Lunatics {Book 1 ✔️}

Chapter 45

***

The funniest part of the next day was how everyone expected me to go to school and actually listen. Mr. Carmichael must have been able to tell that my mind was elsewhere because he surprised us with a pop quiz. Which, all things considered, wouldn't have been too detrimental if not for the fact that it was thirty questions long-and I didn't know half of them.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to scribble on my paper 'Tucker Joy might die today.' Instead, I stared open-mouthed at the quiz and gave Carmichael a look. He seemed very smug.

Ben and Harry were both silent at lunch. Tilly tried to carry on a conversation but nobody seemed too keen on speaking. I kept stealing glances at the other Joy sitting across from me. His tray was untouched and his face looked a little green.

I knew Tucker had taken Ben to a facility to talk to somebody, and it seemed like he was doing better. God knows what would happen to him if he lost his brother. He may be better now, but nobody could be fine after losing that much in one lifetime.

Harry, however, had lost the first possible father figure that had ever dangled in front of him all while discovering his actual father was a homicidal dick. Tonight could mean that we were on our own again. We could be back to living in a trailer barely surviving paycheck to paycheck by tomorrow morning.

"Can somebody else please say something, dammit!"

We all looked up at Tilly who was fuming in her seat after her outburst. The three of us looked at each other and said nothing. What was there to say?

"This cafeteria food is ass," Harry muttered and pushed some brown substance around.

Ben smiled a little and picked up the hotdog on his plate and wobbled it in front of my brother. It wiggled unnaturally.

"What does this remind you of, Harry boy?"

Harry laughed and shoved Ben, knocking the hot dog out of his hands. "Dude, you dropped your weiner."

The two of them snorted. Tilly and I were too relieved at the joke to even roll our eyes at the immaturity. At least, for right now, surrounded by my friends I could pretend that everything was normal. Then, because I wasn't afforded the luxury of 'normal,' I looked up and saw it.

The cafeteria ceiling was covered with murky, coal-like clouds and dipped closer to my friends. The darkness was barely being held at bay. I felt it creeping toward me like a shadow growing on the wall. I knew the rest of my table couldn't see the monstrosity above us, but I wished they could. Maybe I wouldn't feel so cold. Maybe the breath wouldn't be stuck in my throat.

There were skinless hands beginning to poke out of the clouds and blood dripped from the ceiling on to our table. I looked around at my friends, but they were still laughing. Tilly said something with a smile as a crimson stain fell onto her shirt.

My breathing quickened and my heart beat painfully against my rib cage. It's not real, I reminded myself. But it didn't matter. The darkness threatened to swallow me up. The hands, the blood, the swirling clouds seemed to beckon me. A scream built in my throat as fire seemed to crawl down the walls of the cafeteria and onto our table. I squeezed my eyes shut.

It isn't real. It isn't real.

"You can stop it, you know."

My eyes flew open only to look into a reflection with my gray eyes staring back at me- only, it wasn't a reflection. The rest of the students in the cafeteria disappeared. The dark, grotesque clouds remained.