ɴᴇᴍᴇꜱɪꜱ ║ ᴛᴏᴍᴍʏɪɴɴɪᴛ

Chapter 10 : Burnt to a crisp

The roaring of the engine stopped as the white jeep arrived at its destination.

Ray had her eyes closed, the dark bags under them having been covered up by a small layer of makeup to make her look more or less alive. She had her airpods in her ears, listening to some very chill and soft songs that made her want to fall right back asleep.

"Miss? Young Miss? Missus Rayyyyy." The voice interrupted her peace, and the girl opened her eyes with an unhappy grunt.

"I told you not to call me that." She muttered, causing the old man to let out a small chuckle.

"We're here and you should get going. Only 10 minutes until opening assembly." His eyes raised in a charming smile, the usual wrinkles disappearing on his face.

Seeing the happiness of the personal driver that Ray had known her entire life, the girl couldn't help but sigh. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm going."

"Your parents hope you will have a great day!" The driver, Marcus, called out as the girl grabbed onto her simple grey schoolbag and exited the vehicle.

"As if they care." She mumbled quietly whilst rolling her eyes.

But there was no time to argue as the girl cringed, seeing dozens of students flooding in through the schools main entrance.

It was a rather large building, disturbingly white for how old it was. Long marble pillars stood right at the front doors, making their dark color stand out. There was a wide concrete hill reaching up there, right in between two patches of gras that hosted many exotic trees and flowers.

Ray fitted in with the crowd perfectly, the uniform she had to wear matching everyone elses. It allowed her to keep her head down, avoiding any sort of confrontation this early in the morning.

But of course, things wouldn't go her way because as soon as she took a couple of steps towards the main entrance, she heard a loud squeaky voice behind her. "Ray!"

The girl turned to find a small figure running up to her, rather short skirt almost flying up in the air because of the speed. She had dirty blonde hair, with even lighter highlights, and popping sky blue eyes. A cutesy freckle constellation adorned her cheeks and nose, small dimples appearing as she gave her widest smile.

"Celine." Ray breathed out happily, groaning as her best friend tackled her into a huge bear hug.

"Oh my god I haven't seen you for what felt like ages!" Celine exclaimed, squeezing the other girl.

Despite not being able to breathe, Ray couldn't help but laugh as she hugged her best friend back. "Yeah, yeah, I know you love me."

"Of course I do, no question about it." Celine finally let go, but still held onto her best friend's hand.

"Oh, new year, new queers?" A voice suddenly popped up behind them, making the two girls turn.

There stood another girl, clearly taller with platinum blonde hair and swirling chocolate eyes. Her uniform was a little lose for the standards of the private school, and the eyebrow slit she rocked from the beginning of the summer was still very clear.

Diana's lips had curled up into a suspicious grin as her eyes twitched between the two.

Celine rolled her eyes playfully. "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm still as straight as a stick."

"Ooh maybe I can change that." Ray exclaimed in a suggestive tone, sending the girl a wink.

"Oh my god." Celine simply laughed it off, before intersecting arms with both her friends and pulling them closer. "Alright, let's go now, no time to waste! We'll be late for assembly!"

×××××××××××××××

"Alright, everyone, quiet down!" The strict voice of the principal boomed through the huge hall, causing the ruckus to die down.

You would be surprised how much noise 500 students and some staff could make.

The man standing at the podium, somewhere around his mid-40ies with an extremely long and skinny body and washed-out blonde hair, cleared his throat as he eyes the crowd in front of his carefully. If you were close enough, you'd be able to see the hesitance and flash of nerves in his eyes, but he swallowed it town and continued speaking.

"This year, at least for the first half, there will be something very special going on."

Whispers immediately erupted amongst the youths, all clearly very confused. No one had been informed of this beforehand.

The principal awkwardly cleared his throat again, gaining all the attention once again. "As most of you may have heard, something really tragic occurred recently. The school situated 5 minutes away from ours unfortunately suffered a tragic fire just a couple of days ago."

Of course, this caused another wave of gossip, but this time it was different.

"Is this going where I think its going..?" Diana leaned in towards her two friends, her usual playful expression gone as she for once looked dead serious.

"What do you mean?" Ray asked confuses, but couldn't get a response as the principal began speaking once again.

"And because of that tragedy, our school offered whatever support they needed to continue with the education of hundreds of young and passionate students. Therefore, we have been tasked with hosting these staff and students until further notice."

The announcement was like a bomb. The many children didn't even bother whispering, and vocally announced their unhappiness about the situation. It took the many teachers to calm down the situation, allowing the principal to speak again.

"As I said, this will most likely be short-term until their school building is repaired as needed. We had been chosen to host since our school has tons of unused classrooms and extra space, perfectly able to fit a couple hundred more students. There is no need to worry about anything: the staff and students are very well behaved and will not intervene in your guys' education whatsoever. I just ask you to be kind and accepting to your incoming peers for as long as this situation may last."

"Great." Diana let out a long sigh.

Notice my writing becoming shot at the end lol