·The next morning I wake up late and start the new morning routine once again. Eat breakfast, brush teeth, wash face, get dressed, put on makeup, try not to be late. Yea, my mom forgot to wake us up early to clean, nothing new there, not that I’m complaining.
We drive to the school with the news playing on the radio and me hurriedly finishing my makeup in a handheld mirror while my brother falls asleep across the backseat. God, I wish I could just sit in the backseat and put blankets down to sleep on like the old days when we would go on roadtrips. Now I can barely lean my head against the window without cutting my skull open with the top of the seatbelt holder thingy.
I unbraid my hair and jump out of the car just as we pull up to the front and say my goodbyes while knocking on the back window of the car until my brother jolts upright in surprise. I laugh and walk off to my first class of today slowly losing my smile as I feel the anxiety building with every step I take away from the car. I stop by an empty bench to grab my schedule out of my bag and calm down before navigating my way through skateboarders and oblivious college kids milling around in groups.
I wish I had a group, I kind of had one a couple years ago, but they were shitty friends who just wanted to get drunk all the time. It would be so great if I just had a really cool group of friends that were supportive, invited me everywhere, and it wouldn’t hurt if there were a couple hot guys that were also part of said group. But, I’m pretty sure I’m too weird and annoying to actually have that many friends and to actually be friends with hot guys.
I pull myself out of my mind when I realize I have somehow made it to my class. The glass door stands propped open, contrasting with the brick walls surrounding it. I carefully enter the room and am surprised to see the two girls I had seen dancing the day before on the grass, now sitting in the front row chatting.
As soon as I walk in they look up and the tall one with dark golden skin and light brown, tightly curled hair cascading down her shoulders speaks up, “Hey! You’re the new girl right? Niall said you were in his class, what’s your name again?”
I stop walking and stand there like a deer in headlights, woah, they know who I am, “Uh… yeah… I’m Elqenna. What are your names?” I reply, looking around for a place to sit when the other girl with darker skin and two buns of black hair on top of her head motions to the seat between them, “You can sit with us.”
My mind momentarily thinks back to Mean Girls and I feel the urge to laugh at the difference when the other girl replies, “I’m Thirza and this is (SSSSSS).”
Right then the teacher starts lecturing and I look around just noticing that many other students have piled in the back while we started talking. There are none I recognize so I just smile back at Thirza and Sultanah and pulled my notebook out, time to start the torture.
Three days later
I sloppily pen onto the shadowy page, Do you ever wonder if anyone truly cares about anything other than themselves? I’m tucked in the back corner of my dark room under a dark blue, fluffy blanket writing in my journal and contemplating life.
It’s a Friday night and, as usual, I have nowhere to go. My mother went to sleep early, after yelling at me to do the same because “I always keep her up” even though I’m quiet as a drone at a terrorist’s hideout. Weird analogy. Whatever. I can hear my brother shoving nerf gun pieces together (I hope he doesn’t wake my mom up) from his room. Oh, by the way, he still uses the knives to cut the plastic guns, he’ll never learn.
I scribble into my notebook, deep down we’re all here to survive so we may care, but that doesn’t mean we care more about anyone than we do about ourselves, its human nature. I try to reread the words in the low light from the streetlight that casts a blue glow on my room. All I make out is survive and I drift back to this last week of classes.
Flashback

I sit down in my chemistry class and start reading the syllabus the teacher is handing out. The class is full and it seems that everyone knows everyone, except me. I just keep to myself and read while listening to snippets of conversations around me.

The teacher, a short asian man who is probably only a couple years older than myself, announces to the room, “Okay, class I am Mr. Nouy and I will be your chemistry teacher this year, my credentials are listed on your syllabus, and you would know that if you have started reading it instead of talking, “ he pauses and pointedly looks to the back of the room, “Also, I am going to have you all do an exercise just to see what you know and where you are so get your pencils out.”

I inwardly groan as he passes out packets of complicated problems. He then returns to the front of the class, pulls on hoodie, plops down into the large, plush chair by his desk, and puts some headphones in while staring at his phone. Is he serious? He’s just going to leave a class of college kids to have no supervision? I subtly shake my head and get back to my work, hoping no one will take any notice of me.

I am almost done with the first page (I took chem in high school so I know some of it) despite the loud chattering surrounding me when I hear something strange.

Somewhere in the back I hear hushed whispers before someone almost yells, “HE SURVIVED?!”

It sounds like a guys voice that replies, “Yo! Shut up! What, you gon’ tell the whole world? Damn Joe get yo shit together.” I then hear a slap and a grunt from who I assume is Joe then its back to hushed whispering. I lean back to hear what they are saying.“So anyway, I heard that he had a gun on him and everything, but some girl showed up and he got away! Crazy, right?!”

“Holy shit! That’s like, unheard of! No one gets away from H!”

“I know right? Supposedly she stabbed H! Like, damn I want to meet her! They’re searching though, for him and the girl. I wonder if she was working for—“

I don’t hear the rest because the teacher is back standing in front of the class asking for us to turn in our assignments. I absentmindedly pass in my half- finished work and sit back hoping to hear more but everything is quiet. Just when I don’t want it to be quiet, wow, such luck Elqenna. I don’t dare turn around but instead sit tensely in my seat worrying for the rest of class. They’re searching for me?

End of Flashback

If they are surprised that this other kid survived then, jeez, what would they think of me just going about my daily business with not a thought of the entire GANG tracking me down?! I make a mental note to plan out my will sometime soon.
“No one gets away from H,” What did he mean by that.. and who is this infamous H? A murderer? Well, obviously. At least he doesn’t know what I look like, I hope.
The light outside flickers and I imagine someone standing by my window. I pull my blanket over my shoulders and whisper to the empty room, “Well someone cares, even if they only care about killing me.”

Notes