Rune Eater

Chapter 1

"Hey, Ethan."

Someone was whispering my name, but still in a manner that was urgent.

"Ethan!", the voice said louder.

I woke softly from my nap. It was the middle of the day and the sun was shining in through the giant window next to my desk. I squinted around at my surroundings looking at the other students in the class hunched over their desks scribbling furiously.

"What's wrong?", I asked turning my head to the guy who had woken me up. His name was Owen, his brown hair was cut short, giving him a military like hairstyle. His skin was the color of roasted almonds. It glistened like pearls when he was sweaty, which made every girl in class fall head over heels for him. He was tall and slender which also made him a perfect fit for the school's basketball team.

"Miss Westby is glaring at you", he whispered back. He was right, our teacher, a short woman in her late fifties was glaring at me. Her small stature was complimented by her plump figure and small squinted eyes. Her eyes that were now fixed on me in a murderous glare, like I had run over her cat.

"Mr. Davis, please come see me after class", she shouted through the classroom with a hoarse voice that sounded like nails running down a blackboard. The whole class lifted their heads from their test sheets to look at me. Everyone had that look in their eyes, as if they all thought the same thing, "you're in trouble now."

Everyone finished their tests, and we all went to hand them in, me going last since I was going to have to stay after everyone anyway. "I'll wait for you at the school entrance", Owen said to me after handing in his test. Miss Westby kept staring at me while accepting the tests of the other students, like a robot programmed for this one task. I handed in my own test and looked down toward my teacher.

"So why did u want to speak to me Miss Westby?", I asked her as polite as I could muster. She looked up at me annoyed, our height difference clearly bothering her. "Mr. Davis this is the third time I catch you sleeping in my class", she said while not breaking eye contact with me, "and this time you are not getting off easy." She was still not breaking eye contact with me, I was starting to get uncomfortable, she wasn't even blinking while staring at me.

"What is my punishment?", I asked her meekly. "You have detention for the next 5 days after school", she said with a sly smile, "and you are going to hand in a thousand-word essay about the most widespread use of runes in modern time".

"A thousand words?!", I asked, shocked at the unfairness of the entire situation. I could stand behind the detention, I had been sleeping in class for a while now, and this wasn't the first time I had gotten punished, but this seemed a bit to harsh for just sleeping.

"Yes, Mr. Davis. A thousand words.", she said with what sounded like malicious glee. "And I want it on my desk by the end of the week!". She spat the last part at me, as if to command a dog. I was sure of it now, this woman truly despised me. She was going out of her way to give me an assignment just to see me suffer. It was already Wednesday, and she wanted me to write an essay in two days. It wasn't helping that runes were my worst subject.

"Alright Miss Westby", I said with clenched teeth. "May I leave now?". "Yes you can leave", she said to me still with maliciousness in her voice. "Have a nice day!", she shouted after me as I walked out the door.

Miss Westby had never liked me, she started teaching at my school a few months ago, and from her first day she had set her squinty eyes on me. She had never done anything as direct as this, but she had always gone out of her way to grade me harder than everyone else. Whenever I compared tests with Owen, it always seemed like she had used extra time to find every tiny mistake I made and highlight it with a thick red pen.