Ethereal

Chapter 3

There was a strange kind of empty in the house. 

I was used to be alone, that was true. But waking up in the morning and getting myself ready for school suddenly seemed like a chore. My mother was a poor conversationalist, but then again, so was I. We had our differences, but she understood me. 

The lock on the door was still broken, but there was nothing inside worth stealing anyway - so it didn't really matter. Besides, everyone seemed to avoid this house anyway. The town was well aware of my mothers condition, and it wasn't like they envied anything that I had. 

Even so, I made a mental note to pick up some kind of padlock and a chain on my way home from school, just as a temporary measure until I could get the door fixed. 

School was well within walking distance, which was just as well considering I could most definitely not afford a car. The only reason I could afford the bus fare to my job at the sports shop was because a portion of my salary was reserved for travel expenses. 

And so, I made it to school in pretty good time, immediately noticing a large crowd of students gathered around something that I couldn't yet see.

It was easy for me to get through the crowd, everyone seemed to subconsciously move away from me when I walked towards them, leaving a nice clear path to the front doors of the school.

I slipped through the crowd easily enough, keeping my head low and avoiding eye contact. I only looked back up when I felt a heated gaze resting on me. 

It was clear to me why they had attracted so much attention, they were certainly mesmerising. 

It was the three people from yesterday, the gorgeous ones that had somehow saved both mine and my mothers life. All three of them were watching me intently. 

They were stood in a strange formation, like they were too used to modelling to really know how to act human. The blonde male was stood up front, the female and the brunet male both stood behind him, flanking him on either side. 

The students were crowded around them, all curious about the newbies. Suffice to say, the three of them definitely stood out amongst the crowd.

Their stiff postures and blank expressions made them look like perfected dolls, somehow extraordinarily beautiful. They didn't even seem bothered by the attention. Either they were very used to it, or they just hadn't noticed.

Their eyes left me quickly, all three of them staring at their next victim, as though they were assessing all of the people here. Somehow, they seemed oblivious to the crowd watching them - it wasn't every day you got new people in Entilin.

I decided to move past them as fast as I could, they all seemed just a little too perfect - it was unnerving. 

Having made it through the front doors, I raised my head while walking through the corridor just in time to see I was about to walk into a tall, dark haired someone. 

"Oh!" I exclaimed, quickly righting myself. "Sorry." 

The dark haired boy didn't say anything at first, he just stared at me, as though expecting me to say something more. 

I awkwardly sidestepped him, trying not to think too hard about how he had suddenly appeared in front of me, when I had only just seen him outside - of course, he could have ran over here, but he wasn't out of breath. 

It took me a moment to realise he had fallen into step with me as I had continued to walk down the packed hallway, his footsteps were quiet, only as loud as a feather hitting the ground.  I figured he wasn't actually walking alongside me - nobody ever did that here.