Generation

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The walls seemed to press down on her. Her breathing accelerated as she looked for the girl. She recognised the hair and sprinted to her immediately.

'I'm so sorry about what happened at the pool today! Poor Sienna. She could never live up to our standards anyway,'

Hat stared in shock at the Brooklynn that just spoke to her. Her face tightened and her jaw clenched. She turned around sharply and punched the Brooklynn's jaw fiercely. The figure crumbled up on the floor wailing. Hat, however, continued to walk to her room. The faint smell of chlorine nauseated her as she made her way through the oppressing straight corridor and when she was sure she was at the right door, she opened it.

Three black girls turned sharply and stared.

'I'm sorry. Wrong room,' Hat quickly apologised. She stopped and was taken aback by how simple their room was. The three  beds lay parallel to each other with their head rests personalised with pictures and stickers and this room was barely half the size of hers. Egg shell walls. Egg shell furniture. Egg shell sheets. Creepy.

'Don't worry. Come in. You look tired. I'm Safiyah. And this is Latifah and Adeife. You must be the Mid,' the girl smiled. Her sap green hijab covered all of her hair and she wore a simple knee length dress with a yellowish hue.

'Nice to meet you Sofia, Latifah and Adefer,'

'Actually it's... never mind almost nobody gets it right,' Adeife said. She wore a strange crop top made with a fabric with a pattern with a line of symmetry down the middle with straps for sleeves along with high waisted jeans. The skinny girl walked up to Hat and opened the shut door behind her.

'I can escort you to your room if you want,'

'Thanks,'

'What does it look like?'

'It has two beds with cream sheets and this weird artificial pond in the center...'

'Wait...that's your room?' Adeife screamed, her eyes as wide as saucers. Without another word, they left the other girls. They silently strolled deeper into the dorm and reached the right door. Then Adeife smiled and headed back for her room. Freya lay on her bed clutching a gold band to her chest. She shot up as soon as Hat walked in.

'Sis! I had  the best day ever with Christopher. He gave me this precious gold band. He is such a sweetheart!'

'Sis. I had the worse day ever. A girl named Sienna died, Richard is probably traumatised and I punched a stupid Brooklynn,'

Freya sat up and slowly lumbered towards her sister. Then she embraced her. They slide down and relaxed by the pond and watched their small angel swim leisurely over the little rocks.

'Let's just go for our lunch. It starts soon and being late is embarrassing. Besides, we must speak to Richard,' Freya finely whispered after a long moment of silence.

'I hope he is doing well,'

'Richard is stronger than he lets on. He will pull through this,'

They reluctantly left their comfortable positions and plodded to the door. They reached the hall and a hundred faces paused and turned in their direction. The hushed whispers that followed after did not cease to reach the sisters.

'I feel for them.' Pity.

'I can't...poor girl.' Sorrow.

'Look at those idiots expecting us to pat them.' Brooklynn.

They quickly located their spot and found the Brooklynns there again. Stares felt like a crawling insect on their bare backs making its way to their necks. People wanting to see the reaction of Richard and Hat. They briskly made their way to the short line and had their meal. The dining hall was quite. The students were quite. Richard was quite. The hall was enveloped with sounds of cutlery on ceramic and the pressing silence among the clattering. Richard had his head down like the other students who all mourned for Sienna.

'We barely even knew her. In fact, we didn't even know her,' Freya said with a groan as the entered their room. Hat plopped on her bed, pulled the duvet over her head and shut her eyes.

'I know,' her muffled voice came and she drifted off. Freya followed her example and fell under her duvet too. Both slumbered well into the evening.

Hat was the first to wake up. She rubbed her eyes and wearily threw a pillow at Freya who woke up sounding like a drowned robot.

'Ten minutes, Deborah,' she groaned.

'Wake up or we'll miss supper,'

'I don't care about supper,'

'You will two hours from now.'

They headed down to the hall again and students were already leaving. The twins drowsily grabbed trays and their meals. It was just like lunch. Quite, solemn, silent. Richard looked better now. He sat up straighter with his father's poise and mother's elegance. His hoodie was gone though.

The school retired for the night unaware of what I had in store for them. Cassandra didn't know she would never get the chance to make peace with Daniella and Leah. Peter would never play in the finals and neither would Kevin. First were Bryan's brothers. I read their simple dreams. I stole the wickedness from Brooklynn Swan's heart. Rose, I caught mid snore as she dozed over her papers on her desk and I felt Fiona grieve for not working as hard as she did. I breezed past wimpy Timothy and heard his final thought. 'Angela.' The world slumbered and worked. There were no warnings.

A piercing scream was what woke up Freya and Hat. Their alarm clock was to go off in forty seven more minutes. The sisters threw themselves out of their beds and rushed outside. A dark haired girl scampered about throwing doors open. Shocked at what I had done, her bovine eyes were raw from the uncontrolled stream of tears.

'Everybody's dead,' she whimpered and another scream was heard before she finished her sentence. It came from the other side of the wall between the boy's and the girl's quarters. The twins, being the leaders they were, took almost immediate charge. Hat flung open the door of her neighbours and saw them in bed. She ran and checked the pulse of the first blonde then the other.

'Nothing,' she said, her trembling voice threaded together with grave seriousness.

'Let's search for survivors,'

'I'll check with the boys,'

They hurriedly went to work shaking everybody and anybody who could once wake, gathering survivors. Hat ran to the hall and found the door to the boy's quarters then charged in. Richard and Christopher stood with Sebastian and another dark-haired boy with careful brown eyes and a stout figure.

'There's no one left,' he said.

A little while longer, Freya came out of the girl's quarters with two Brooklynns, Safiyah, Adeife and the terrified brunette.

'There's no one left,' she said.