Other side

Ch 13// Fire at school

Kerry wakes up sitting on the bed. The alarm clock had not yet sounded, but the girl had fully recovered, no trace of sleep. A dream or rather a nightmare tormented the girl all night. Although she didn't wake up, at night the girl kept moving from one side to other side, muttering something, only for the early morning she remained calm. But recently it came back and now Kerry was half sweaty, half confused, sitting in her bed breathing heavily. In the nightmare she ran through the darkness, tried to get somewhere, find something, get away from someone because she was followed. No matter how fast she tried to run, the traces of the running steps dragged behind. Then there were a couple of flashes of light and she was caught, then darkness came again, a race in the darkness again, and so all the time, events kept repeating like a carousel. 

Kerry sat and could not even think of a dream. Kerry didn't even want to remember it. She wiped her forehead with her hand, it was a little moist. After she kicked the blanket away, she went straight to the bathroom, where he spent five minutes standing under a water. Leaving the shower, the young woman looked at her face in the mirror above the sink. She didn't recognise herself, her face was unusually pale, her eyes empty, without the usual morning sparkle. After applying the lotion to her face, Kerry went back to the room. The rooms around were as if wrapped in silence, only when she stopped in the corridor she could hear Emilia's steady breaths, which indicated that the sister was still asleep. But only Emma's breath could be heard, everything was quiet in the parents' room. "So they are already gone." 

Everything was calm in the kitchen, there was a note and an envelope on the table. The note set out the rules, namely recommendations on what girls should and cannot do, and said that the envelope contained money that should be enough for two weeks, that is, for food, daily necessities and a little entertainment, and for unforeseen situations. In total, about 150$, excluding contingencies, which is another fifty dollars. Kerry opened the envelope, making sure the amount was correct, indifferently throwing the envelope back on the kitchen table. Returning to her room, the girl made her bed, dressed in a sports suit and went for a morning run. Meanwhile, Emily had got up and was preparing breakfast. After a while, Kerry returned. Entered the kitchen, she said:

"Morning! It smells so good. Is the egg just as I like?"

"Yes!"

"Is it half liquid?"

"Yes, of course, just as you like!"

"Good!" said Kerry and smiled.

"Hey, did parents wake you up? Maybe said something?"

"No. You?"

"Same here. But... they didn't even say goodbye, just left."

"Or just didn't wake us up to not bother us sleeping."

"Whatever."

"Yea..."

There was a little silence after this, the two sisters just kept eating.

"Kerry, did you see the note? Parents left us..."

"Yes, I know. 200$"

"Maybe we can share it already? 50$ will put away for emergencies, but we divide the rest in half. Basically each buys food for himself, what you say?

"Yea, okey. That is fine with me."

Emily felt Kerry's indifferent tone, but was afraid to ask how she felt, because she didn't feel better that her parents had just left. But she wanted to say something, it was not an easy decision for her, but in the end she thought it would be good for her sister.

"Kerry, I decided I could stay with aunt overnight until next Friday. Understand yourself, I will save money, because her apartment is almost next to my school."

"What? Until next Friday?" 

"Well, at least until this Saturday."

"But... why?"

"As I said, it will save money and it will be easier for me to meet classmates, you probably already know that they all live quite far from here, also closer to school, and we have to prepare a pretty big project next week where everyone has to get involved. Besides, I think you might like to be alone, think about everything, I'm probably just annoying you, if you want, you can invite friends to visit, they can also stay here overnight, just don't break everything."

Emilia tried to say that her absence is necessary for both her and her sister, because she remembers how difficult it was to do everything right at that age, to listen to everyone, so maybe she could feel a little freedom. But Kerry doubted, of course, it would be great - to stay here with friends overnight, but she did not agree that Emilia annoyed her, it is not true, maybe sometimes. The girl didn't understand why Emma wanted to leave, or really just because of the project, but the girl didn't want to upset her sister, and realised that she would really like to spend these days alone, then she could at least think about the recent events.

"Of course, if you want, but then you have to leave me more money, because probably you will have dinner there, most likely breakfast will be prepared by our aunt."

"Of course, no problems," said Emily, glad that the sister is not angry about this proposal. 

Well, there were no more signs of tension in the air, the sisters had a nice conversation, it happened quite rarely, but it was pleasant. But Kerry became thoughtful again, she remembered the nightmares of the night, although she remembered not very much about them, the feelings were still like a lump in her neck, Kerry clearly remembered them.

"You know, I feel pretty bad today, can I stay home?"

"What nonsense, you wouldn't have run then, the fact that you're alone doesn't give you permission not to go to school."

"But..."

"No buts. Kerry, it's gonna be fine."

Kerry wanted to believe it, but she still had that feeling that something bad is going to happen, she had such a bad foreboding. But ignoring it, the girl replied:

"I guess you're right."

"Then it's settled. I'm going to aunt today."

"Does she now?"

"Yes, I called her this morning. She had no objection."

"Good then. We won't see each other today, right?

"That's true. I can drive tomorrow if you want so."

"No, no, it's fine. Drive today."

"But should I drive back on this Friday? Will you last until next Friday?"

"I'll be fine. Don't spend money, stay until next Friday."

"Thank you," Emily said, hugging her sister and taking the dishes she gone to wash them.

Kerry left the house faster than her sister because she had to catch a bus. She did not say goodbye, because she knew it would be difficult, instead she said only - then see ya. Emilia replied - bye. And that was the last thing she heard before she walked out the apartment door.

She met classmates in the school hallways, everything was as usual. The first lesson took place with a biology teacher. In him, as always, almost no one listened. Maybe just the hardest in class, and Kerry wasn't one of them. Although she always listened with one ear, because every time she was asked something, the girl answered without difficulty. After the third lesson, there was a first long break of 20 minutes. The entire eleventh grade stood at the math classroom at the end of the hallway. Near the one wall, Kerry with Lisa, Sigmund and Philip, a little further other girls, but near the opposite wall - guys. For the first ten minutes everything was calm, they laughed. But now you could already feel the negative atmosphere. Two of them - Sebastian and Paul gradually began to push each other. It seemed to Kerry that they were both just kidding. But she was wrong. The guys were already pushing each other so that they didn't look so calm anymore. The others were already slowly retreating. Sebastian shouted at Paul:

"You will mention something like that again, I will take your skin off your head," it really sounded very threatening from his mouth, but Kerry couldn't help but notice that his voice was shaking.

"That's what you always say,"  Paul just kept smiling, he was amused that he had irritated Sebastian.

Sebastian couldn't stand it and threw himself on top of Paul, beating his shoulder firmly, so the guy hit the wall. But Paul did not stay in debt and suddenly ran in the direction of Sebastian, he ran into the opponent's belly so that both were already on the floor. When they got up again, they continued to fight, everything happened so fast. Paul tried to hit Sebastian by the chin, but the guy turned out to be faster. Resisting the blow, Sebastian hit Paul on the nose with a fist so that he trembled, blood drops appeared on the floor. Paul was about to take revenge, but Philip and Edwin had already intervened. Thank God, at least they had the mind to stop this fight. Edwin was taller than Paul, he had no problem stopping the guy. Philip have a harder task, although Philip was a little taller than Edwin, even Sebastian was a few centimetres higher. Sebastian visited the gym in his free time, so he was physically strong, but Philip was not far behind, in the end he kept Sebastian away from Paul anyway. He told him to calm down, because he had already done enough for Paul. He showed a drop of blood on the floor. Noticing this, Sebastian relaxed a little, but did not look disappointed and his gaze still lingered menacingly in Paul's direction.

Teachers were also already moving towards the incident. Sebastians arranged the shirt, however the punch above the left eye was clearly visible. Both teachers looked at both culprits, noticed blood, one of them said:

"What happened here?"

"A small fight, teacher, but everything is fine," said one of the guys - Tom.

“All right?” teacher pointed to Paul's bleeding nose, the history teacher said, “he nose is bleeding, Tom. Go to the school nurse, Paul."

Without saying a word, Paul obediently freed himself from Edwin's grip and headed for the stairs.

"Who started this?"

Everyone was silent, everyone stared away. The history teacher, noticing that Philip was still holding Sebastian on his shoulders, realized who was apparently the second culprit. She approached, and Philip immediately released the boy and resigned.

"Sebastian? Do you want to tell me something?"

"What? I didn't start this. It was Paul."

The teacher rolled his eyes.

"Well,  but without an explanation, you won't both get through anyway. It is detention for you both."

They were later sent to the principal. The math class started without Paul and Sebastian. They arrived only 10 minutes later, still silent and occasionally lurking towards each other with threatening glances. They talked calmly again in the next break, they apologised to each other. The fifth lesson was physics. But seven minutes after the call, something unexpected happened. An alarm sounded throughout the school. The teacher said something to herself that no accident test was planned today. These usually happen twice a year to make sure that everyone is able to successfully evacuate the school premises, but this time the teacher looked surprised, so the alarm is without warning, so something really happened.

"Okey students, let's go outside, calmly and without panic."

Kerry and the others took their belongings and left the classroom. After leaving the class, the teacher took students down, then out of school. As they walked, Kerry smelled a slight burning smell in the air. After going outside the school, in its front yard, everyone saw a devastating sight. The far end of the school, where the chemistry classroom was located on the third floor - everything was in dark smoke. Smoke rose into the sky, Kerry was able to see the small flames deeper into the smoke - the far end of the school was burning.

Many had already managed to pull out their phones and started filming the current situation, she could hear others say that teachers were already called the firefighters, they were on their way. Kerry looked at it all so that she wouldn't be here at all. There was a little chaos around, she could no longer see her classmates next to her, but it didn't bother her, she looked at the room on fire. She watched for a long time, the girl did not see the crowd around, but just watched the far end of the school. Noticing the moving shadow, at first it seemed to her that they had simply thickened the smoke more, but, straining her eyesight, Kerry could clearly see the two dark figures. She was about to try to get a closer look with the camera to be able to see more clearly, but someone pushed her. Losing her eye contact with the smoky room, Kerry leaned forward a little. When she looked up again, those two floors had faded. Kerry tried to find classmates. In the distance she saw Edwin's head, she was heading in that direction. Unfortunately, someone knocked Kerry off her feet when tried to get past her. It was so unexpected that she failed to react and fell to the ground. Everything was pounding in her ears, fuzzy flashes of light disturbed her eyes,  gaze blurred. But then there were some palms under her shoulders and strong hands lifted her. They didn't let her go because the girl felt a little unbalanced, a little sluggish. Then a voice whispered in her ear, she immediately recognised it:

"Follow me!" ordered James and took Kerry by the hand, dragging the girl with him.