Where We Stand

1 | Where We Stand

© 2014 Lujayn Ambers. All rights reserved

Where We Stand is the spin-off to Lost in You but it can be read as a stand-alone.

Chapter 1

I never thought the rats were planning an invasion until it was too late.

I am sitting at my favorite spot in my English class, three rows from the front and two columns away from the windows. Every Friday, Ms. Sharp makes us watch a movie for our Literature session. She's been hung up on Disney movies ever since autumn set in.

Today, we're supposed to watch Mulan assuming what Derek Walker said is true. He's the biggest gossip I've ever encountered in my entire lifetime. The couple kissing behind the toilets? The jocks painting graffiti in the abandoned Block B-13? The boy getting detention for failing to complete his assignments? You ask Derek. He knows it.

"Hey, wanna play 'Doctor', Doctor?"

Carlos' voice. Husky and edged with a smile. I tilt my head up, giving him a nonchalant glance.

 "Go away," I say.

Carlos and his lame pick-up lines. He knows I do a part-time job at my father's clinic. I've always wanted to work in Chocobelle, the quaint coffee shop along Hawkings Street. It was Mom's idea to get me in the clinic. She said it would shape me up into a responsible adult, give me the necessary experience and skills needed for my future career in medicine.

"I think I have tachycardia." Carlos presses his palms against my desk as he leans in close. "My heart beats faster at the sight of you."

Normally, I would roll my eyes and ignore his lecherous comments but right now, it's hard to do so. There's something in the line of his jaw, the unruly hair that looks windswept and the way he seems to fill out the grey shirt he's wearing so well that makes my stomach flip.

"Settle down, class!" Ms. Sharp yells, placing a white projector on the table.

Carlos walks away from me. He settles on the farthest desk at the back of class, right next to a locked cabinet. Another boy joins him. Tora, the drummer of Blue Ravens, the same band Carlos is in. 

I turn away from them and glimpse the door. My best friend Megan is late for class. She sent me a message explaining she was paying Aiden a visit before coming to school. Aiden caught a cold during the weekend. We'd spent too much time in Stillwater Fish Village.

Rolling my pen between my fingers, I watch as Ms. Sharp instructs Charlotte Muller to hand out the sheaf of papers she's carrying. Charlotte nods then divides them into four batches before giving them out to my classmates. When she walks by my desk, I feel her icy glare.

"Hi Charlotte," I say.

Charlotte doesn't reply. She flings a plain paper at me and stalks away.

I never understood what happened between us. She was my childhood friend. We used to play by the swings, roll on the grass together and make pretty bracelets out of flowers. When I broke my toe at the gym in primary school, she cried with me and when she lost her pocket money at lunch, I shared my food with her. Then when we were twelve, she grew distant. Spent more time with a different group of friends. In the end, she stopped talking to me.

Megan slips in class undetected just as Ms. Sharp is connecting a black cable to the power outlet, her back to the door. She takes a seat next to me and breathes out a sigh.

"How is Aiden?" I ask in a low voice.

"His fever has gone down though he still coughs and sneezes all the time. His nose is all red," she says, her brow furrowing. "It kind of looks cute."

"What? The nose?"

She nods. "He says hello to you."

Before I can reply, Ms. Sharp barks out our names and orders us to keep quiet. She sits on her chair, tucks one hand beneath her chin and starts the movie. Everyone knows the drill. We watch Mulan, write five lessons we've learnt from it and give thorough justification for our answers in no less than one and a half pages.

The class goes still. I lean back in my chair, stretch out my legs. The movie reaches one of my favorite scenes and I can't help but laugh. Mushu is yelling "Oooh! All right, that's it! Dishonor! Dishonor on your whole family!" and turns to the purple cricket before saying "Make a note of this: dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow..." when it happens.

A skirr of movement across the screen, magnified by the play of shadows and light.  

 "What was that?" Derek asks.

"A dragon?" Tora offers.

The class erupts into a whoop of laughter. A girl says it's a ghost. Ms. Sharp silences us. I stop listening to the hushed whispers, to Mushu instructing Mulan how to walk like a man. Whatever we saw was real. I caught glimpses of its outline. Something with pointy ears and sharp claws.

Someone screams, the sound resonating in the stillborn air. Derek leaps out of his chair, his face scrunched up in a blotted expression as if he's suffering from a nasty case of constipation. Charlotte jumps on the desk, her phone discarded. Carlos is laughing, one hand slung over his ribs. Megan shoots me a warning. She picks up a book and swats at something on the floor.

That's when I see them.

Little furry creatures scampering on the tiled floor, tails swishing, beady eyes watching, bodies painted in colored streaks. Blue, red, yellow, pink, orange, green, black and purple. They are not dragons, ghosts or even aliens. No, the invaders are rats.

My jaw goes slack, my feet rooted to the ground. All around me, I hear a rumble of voices. Feet stumbling on the cold floor, papers whirling in the air, rats squealing in fright. And suddenly, something flickers in my mind. An idea that turns into an impulse so strong, I cannot resist it. I unzip my bag, take out my camera and kneel on one knee.

Click. Click. The shot is perfect if not a little hilarious. A white rat in mid-air as it jumps from one desk to the next, clawed feet held out, a streak of blue paint along the length of its body. The large window from the class provides decent lighting and the yellow wallpaper on the walls adds color to the scene.

The Stillness in the Chaos. That's what I've decided to call this photo.

_________________________________

Dedicated to @surrealinfinities for the beautiful cover of Lost in You on the side.

So there you have it! The first chapter of Where We Stand. LIY has been edited a couple of times but this one is only a raw draft. If you spot any errors let me know or if you simply wish to express your thoughts, I'd love to hear them. And of course, every vote makes me smile <3