Early morning & First day of school.

"Iôn bado nin." a female voice whispered into my ear.

Then what sounded like hundreds of voices chanting rhythmically.

"ᚨᛖᚱ ᛗᛖᚾᛁᚾ ᚢ-ᚷᚢᚨᚾᚾᛟ. ᚨᛖᚱ ᛗᛖᚾᛁᚾ ᛞᚨᚱᚦᚢ ᛁ'ᚾᚨᚱᚾ. ᛁ ᛚᚨᛗᚨᚦᛁᚾ ᚾᚨᚢᚦᚱᛟᚾ ᚷᚨᚠᚨᚨᛞᚺ ᚨ ᛁᛞᚺᚱᚨᚾ ᚾᚨ ᛁ ᛞᚢᚨᚦ ᚷᚪᚦᛖᛚ ᛚᛁᚾ."

I bolted upright in my bed as sweat drenched my bare chest, sending a cold chill up my spine.

"What the fuck was that?" I gasped as I tried to fill my lungs with air.

Leaning over, I pulled the string on my lamp and turned it on.

The light from the lamp lit my room in a wash of light, making me squint from the bright hues.

Blinking a few times, I looked at my bare room, then down at my sweat soaked sheets.

Tossing them to the side, I swung my legs over the edge.

Finally getting my breathing under control, I tried to remember what I had just dreamed about.

But the more I tried to remember, the farther from my grasp it seemed to get.

Wiping sweat from my forehead with my hand, I looked at the small clock that sat next to my lamp.

"4:31" I said out loud to myself, as I let out a long sigh.

Wiping my face again, I decided it was best to just stay up for the rest of the day.

"Early bird gets the worm." I said to myself as I stood from my bed.

Taking a shower, I tried again to remember my dream.

But again, the words that felt so close only seemed to become more fogged over the more I tried to remember them.

'It was just a bad dream. It doesn't matter what my brain came up with to spook me.' I thought as I stood under the nice hot water.

"Uhh! Who used all the hot water!" I heard Laurits shout from the upstairs bathroom, as I sat at the dining table eating a bowl of cereal.

I chuckled.

"Early birds really do get the worm."

A few minutes later as I was fishing out the last few round cheerios from my bowl, I heard Magne making his way down the creaking stairs.

Turning, I saw him wearing a black sweatshirt, with light blue jeans.

Which for Magne was his usual dress wear.

While I on the other hand wore a light gray sweater, dark blue jeans, and black and white converse.

"Lookin good there little brother." I said, turning back to my bowl to drink the leftover milk.

"Thanks." He said, setting his bag on the chair next to me, while walking into the kitchen to grab the milk from the fridge.

Walking back to the table, Magne spoke.

"And who are you calling little brother, Bjørn?" He asked, looking down at me with a smile.

"Hey now." I said, pointing my spoon at him as I set my bowl back onto the table.

"Just because I'm not built like a muscular brick shit house like you, doesn't mean I still can't knock some sense into you." I said with a laugh.

Sitting down at the table, Magne grabbed the cereal box, and poured the remaining O's into his large bowl.

"That's exactly why we started to get the healthy stuff. We were afraid if we got anything with sugar you would OD on the stuff." I said, as he smirked up at me.

Rinsing my bowl out, I set it on the drying rack before grabbing my bag from my room.

As I went up the stairs, I passed by the bathroom as the door swung open to reveal an angry Laurits.

"It was you wasn't it?" Laurits asked as he stepped out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around his waist.

"what did I do?" I asked, playing dumb.

"used all the hot water!" He said, pushing his hair pack with his fingers.

"What can I say?" I said with a chuckle.

"The early birds get the worms, while the late comers get stuck with the leftovers." I said, continuing to my room with a wide smile, as Laurits mumbled curse words to my back.

Grabbing my bag from my desk, I unzipped it and made sure I had everything I would need for school.

Once done, I made my way back downstairs, where I could hear the radio playing the news.

"What's the weather looking like?" I asked, as I set my bag on the table to wait for Laurits to finish up.

"Clear but cold." Magne said, shoveling a spoon of cereal into his mouth.

"Good to know." I said, as our mother came in.

"Good morning dears." She said, walking into the kitchen.

"Morning mom." Me and Magne said in unison.

"Here you go." She said, handing us each a folded paper.

"Those are your transfer sheets. You will need to hand them in at the front office before they will give you your class schedules." Our mother said, before she looked around.

"Where's Laurits?" She asked.

"Still getting ready." I said, as I opened the paper and read it over.

Mom let out a sigh.

"I swear, he takes longer than any woman I have ever met to get ready." She said, before handing me another paper.

"This is his, can you please give it to him when you leave." She asked.

"Of course." I said, taking the paper.

Looking at the wall clock, I couldn't help but curse.

"Shit, we're going to be late if he doesn't hurry it up." I said, before walking to the bottom of the stairs.

"Hurry it up, Laurits!" I shouted up. "We're going to be late if you don't get a move on!"

"yeah, yeah, yeah!" I heard him respond, before the creaking of his door was heard.

We managed to get to school just in the nick of time, and turn our papers in before the bell rang.

As we looked our schedules over, it showed me and Magne actually had two classes together.

1st and 5th

While Magne had another two with Laurits, who somehow managed to skip a grade.

After a few directions from the few remaining students in the halls, we found our classroom.

Stepping in, I saw that most of the students were already seated and were talking among themselves.

"Ah, the two of you must be my new students." a man said, standing from behind his desk and making his way towards us.

Shaking his hand, I spoke.

"Yes we are." I said.

The man was about six foot, with red hair and a short beard.

"It's nice to meet you both." He said with a smile.

"I am Eric, your history teacher." He said, just before the school bell rang.

Turning away from us, Eric raised his hands.

"Alright. Quite everyone!" Mr Eric said, getting his class's attention.

"Good morning everyone." He said with a smile.

"Good morning" everyone said in unison.

Gesturing for us to stand in front of the class, Mr Eric spoke.

"I would like to introduce our two new students." Mr Eric said, before turning to us.

"Would you like to introduce yourselves? Maybe say a few words?"

We stood there for a moment not saying a word.

I gulped, as I looked straight ahead at the back wall of the room, but not wanting things to get too awkward, I scrounged up all of my courage and speak.

"H-Hello." I said haltingly. "I'm Bjørn Seier."

Pointing at my brother, I continued.

"This is my twin brother Magne." Everyone stared at us for a moment, before Magne spoke.

"I have dyslexia."

I turned to look at him.

'Really dude?' I thought.

The room filled with quiet laughter, as Mr Eric stood up from his desk he had been leaning against.

"Alright." He said with a small chuckle.

"Why don't you find your seats?" He said, turning to face the chalkboard.

Readjusting my bag on my shoulder, I saw there were two empty seats left in the room.

Waiting for Magne to pick first, I watched as he sat in the second row, with a blond girl.

Shrugging, I went to the back of the class where the only remaining seat was.

Dropping my bag onto the floor next to my seat, I sat down.

As I sat, I got a glimpse of the girl who occupied the seat next to me.

She wore somewhat baggy clothes that looked to have been worn out nearly a decade ago, with short brown hair that had bright highlights mixed in.

Leaning down, I pulled out a notebook and one of my special twirling pens.

Opening the notebook, I wrote down the class name, then flipped to the first page and wrote the date.

After that, I leaned back in my chair and started to listen to Mr Eric.

As he spoke about how Edda was the last Norwegian town to convert to Christianity, I started to twirl the pen around my fingers with ease.

"Cool trick." The girl next to me said.

Turning my head, I saw her watching the pattern I was twirling my pen in.

"Thanks." I said with a small smile, as she looked up at me.

"It helps me stay focused…if it's distracting I can stop." I said, stopping the twirling.

She smirked at me.

"It's okay." she said.

"I've just never seen someone do that before." She said, as she looked up at the chalkboard as Mr Eric wrote "Ragnarok" on it.

Which for some reason sent a chill down my spine.