Chapter 2

It takes all my strength to plaster a smile on my face. I'm sure it is not very convincing, but it means a little. As soon as she sees me with a smile, she assumes nothing and her attention focuses back to herself, and the whole Armageddon might take place right before her eyes before she pauses to catch her breath.

"...and so, he came upto me and of course, I was looking towards the board, but I knew that he was watching me the whole time; I could feel his eyes on me, you know. And I knew when he deliberately touched my hands, and well, I didn't plan it, he did, yes, Aaron did. And then, I pretended that I didn't notice anything and walked away to get the scales..."

I sighed and kept walking beside her. Another pair of ears might have spared me of the intensity, but I have been the sole victim for the past two years, ever since she moved in. Melissa, the stunningly beautiful blonde, with skin that is so perfect it sparkles, and she claims she has some vampire blood. Her eyes have pink waterlines, with a few strands of golden lashes. Her lips seem to have changed shapes last year, she tells me it is due to the honey she uses. But the girls in my class had whispered something about "lip-injections" and "cosmetic alterations" when she carried her brand new lips one day. Anyway, she looks like a china-doll, and doesn't seem unaffected by the attention she gets. Who would?

"...and so I told him, that I already like someone else, and his face fell. How could he expect me to feel that way? I mean, what does it matter if he looks like Adonais, but I have only known him for a fortnight. And I don't know what my feelings are for Caleb either, but he is my best friend. He has been for the last 4 years. I know he does like me and wants to be more than what we are, but, oh! I wish he had already told me. And now we are miles apart and he probably would find someone else and I don't think I can bear it, I can't!" She wails.

"Yeah, right," I say, half-irritated, "and what about Aaron, huh? Half of your brain is trained on him, and you are leading him on along with this new guy, what's his name? Raghav? Well, if you have no feelings for him, then why not tell him so?"

"I don't lead him on, he just... Well, if his hand accidentally touches mine, what can I do about it?" She pouts.

"Accidentally." I echo.

I storm with my temper barely controlled towards my house. I am not sure what my anger is directed at, or who, but I am pretty sure it is partly due to the pain in my mouth as I stood mutely by like a puppet for two hours, and partly because of the pain in my head as I tried to place about thirty boys I had to hear about in my claes. Some of them, like Aaron, shares half his classes with me, but frankly I would never have noticed the stick-thin, tall boy, sitting at the back of the room if Melissa hadn't the habit of talking about him all the time, and telling me that he keeps staring at her even when I never saw him spare a look for anyone. But I believe her. It's impossible not to. Her words seem to have been gifted by Hermes himself, and no one can not believe anything she says. Not even me, who knows all her secrets.

The hooting of a owl brings me back from my reverie, and I stare around. I have been preoccupied, too much so, that I haven't noticed the path I was taking, and now I find myself in a completely deserted street. My mind might be playing games with me, but it is not funny in the least- there is not a creature in sight. What I heard of the owl has been a fragment of my imagination, I see no owl. How long have I walked for? I still had the evening glow in my sight when I lost the thread of my thoughts. And now it's pitch black, as if it's been at least two hours already. Only the moon shines through the grey clouds, and I am sure it can't be full moon yet. There are no street lamps on this street, but small parks for children are all around. I don't recognise this place, but I am not worried about it; I just need to recreate my steps back, as there seems to be a single road connecting the horizons. What worries me, and frightens me is the absence of a living sound. The swooshing of the air is muted, the silence presses harder on my ear drums as if I have been put inside a vacuum tube. There is no chirping of insects that I am so familiar with at this time of the day. It is all so still. My hair rises on my neck in absence of any tangible wind; it all seems to have been sucked out. The clouds are all stationary, forming moonlit dragons in the purple and pink tinged night sky.

Then quite distinctly, I hear it. On my left, and on my right. The creaking of metals, exactly the sounds that the swings might make, when someone swings on them. I know it would be harder, more frightening later, if I have to see that, and it is inevitable, but I cannot help closing my eyes to block out the dark. And then I open them!