The Adventures

2

OLIVE

Olive grabbed her schedule and walked to the front doors of her new life. It had only been two weeks since she received an anonymous letter with instructions on what she needed to do. After going AWOL, she did not know what to do with herself. She was told to come to the Underground and register at the Institute. Enclosed inside the envelope was enough money for the first month at an apartment and for required school supplies. Anything else she was going to need a job for.

        Her first class was going to be Death Puns... Seemed a little pointless considering she didn't particularly kill people. But she didn't want to seem disrespectful to the unknown figure who gave her a new start. The bell rang and she walked to class. She was one of the first to arrive and took a seat near the door, in case she needed to leave suddenly. As the classroom began to fill, she took note of the odd things about her classmates: Masks, rags, dried blood on their hands, and some even just walked in with weapons. No one seemed to care though. That's when she saw a boy come in. He had pale blue hair and bags under his eyes. Every cell in her body told her that she knew him but she couldn't figure it out. He noticed her and their eyes locked. Something seemed to flash in his eyes as well. He took the seat next to her and opened a tattered notebook to a clean page. He wrote something down and sat with his eyes straight ahead.

    Deciding to do the same, Olive faced the board as their teacher walked in. His face was stretched outward and he almost looked like a pterosaur. The teacher wrote his name on the board "Mr. Pitt" and assigned the class to page one of their textbooks.

       Olive stared at the pages and noticed a folded paper sitting on the corner of her desk. She took it and unfolded the page: "Why didn't you show?" is what it stated. Why didn't she show? To where? She recalled her instructions from the mystery messenger and didn't recall a place of meeting. She wrote back "What are you talking about? Do I know you?" She folded the page back up and left it on the corner. She went back to the textbook while her professor recited the pages like scripture. She happened to glance at the corner and realized the paper was gone. She looked around her and saw it lying on the floor at her feet. She picked it up and unfolded it. "Are you not him? The young father from before?" She scribbled on the page "I don't know what father you're talking about but I'm a girl. And I'd appreciate it if you left me to my work." She folded the paper and placed back on the corner of her desk. The paper disappeared again but this time it didn't turn back up. After a solid hour and forty-five minutes, the class was over. Olive had forgotten about the paper until she saw it again, this time in her bag. On the front was simply "I'm so sorry".

       Olive couldn't focus for the rest of the day. What was that person sorry about? That they mistook me for a man? It wasn't the first time considering her appearance: Short hair, thin in the face, her chest didn't help either. I look like my brother. A memory flashed through her mind: she saw a man in a black Nissan. He had pale blue hair and bags under the eyes. Just like the man who sat next to her in class.