Huntress Of The Dead

Chapter 1

I was sitting in class, trying really hard not to fall asleep while my English teacher kept on talking about what makes us human. Since my seat was right in front of the teacher's desk, I had to make sure that he won't notice my battle against my repeatedly shutting eyes. I'm not entirely sure why but I wanted to stay the teachers favourite. I and my best friend who was sitting right next to me were kind of the nerds of the class. We were the whole pride of the teachers, even of the principal. But to be honest, it wasn't that hard. All you had to do is to always be on time, do your homework and have acceptable grades and whoops you are the teachers fave. When my teacher just asked us what we thought makes us human I sat up straight again and looked at the empty blackboard in front of me, pretending to think about the task when another student raised his hand.

"Pain."

He simply said. The teacher sighed and for like the fifth time in this class he prompts the student to make a correct sentence.

"I think pain is something that is a characteristic of humans, something that makes us different from the animals."

My best friend and I looked at each other. I rolled my eyes and she simply shook her head. Sometimes I really wondered what is going on in his head. Has he never seen a suffering animal? The teacher seemed just as confused as me.

"Well. I'm pretty sure animals can feel pain as well."

He looked at the student one last time before he continued his lesson. That was the moment where I went back to staring at my empty paper on my desk and thinking about a memory I had from my childhood.

The school bell rings and all of my classmates run outside. The boys go playing football and the girls just stand around in small groups, talking about nothing of importance. I simply take my book and cross the schoolyard, looking for a quiet spot to read. While walking over the schoolyard I see this one guy sitting on a bench - my bench! That's normally the spot where I sit to read, where no one bothers me. I fasten my steps and prepare myself to tell him to go look for another place to sit when I see that he is holding something tiny and dark in his hands. I reach the bench, standing right in front of him and look down at his hands. In his cupped hands is a spider! I hate spiders! Spiders are my worst nightmare! If there is such an animal in my room, I won't enter it until mommy got rid of it. At the sight of the spider, I immediately take a step back. With wide eyes, I look at this weird boy. He notices me and looks up, a big smile on his face. Why is he smiling? I think. There is a huge hairy spider on his hand and he is smiling?! I drop my book, but I'm not even thinking about picking it up, not until I know this spider is far far away. A cold shiver goes through my body. With his wide grin still on his face, he lifts his hands towards my face.

"Wanna see?"

In his eyes is a spark of fascination, but I don't notice that. All I can think of is this monstrous, eight-legged thing in his hands. I scream and stumble a few more steps back.

"No!"

He starts laughing at my reaction and lowers his hand again into his lap. I take small, careful steps towards my book, which is still laying in front of the boy's feet. I pick it up and turn around to go search for another spot to read when he calls me back.

"So you are afraid of spiders, huh? I'll show you something."

I frown but turn around. I sit beside him on the bench, my eyes watching the creature's every move, curious of what he wants to show me.

"Watch."

He simply says and holds the spider with his left fingertips. The spider starts moving it's eight legs, trying to escape, but its catcher has no mercy. Slowly and with a spreading grin, he rips away one leg after another. I jump off the bench, tears in my eyes.

"Stop it!"

I repeatedly scream at him, but he wouldn't listen. I hate spiders, that's true but what this boy is doing is just horrible. Through my teary eyes, I can see how fascinated the boy is looking down at the suffering spider. When there was no leg left, he crushes the spider's body between his thumb and his forefinger. I flinch and shut my eyes. Tears are running down my cheek and I can see him in front of my inner eye, I can see the suffering spider getting ripped into pieces by this strange boy.

Back then, I didn't understand why he did it and even now, nearly 10 years later I can remember this whole situation as clearly as if it was yesterday. I will probably never know why he tore this spider into pieces but at least now, after his comment about pain, I know how he thinks. The fact that he thinks animals don't feel pain, explains his fascination in that certain moment, the fascination my nine-year-old self didn't understand. For him, an animal is not more than a toy, made of plastic.

The rest of the day passed by as usual. I went to all my classes, took notes, participated in class every now and then, rolled my eyes from time to time and joked around with my best friend. At 4.35pm, when the school bell rang for the last time today and ended the geography lesson with it's ringing I was so relieved that school ended. One day closer to graduation, I keep telling myself. Even though I still had about 730 one-day-closer-to-graduation-days left, I tried to think positive. I had to admit, I'm the person with the half empty glass, I was working on my pessimism and forced myself to think positive as often as I could.

I always go home by bus and train, it doesn't bother me at all, though. That's usually the time of the day when I can just relax and read a book. At my bus stop, I got off the bus and walked home. Walking home while listening to music through my headphones, volume turned up to the maximum cheered me up every single time. As I turned into our driveway I nearly bumped into a car. I stopped abruptly and frowned. I didn't recognise this car. I walked around it towards the house. It was a small, dark blue car. I entered my home, closed the door behind me and let my bag slip down my shoulder to the ground. Just when I wanted to shout a "Hello!" to tell my mom I was back home from school I froze. I heard low voices from upstairs. Slowly and without making any noise I took off my shoes and placed them in the cabin to my right. I took off my jacket and carefully put it on the floor, I was going to hang it up later, but I didn't want them to know I was here. I took my bag and sneaked upstairs. Just as I reached the top of the spiral stairs I heard footsteps coming towards the closed office door to my right, the door opened and I could see my mom stepping out of the room, her body tense.