Death in the Woods

Chapter 4

Something felt off that day for Sarah. The tension in the air was enough for her to get goosebumps on her arm. Everything felt so weird when she got to school, like something terrible was going to happen. The sky which was covered by dark clouds signalled that a storm was brewing its way to the town. It was like the clouds were waiting for something before it strikes. But what was that something?

When Sarah entered her class, Clara instantly called out to her from her seat. Apparently, she didn't get a ride with Clara to school today because her mum decided to drop her off at school. She made her way towards her best friend and noticed that the class was unusually quiet with just a few whispers here and there.

"Clara, do you notice the class is quiet today?" She asked her friend as she took her seat by her.

"I heard a storm is coming." her friend whispered to her.

"What?" Sarah whispered yelled.

A storm in Winston town was not good news. The locals always felt it was the beginning of something bad. She shivered at the thought of that but immediately put it to the back of her mind as she brought out her books to prepare for the lessons of the day.

"Okay, class, let's get started." Sarah's teacher came into the room, holding his black briefcase in his hand and a cup of coffee on the other hand while he made his way to his desk before placing them down.

Sarah drew her gaze to the window, away from her teacher as he started to talk about the lesson. She gazed at the heavy clouds up the sky and shivered as the leaves swayed with the strong blast of wind.

She brought her gaze back to the front when the classroom door opened. In came, Principal Donovan with a boy proceeding behind him. The boy caught Sarah's attention as he was stunning. He was putting on a black jeans with a black hoodie. She couldn't draw her gaze away from him.

Instantly, he raised his head and looked towards her direction as if he felt that someone was watching him. Sarah's heartbeat accelerated when they locked eyes on each other. She quickly hauled her eyes away from him, but not without noticing that he had green eyes.

"Everyone, meet Adrian. He is a transfer student and will be joining you all till the end of the term." Principal Donovan announced to the class. Turning towards Adrian, he asked him to take a seat at the unoccupied desk behind Sarah.

Sarah swallowed down the nervousness that gradually materialized as she felt Adrian sit on the chair somewhere behind her, but didn't dare to look.

*************

Sarah shut her locker for the last time that day in exhaustion. She was done with all her classes and was ready to go home. She couldn't wait to sleep on her comfortable bed. Her last class which was math, really took a lot from her. She was an average student when it came to numbers and Mrs. Marie wasn't making it any merciful for her.

Sarah flinched when the school door slammed open and Marco, the school bully walked in with a fierce look on his face. It looked like someone had really pissed him off.

He looked furious and was clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides while mumbling to himself. Sarah pressed herself to her locker when he passed by, wishing that he did not take notice of her attempting to evade him, even if the distance between the both of them didn't call for it.

A nerdy boy was looking down on his book and didn't pay attention to his surroundings. As everyone was trying their best to step aside from the terror, this boy did not see it coming. His body got slammed into the lockers, dropping his book to the floor as well as his body.

Marco pulled back his hand that pushed the boy out of his way, not even sparing a glance at the boy on the floor but kept on walking forward, disappearing behind the corner.

Sarah's heart clenched at the sight. The boy Marco shoved, was still on the floor making Sarah imagine that he was hurt. She swallowed thickly, pushing up the straps of her backpack and journeyed towards the boy that sat against the lockers. A pang of sadness hit Sarah's chest as she slowly walked down to him, crouching down to his height, and helped him to pick up his stuff.

He stopped in the process of picking his book up as he saw a girl closing in and picking up the book from the floor. Sarah held up the book back to him as she met his gaze and smiled softly at him.

"Here," she said, as she handed over the book to the boy. The boy paused at first but then slowly took the book out of Sarah's hand. He had black glasses on, that were a bit far down his nose as he had to push them up. His dark hair was in a mess as a few strands fell against his forehead.

The boy stood up making Sarah copy his movement. "T-Thank you" he mumbled, wrapping his hand protectively around his book.

"Don't mention. Are you okay?" Sarah asked him.

"Yeah, I guess," he replied.

"I am Sarah." She announced, trying to strike a talk with the boy in front of her, but he broke her gaze as he looked down to the floor.

"I am Todd" he mumbled through the book in his hand but Sarah heard him and nodded even if he couldn't see it.

"Todd, are you new here?" She asked. Although they were a lot of people in the school, the new faces were never hard to figure out.

"Yes." He whispered shyly as he brought his gaze up to look at Sarah.

She gave him a friendly smiled and said "welcome!" Todd did one nod as he pushed up his glasses again.

"I'm heading home then, but be careful next time in the halls and avoid the bad guys coming through." She advised him as she prepared to make her leave and smiled at him to ease the tension between the both of them.

"Thank you, Sarah," He said as he smiled at her and turned to walk away in the opposite direction.

"See you tomorrow" was the last thing She said as she turned and made her way towards the entrance of the school, headed for home.

When she got to her house, she opened the front door to the house and dropped her backpack to the floor with a heavy sigh, just as her phone went off with the beep of an incoming message. She brought it out from her back pocket, opened it and seeing the contents of the message, the hair at the nape of her neck, were on full alert because she was scared to death.

What a lovely smile! Would you still smile like that with a knife deep within your chest?