Queen of Hel

Chapter 6: The Explanation

The sun hitting my eyes isn't the most shocking thing about the outside world. It's the air. It doesn't radiate with the power as my house does now. It is just, fresh.

I start to walk over to the fence that separates my yards from Avery's when I pause. Turning around, I see Sam and Avery walking around their house arguing. They don't look it, but I hear their voices. Muffled, yes, but they are still there.

I jump the corner fence instead. It's a bit harder to do, but I make it. I land on the ground with a soft thud. A twig snaps underneath my feet as I make my way over to the house, my friends voices growing ever louder.

"We shouldn't!" Sam argues. "She hasn't been to school for a week."

"She got up! We have to be good friends!" Avery snaps back. "Her parents haven't caught it. Maybe it's not contagious."

"If it wasn't contagious, why haven't they told us we could see her?" Demands Sam.

I step onto the patio. They seem too caught up in their argument to notice. I tap a few things on my watch, and my favorite song starts playing. At first, only I can hear it, but with a few more taps it is blasting through the speakers in Sam's house.

Avery looks around in confusion. "That wasn't me." She says cautiously.

Sam, on the other hand was staring straight at me, her mouth wide open. She taps Avery on the shoulder and she spins. When Avery sees me, her reaction is similar to Sam's. Shocked.

When the song reaches my favorite part I open the door. Before I am even a foot into the house, I fall on my back. As I hit the concrete, a twinge of pain shoots through non-existent wings.

"MIA!" Avery shouts, "YOU'RE ALIVE!"

I stand up, rubbing the back of my head. "Did you think I was dead?"

"Yes," Sam responds. "We didn't see you over the weekend and then your parents told us that you were sick. And then you weren't at school at all. Even the principle knew nothing."

"How do you know that last bit?" I ask, otherwise unfazed by the information. I knew that my parents had had to fabricate a lie to keep what was truly happening secret, but I didn't know that it had been so good. If people knew what the sickness was, they might try and bring a doctor to the house. If they didn't, then maybe it was something personal.

"We knew the last bit because I talked to the principal," Avery states proudly. Sam rolls her eyes at this comment. "What?" Avery asks in an accusatory voice.

"You mean that the principal told you after you had gotten in trouble for talking during class." Sam walks over to me and offers me a hand. "Need help there?" She asks, more joking now.

I take her hand and pull myself up. As soon as I'm standing, Avery starts glaring at me. Looking at her, I say, "What did I do?"

"You know perfectly well what you did," she grumbles. I see her tapping buttons on her watch quickly, and the music that had been playing all this time stopped. "How did you even do that? That's my thing."

I roll my eyes before answering. "You left the code on my watch from that time you used it to play "Strike Down" on the school radio."

"Oh yeah. I did that," Avery nods. "Give me your watch so that I can delete it now."

I tap a few more things on my watch as I take it off. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sam's watch vibrate, and she grins at me. Avery meanwhile, was deleting the code that she used so that I couldn't use it again.

"Alright, all of that aside, what were you sick with?" Sam asks curiously. I knew that she would, because she wants to know all of the diseases of the world. "If you're comfortable with it," she adds, obviously seeing something on my face.