Is This The End

Chapter One

Running. I could hear it outside my window. It was like a thundering herd. All around me, I could hear what seemed to be battle cries. No, that last one wasn't a battle cry, it was a cry of pain. It was cut off sharply, then there was the sound of laughter. Evil, maniacal laughter. What was happening? This was just like what happened last year to...I don't want to relive those memories. I jolted awake, it was just a dream, right?

The next morning, I woke up thinking about what I heard last night. It was probably just a dream that I couldn't separate from reality. Maybe it was just trauma from last year's incident.

I looked out the window after showering and smiled. It's a bees are buzzing, flowers blooming, birds chirping, and sun shining kind of day. Actually, this is a bit strange. Usually I feel as if Blackthorn Academy has its own curse. Nobody around here is ever...happy, and it feels like everyone's on edge, as if any second something bad might happen.

Not today though, today is different. Everything feels peaceful. I don't feel stressed, scared or even the slightest bit nervous. I want to know why everything has suddenly changed.

Do you ever get the feeling as if everything is about to go wrong? That's how I feel right now. It's almost as if this is just the calm before the storm, so to speak. What storm is coming though? And no, I don't mean a literal storm. Maybe Ms. Blackthorn was just going to have another one of her temper tantrums, like when someone snuck out after curfew. Or maybe...I don't know! I just need to know why everything is so nice today.

I finished getting ready, which was mostly just running a brush through my long, black hair, and went outside. Looking up at our huge school building always makes me smile. It really is quite a beautiful place. There's one tall, black tower in the middle. The tower on the left is the home of the girl's dorms; it's a dark purple color. The tower on the right is where the boy's dorm rooms are; it's red with black tinted windows. Some might say our school building is boring or too dark, but I think the magnificence of the towers are inside of the walls. I don't exactly love our school colors, the towers look slightly weird in the way that they're placed, but they're what make Blackthorn, Blackthorn.

A wave of nostalgia hit me while looking at the school. There used to be piles of students wanting to go here before the incident happened. That definitely isn't something that I want to remember right now though. There are plenty of other things to think about. So instead I thought about registration day. Our first year of high school we were lined up outside the building. There were hundreds of students waiting nervously to be interviewed for a place here. Now I'm 17 in Third Year and there are only four of us. Eight between us and our competing school Decora Academy.

Fun fact: I didn't get into Blackthorn first, Decora took me in. I stayed there with my twin brother Emiliano, or Emil for short, for a year and absolutely hated it. For Second Year I interviewed for Blackthorn again and they accepted me. Emil hasn't talked to me since. Apparently, he doesn't approve of Blackthorn. They even gave us our own stereotypical name the Decora kids call the Blackthorn Baddies. It's a name terrible, right? They could've made it a bit more creative. According to those kids we're all some kind of horrible monsters that show no emotions. That only applies to maybe one or two of us though! We're nice kids on occasion.

It doesn't matter much since we call the Decora kids the Decora Dunces. If I'm being completely honest, they all act fake most of the time. The girls there act like Barbie's, always flipping their hair, doing "good deeds", or at least that's what they call them, and looking perfect all the time. It's weirdly unrealistic and absolutely unapproachable.

I need to stop reminiscing, it's time to do my weekly job for Ms. Blackthorn. I went back inside the center tower and rode the elevator to the top where Ms. Blackthorn's office rests. I knocked on the door and it opened a second later revealing an angry looking principal and Enzo sheepishly picking up scattered papers.