Author's Notes:
Hi! I know this is late (sorry) I got back from Paris super late last night and haven't had much time to edit either. I should probably be more organised but whatever. Also, I'm going to try to participate in my own version of NaNoWriMo (I'm not starting a whole new story just for it), so hopefully my updates will be longer/more frequent.
Mike's POV:
I wake up in the middle of the night, twisted in my bedsheets. My dark curls cling damply to the side of my face. Drowsy, I slowly come to my senses, realising that I am too hot. Increasingly frantic, I struggle to untangle myself, suddenly feeling trapped. With a thud, I find myself on the floor beside my bed. But I'm finally free from my sheets, and before I know what is happening, I am asleep again. It all happens in such a quick blur that the dream that I'd woken from is left all but forgotten. A strange girl with angry, brown eyes disappears behind closed eyelids.
I wake when the room floods with light. Groaning, I throw my arm over my eyes, but not before seeing Will standing before the window.
"Will," I complain, "Let me sleep!" It's the last day before school starts again, my last chance to get a decent night's sleep. But for some reason, I feel as though I've barely slept at all. A distant memory tickles at the back of my mind, a dream I can't quite catch. Annoyed, I roll over and try to go back to sleep. Will apologises and closes the window again, but it only takes a few minutes for me to give up anyway.
Will leaves the room and I change clothes. A few minutes later, I walk out into the hall, turning around slowly as I realise I'm completely alone.
"Will!" I call as I walk a few paces to knock on the other boys' door. No one answers, and when I try the handle, it's locked. I knock impatiently on the door. Great. They've abandoned me. I hover in the hallway for a few minutes, half expecting someone to come back. When no one does, I conclude that they must have left to find Max so I head towards the girl's dorms.
Although guys and girls can't share a dorm room, the teachers aren't strict about visiting each other so long as you don't break curfew rules. Lucas never said whether or not he found out Max's room number, so I decide to just start at the top and work my way down. After 5 minutes, I'm thoroughly pissed. I don't know where anyone is, and I really don't feel like walking around the school until I find my friends. I'm just about to turn around and go back to my room when I hear footsteps behind me.
Surprised and slightly hopeful, I spin around. The girl who stands in front of me is not familiar. Instead, she looks completely out of place. She stands in a colourful playsuit, her brown hair hanging just above her shoulders. Her brown eyes stare into my soul, making me shiver slightly. Suddenly I feel strange… do I know her somehow?
"Uh, hi. I'm Mike," I say, taking a few hesitant steps towards the girl who looks about ready to run away. "I'm looking for my friends, have you seen any people come through here?" She shakes her head, inching closer to me.
"I'm looking for my friend," her voice catches on that word, "too. She was going to introduce to me her other friends but I got… lost." She trails off. Her voice is quite and hesitant, as though she's not used to talking.
"Are you new?" I ask, "I can help you, where did she say she was going?" She nods her head.
"She said her friends would meet us in the AV room. I don't know what that is." The AV room? Usually that's the go-to hang out spot of me and my friends. The Audio-Visual room is filled with nerdy communication technology that no one in the school cares for. I instantly start feeling a bit defensive, worried that a safe space for our group is about to be invaded by random people. Trying to shrug off the feeling, I focus my attention back to the girl.
"The AV room? Your sure?" she nods. "Okay then, follow me." I wait a few beats for the girl to catch up to me before heading back down the hall. The av room is in another building, so it takes a good ten minutes to finally get to it. Waiting outside, I indicate for the girl to open the door. She seems anxious, but swings it open quickly anyway. I ponder making a joke about how there aren't going to be monsters behind it, but my words catch in my throat when I see my friends filling the room.
"You could have at least told me where you were going!" I call out, pushing past the girl as I storm into the room. Simultaneously, the rest of the party looks up with varying levels of guilt on their face.
"I took, what, 5 minutes to get ready? You couldn't just wait." I'm actually so pissed.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Dustin says, his hands flying to his head in panic.
"Shit!" he yells again, turning to face Lucas. "I told you we should have waited! You said he wouldn't be upset!" Why am I not surprised it was Lucas who chose to abandon me for his girlfriend.
Said girlfriend is avoiding looking at me, clearly feeling pretty bad. Max chooses instead to fiddle with the cords of a pair of headphones. That is, until she looks up and her expression changes to that of clear surprise.
"Eleven?" she says, standing up and looking past me at the small girl, who I had completely forgotten about. Looking back at her, I can see that she is standing before the threshold of the door, having backed up after my outburst.
"Eleven?" I ask, turning my body so I'm directing all of my attention at the girl. "Is that your name?" She nods, her eyes meeting mine.
"Eleven, okay. Well, I'm Mike, short for Michael. Maybe we can call you El, short for Eleven?" She nods again smiling a bit. Max coughs loudly, deliberately drawing attention back to her.
"This is Eleven, everyone. She's my roommate." She walks up to Eleven, linking arms with her. "I'm so sorry I left you back there, I thought you were following me and then when I realised you weren't, I couldn't find you!" El smiles and shrugs. The rest of the room looks curiously at the girl, probably wondering what on earth is going on. I know I'm confused.
Skipping a few steps to catch up to Eleven, I finally connect the dots that my group of friends is the one that Eleven was talking about. She was looking for Max.
"Have you ever used this sort of equipment?" I ask Eleven, gesturing to the various microphones, headphones and other pieces of equipment laid out on the table in front of us. She looks up at me and shakes her head.
"Well, it's for communicating with people. We can change to different frequencies- different channels- to listen to radios and stuff. What were you guys doing here anyway?" I turn to face the rest of the group.
"Mr Clarke said he was getting new equipment in, it hasn't arrived yet though." Dustin says peering curiously at the new girl- Eleven. Her hair is short and brown, curling halfway up her neck. Her face is quite round with high cheekbones. I find myself tuning out of the conversation happening around me, and instead watching El. Gauging her reactions to everything. She seems uncertain but not necessarily uncomfortable, sticking close to me and Max. I guess she hasn't known us long, but she's known Dustin, Lucas and Will for an even shorter time.
She's really quite pretty.