the class, he might have started banging his head. He was about to doze off again when the bell rang. He was out of his desk and out the door before the teacher could say anything about homework.

He sped-walked down the hall and into the cafeteria. He ditched his bookbag at a table and walked toward the lunchline. He was back at the table just when Jacob walked in. He sat down next to him and pulled out a bagged lunch. He opened it and spilt it out onto the table. There was a bag of nuts, a bag of grapes, some sort of healthy sandwich, a protein shake...did this kid even know what junk food was? Jacob was always eating healthy and hitting up the school's weight room, which would explain why he looked like a poster boy.

"You can thank me later," Jacob broke the silence.

"For what?"

"Keeping you awake."

"Thanks. I would rather have gone asleep than suffer through that."

"You really need to take school a bit more seriously."

"Who are you? My frickin' father?"

"Take it easy. I am simply making a suggestion."

"Well, don't suggest. I'm not a little kid."

"I was not treating you that way."

"Just drop it, please."

"Fine, fine."

Zeke knew that Jacob knew when to back off. He was very sensitive and took everything seriously, with the exception of school. He was not able to take a joke and had a very low tolerance level. Frankly, he was a stick of dynamite waiting to blow up. He picked at his tray of food, some of it was did not look exactly appetizing. He preferred to only eat the foods he knew he liked. He had just stuffed a forkful of ziti in his mouth when a loud scream erupted from across the cafeteria. He and Jacob stood up to see what was the cause of the commotion.

A blond-haired girl had fallen off her seat and was on the floor. One of the cafeteria monitors had rushed over and lifted the girl's head in her arms. She placed her index and middle fingers on the girl's throat, trying to find some trace of a pulse. After a minute, the monitor laid her back on the floor, stood up, and shook her head.

"NO!" the screamer yelled. "Marilyn, come back."

The screamer had fallen onto her knees and was crying uncontrollably. Marilyn must have been a close friend or her sibling. One of the guys from that table walked over to theirs and plopped down. He looked absolutely horrified at what had just occurred.

"What happened, Nate?" Zeke queried.

"I...I d-don't know. Marilyn had been sitting there, eating and laughing with us. Then, she just fell out of her seat and onto the floor."

"Was she perfectly healthy?"

"Absolutely. She ate right, exercised every day. She was the perfect picture of health."

"Who is the screaming girl?"

"Oh. That is Marilyn's twin sister, Rita."

Jacob and Zeke looked at one another. How could someone of absolutely perfect health just drop dead like that? It made no sense. Nonetheless, Zeke felt the highest sympathy for Rita and her family. To lose a family member in five seconds like that is unbearable. The cafeteria, that was loud a minute ago, was completely silent. It was like that moment of silence thing that schools did on Veteran's Day. There was a loud ding, the sign that the P.A. system was on. Word apparently passed very quickly to the office.

"School will be dismissed early today in light of the recent events. Have a good afternoon."

No one cheered at the sound of that. All thoughts were on Marilyn. A dark and sorrowful atmosphere hung over them like a heavy blanket of fog.