Then It Went Dark

Chapter 3

Spirit woke up to the angry beeping of his alarm clock. He felt around blindly until his hand found the off button. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and yawning. After getting dressed, Spirit walked into the living room where Stein sat hunched over reading a book by the dim light of a candle. "How long have you been at it this time?" Asked Spirit, still in a sleepy daze. "About 6 hours I think." mumbled Stein while he reached to take the last swig of his cold coffee. "Jesus, Stein! When do you sleep?" Replied Spirit. "Anyway, I'm making breakfast. What do you want?" Asked Spirit as he walked towards the kitchen. "Toast. And more coffee." Replied Stein. "Nah, I'm cutting you off." "You aren't my mother, Spirit." Stein said, clearly peeved about Spirit trying to control him. Usually it was the other way around, what with all the experimenting... "No I'm not. But Lord Death did put me in charge of making sure you don't go all nutzo on people and part of that is making sure you aren't over-caffeinated. Butter on your toast?" Said Spirit with a smirk, knowing that Stein wouldn't retort back. Stein huffed. "Whatever."
•
"Here we are! Class Crescent Moon." said Grace, looking up at the small sign that hung above the door. Finn merely nodded. "Oh come on Finn! You should act at least a little bit excited." Grace said teasingly as she tugged on his arm. As she turned to walk through the door, Finn cracked a small smile behind her back. She was so cute when she got excited. The pair took a seat in the fifth row of the amphitheater style classroom. Grace immediately pulled out a pen and a piece of paper. Finn, on the other hand, just leaned back into his seat. He lifted his hand to glance at his black metal watch and was alarmed to see that they were nearly 45 minutes early. He didn't say anything though. It wasn't unlike Grace to be obsessed with being on time. He glanced to look at her. She was reading a guidebook to the school that a teacher had given her yesterday. Her soft, lavender hair fell in gentle curls down onto her shoulders. Her brown eyes read with intense focus the words that spoke of the cafeteria, bathrooms, and other school facilities. Finn admired how graceful she could be, even when doing something as simple as reading. After about 15 minutes of Grace reading and Finn watching her, Stein and Spirit walked in, early as usually. "That's her!" Whispered Spirit excitedly to Stein. The two walked up to the row that Finn and Grace were in before Stein caught their attention by saying "Excuse me, are you two the new students?" They both looked up from their tasks and smiled warmly. "Yes!" Said Grace. "I'm Grace and this is my partner, Finn. Your school certainly is lovely; we're so happy to be here!" She certainly is a people person, thought Stein to himself. Spirit didn't really think anything except for how pretty and smart this girl was. "Well I'm glad that you like it so far." said Stein, unusually warm. "My name is Stein and this is my partn-" "Spirit!" Interrupted the charming boy happily. "Spirit Albarn! A pleasure to meet you two! Would it be okay if we sat with you?" Stein was fuming, but hid it with a smile. Spirit was such an excitable, blithering idiot... "Of course not! Go ahead!" Said Finn. So, the four sat together. Stein was bursting at the seams with questions for the new students but held them in. If he seemed overly eager, Spirit would suspect something and blow it all. So he kept it in. Grace sensed something was off with Stein, but much like he held in his questions, she held in her suspicions. She wanted to make new friends and being creepy by telling someone they seemed weird was not the way to do that. Meanwhile, Finn and Spirit were completely ignorant to this. Hence, the four became friends, dropping all doubts about eachother...
At least for this first week together