Rise of the phoenix

2. Strange looks

On the bus Lucy sat alone as she did every day.

She used the one hour drive to sleep and woke up right at her stop.

When she arrived at school, she sat down at her desk immediately.

She didn't really get along with people.

She always tried to predict their actions, only for them to behave differently.

That meant that Lucy struggled to hold conversations and the bullying she had experienced during her first years of school was enough to prevent her from even trying.

She felt quite lonely, since she didn't have many real friends.
However she felt she was lucky, because she could just ignore it, by diving into her own fantasy and watch heroes and warriors fight and live.

Her school day went on quite normally, until during third period, when she had maths, she noticed a strange firure staring at her trough the window.

Their face was hidden by a hood and their baggy clothing coverd up all other noticiple features.

The strange figure just stood there staring at her.

Thinking it was jut her overly active fantasy, she chose to ignore it and go about her day like nothing had happened.

She had always struggled with concentrating in school and her thoughts kept on drifting the entire time.

The fact, that she could always see one or more people seemingly watching her didn't make it any easier.

When lunch break finally came arround, she couldn't wait to talk to her friends to ask what they thought about her observation.

However once she arrived at their usual spot in the corner in front of the classroom with the number 30, no one was there.

She was confused, because she was usually the last of their small group to arrive.

Then however she remembered, that the others were on a trip to some importatnt monument with teir history teacher.

Once again she inwardly cursed the fact, that they were not in the same class.

Since no one would come, she simply sat down alone and used the break to eat the lunch she had packed this morning.

While doing so she looked around trying to spot the people watching her, but there were so many students, it was impossible to spot them.

At the end of the break she got up and walked back to her classroom for her latin lesson.

She usually liked latin, however since their teacher accompanied the classes who were going to see the monument they had a substitute teacher.

He introduced himself as Mr. Carlson .

Mr. Carlson passed around a work sheet with a text from Ovid's "Ars Amatoria" and told them to translate it.

They were still quite far from the level, where they could have succeded with that, so Lucy raised her hand and stated as much.

That however made Mr. Carlson angry and he called them incompetent for not being able to complete this task.

He gave Lucy detention and threatened that anyone talking back would join her.

The lesson was terribly boring and the fact that she still felt watched didn't help her concentrate on even trying to complete the task.

Due to the detention, during which he told her he would only let her leave once she had correctly translated the text, she was so late when she left school, that the sun had already started setting.

She had missed the bus, because he had insisted on reading her entire translation and asking her to explain her method before he let her leave.

After an almost one hour wait her bus finally arrived, but just when she wanted to get on, a hand grabbed her sholder from behind and a voice wispered: "I wouldn't get on that bus if I were you."

--- Author's note ---

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you like this story since it's my first.

Bye and have a good day or night and take good care of yourself. :)