The Initials | Nanowrimo 2023

3| The Awakening

Several students simultaneously collapse onto their desks with no rhyme or reason. They drop and don't wake up.

He can still track their breathing, noting how odd it is that they all just suddenly passed out, originally considering a sniper or some sort of biochemical threat.

Cloud accidentally brushes a pen off the edge of his desk, reaching down to retrieve it, only to hesitate once a pair of feet in black heels walks past.

He follows the older woman with his eyes, wondering who she is considering he's never met her before.

She retrieves the pens from the students instead of checking if they're okay before returning to her seat up front.

The others must have seen what has happened too but when Cloud peers over his shoulder they seem just as uninterested as she does.

"This is batshit crazy." Cloud whispers to himself, subconsciously rubbing his fingers over the silver shapes engraved into the side of the pen.

He keeps his head low, flinching every now and again when another student passes out, but keeps his eyes trained on his paper to avoid locking eyes with anyone else, especially the elderly lady!

That's when he notices something strange about the way the words look on the page. They feel foreign to him and yet Cloud can read every word, as if whatever language this was is being translated into English and implanted inside his brain.

However, Cloud doesn't get the chance to overthink it as he feels a sharp, numbing, stabbing pain on the left side of his head

"For those of you who haven't, please pick up your pens." she commands, her voice sounding like nails being dragged against a chalkboard.

Cloud rubs his eyes, wondering if it was just a trick of the light or if he actually saw the elderly woman's eyes start glowing white like two little marbles.

"Why should we?" Cloud asks, speaking in a calm tone even when his body betrays him.

"Excuse me?"

"Why should we?" he repeats, firmly slapping the oddly thick pen squarely on the desk, his eyelids feeling heavy as his green eyes meet her harsh blue ones. "What are you doing to us?"

"Pick up the pen." she repeats, giving Cloud a second chance to confirm that her eyes do glow.

With her attention now completely focused on him, Cloud can feel the influence of her words as his right hand trembles and the pain in his head becomes worse.

To rid himself of her gaze, Cloud tips his chair backwards, recoiling from the pain running up his spine as he hits the dusty ground but recovers quickly, grabbing his bag on his way out the door.

He checks the first exit on his right and finds it locked but after rattling the handlebars in frustration, even kicking it with the base of his shoe, he comes up with a solution and starts sprinting down corridors.

Cloud can hear the old lady's heel speedily tapping against the floor behind him but doesn't spare any time checking how close she is.

Instead, Cloud turns the last corner and uses his elbow to smash the glass covering the fire alarm, manually triggering them to go off all around the school.

Cloud's mind immediately goes back to the promise he barely made over an hour ago to his mother. "She can kill me later." he decides, backing away from the alarm just as the old lady catches up.

She has with her two more hired guards, except these two are dressed in suit and tie and somehow look even more menacing than the first pair.

The fluorescent lights overhead flicker, the absence of light revealing their different coloured glowing eyes.

They stalk towards him like hungry wolves as he slowly backs up, knowing that the nearest fire exit is less than a one hundred metre sprint in one direction.

The good news is he's spent his entire life up to this point dedicating it to boosting his athleticism: football, swimming, track and martial arts, he's done it all.

The bad news, however, is that he now has two giants standing between him and freedom.

"Listen, things one, thing two...creepy old grandma...I don't know what you are and I don't want to find out."

Sky appears behind them, at the far end of the corridor, with a handful of students who are being guided out of the building even though the alarms have already been deactivated.

"Cloud..."

If being cruel is a choice then destiny has some explaining to do, because as soon as he locks eyes with her, the lights go out, and he sees her for what she truly is.

"You're one of them?" he yells.

"Cloud, listen to me, you need to calm down!"

"He's losing it." Neith remarks, wishing that Sky had considered using different words to try and diffuse things. From her point of view, it might have actually made things worse, judging by his fiery expression.

Cloud ignores them, his eyes being drawn to a blue locker plastered with cards filled with empty words and flowers that look almost as dead as the girl they're for.

It's Freya's locker...or at least it was.

The memories of her finally shock his brain into submitting to the sirens going off in his mind.

He's forced to close his eyes, feeling his head tilt back and the floor rush towards him.

Cloud's head bobs back up after what feels like only a few seconds, however once his green eyes flutter open, he finds himself standing in the middle of the street, staring up at a plume of smoke rising from the school.

His ears pick up the sound of his heavy breathing, followed by the secondary sounds of two approaching fire trucks and at least half a dozen police sirens in the distance.

Cloud scratches at his suspiciously dry throat, his eyes locked onto the rising body of crackling flames, the amber hues reminding him of the night he took down the Church of Babylon.

It too had gone up in a pillar of smoke and he had watched it with fire in his eyes.

Cloud gets off the road, taking to the pavement, heading in the direction of the bus stop. There's only one that goes in and out of town and whilst it won't take him all the way, it's still that fastest route for him to get home.

Unfortunately, it doesn't take long for him to be recognised by a familiar face on his short journey as the police car that cruises by suddenly starts reversing once they catch sight of him.

"I'm totally busted." he groans, digging his hands into his pockets as the officer slows down next to him.

Dinah Pope, a woman of the world in her late thirties, rolls down her window with a polite enough smile. "I thought that was you. I've been looking everywhere. What are you doing out here?"

"We got sent home because of the fire." he replies, maintaining an appropriate amount of eye contact to help sell the lie.

"I just saw your mom. She's got her hands full at work so she asked for me to come pick you up."

"You mean drop me off at the bus stop?"

Dinah hums, her tightly wound curls bouncing as she nods her head, still holding onto the steering wheel with only her right hand. "If that's what Bill usually does then that's what we're doing."

"What happened to Bill anyways? Why didn't he come get me?"

"He got stuck at the station too." she replies, reaching over to open the passenger side door.

"Yeah...I can just walk the rest of the way. It's only a few minutes from here."

Dinah and Cloud stare silently at one another until both parties decide to drop the act.

She suddenly pulls her gun out and aims it at his head, sounding chillingly calm for such an aggressive manoeuvre. "What gave me away?"

Cloud holds his hands up, noticing the strange black smudges on the back of them. "I'm impulsive, not dumb you moron."

"Remember I'm the one with the gun." she retorts, gesturing for Cloud to start moving. "Bag, phone, throw them away. I've got some people who think it's your time to repent."