Feeling Reborn

T - Week 10

TW: more swearing-
I apologize in advance for the lack of creativity in the Monsters' last names. I have no clue when it comes to em' :/

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In all fucking honesty, Nightmare was having a terrible day.

It was one of those days where your alarm clock decides to slip off the edge of the world, thus missing out on your wake-up call, and you have to scramble to get your coffee brewed and get the hell out of the apartment half-ready.

You manage to reach the car door and slam it shut behind you, try to start the engine and realize: you've forgotten the car keys on the kitchen counter.

Then, there's a huge hassle sprinting back in, somehow not tripping on the stairs, grabbing your forgotten carafe of coffee as well as those godforsaken keys.

Making it onto the highway, Nightmare heaved out a frustrated sigh. Time was running short, and he had driven right into rush hour. At least kids were forgiving. Sort of.

He hummed non committedly to whatever crappy tune playing on the radio, the melody close to unrecognizable thanks to a layer of rough static. Something lurked at the very corner of his mind. It was something he forgot, and the familiar feeling of walking into a room without knowing why you went in the first place tingled his SOUL. The answer was there; it stuck on the back of his non-existent throat, inching towards the tip of his tongue and he had to use all of his mental force to push that answer out, and he remembered:

His bag was still on the dining table.

There was no time to turn back, so Nightmare just gritted his teeth and pushed through the traffic, trying to gather what he remembered of his lesson plan to make an exercise without any papers on hand. He had first period, after all, and there was no way he would be able to print twenty five worksheets and climb up three flights of stairs in three minutes.

He ran a hand over his eyes, the other tap dancing on the brim of the steering wheel. What a goddamn mess.

First period: a bunch of eighth graders: delinquents, drop-outs, regular students and just people who had a bad school year, jammed into one summer school history class. It was a great combination, bound to stir up some kind of teenage drama that could last until the actual school year, and he was not ready in the slightest to deal with that bullshit again.

This was the second week of learning for them, but it was Nightmare's first.

He could reboot their memories about the Renaissance period or about the Beginning of Monsters— it depended on how diverse or accepting his class would be.

He pieced together what information he remembered from previous years of teaching and honked the horn at a shoddy driver cutting in front of him without activating the turn signals.

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The AC broke somewhere along the line, rendering the usually fresh classroom an insufferable pit of sweat, rust and carbon dioxide. Ruffled teens lined the two back rows, only the truly brave or the nerds dotting the frontlines- and they were all humans. Civics it is.

"Good morning," Nightmare said, trying to sound alert, "I am Nightmare Joku, call me by whichever name you want. Just add a 'mister' in front of it, it's common courtesy."

Someone yawned loudly in the back.

Nightmare tried not to glare at the offender.

He didn't have the sheet to do roll call, so it was time to start churning out his improvised class.

He picked up a sheet of printer paper from the stack in the teacher's desk as well as a black pen from his pants' pockets, and cleared his throat: "Alright, I'll start with the row on the far left. Yes, you there. Tell me your name, age and something about yourself."