Chapter 2: First Sightings
by HA
"You think Henrietta will be okay?" Nadia asked as she poked at her pile of peas.
Kendra did the same and frowned at their extreme softness. "She hasn't been back to class ever since she fainted."
"Are they even sure this is food?" Oliver remarked as he eyed what seemed to be a carrot on his fork.
Kendra looked at Oliver and sighed. "Can we please focus?"
Oliver grinned sheepishly and put his fork down. "Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood here."
Kendra and her friends sat at a table in the section of the cafeteria mostly populated by the grade nines as they ate their school lunches. Actually, they talked more than ate since they distrusted the edibleness of their food, and Henrietta was the main topic. Kendra had helped carry her to the nurse's office. Around them, their schoolmates ate, talked, gossiped, and occasionally looked towards their table with looks that said "This is all your fault." Kendra ignored them.
"You think the school called her parents?" Nadia asked.
"They had to, right?" Oliver said.
"Her Dad and Mom've been out of town for a week," Kendra said after drinking from her water glass. "Some big religious conference in Ottawa, she said."
"She woke up?" Oliver said as his fork fell onto his tray, making a loud clang.
"Yeah," Kendra answered.
"So why hasn't she been back to class?" Nadia asked.
Kendra paused with her dinner roll waiting to be bitten into. "She said she still wasn't feeling well," she said quickly.
"Oh, okay," Nadia said.
Kendra looked at her roll and put it down. "I'm going to see her now," she said, scooping up her rolls. Seeing Oliver looking at her, she said, "What? They're the only things edible."
"Here," Nadia said with a grin as he handed over her rolls.
Oliver looked at his rolls, sighed, and gave his to Kendra. "At least the mashed potatoes look edible," he said as he poked the pile of white mush before him with his fork.
"Thanks, guys," Kendra said. She wrapped the bread in a napkin, and without looking at the people staring at her from all around the cafeteria, she left with her small bundle and her backpack slung over her shoulder.
"Damn it," Toby Isaacs muttered under his breath. "Not again."
For the umpteenth time, the computer screen before him had gone fuzzy. It flickered and flashed rapidly before his eyes, and he couldn't make out the text he had been reading. Looking around, he saw the same thing happen to the other computers as screen savers became flashing mosaics. He also saw he was the only one in the computer lab, and he let out a mournful sigh.
Toby had been thankful Mr. Simpson had allowed him to stay in the computer lab for lunch. Ever since the school shooting, people tended to give him funny looks and not talk to him. Well, they talked about him, but he didn't like what he heard. "Look, there's the kid who was friends with the school shooter," he heard one time. "Think he'll snap, too?" he heard another time.
He shook his head and checked his monitor. Still fuzzy and flickering. He frowned, and despite his love for computers, he wished someone else was here. However, he knew Emma was with Manny, and J.T. was with Danny and Liberty. He couldn't help but shake his head and grin. J.T. and Liberty...it took them forever to hook up. Things have sure changed...
He sighed. Change...the only constant in life. Degrassi had been an ordinary Canadian school with the usual teen angst. Toby knew this well; his stepsister Ashley tended to be involved, and he had his own share in the past. Just your typical growing pains until a kid he called a friend went postal and shot someone.
He knew about Rick's past from what he heard from the school rumor mill, but when he looked at him, he looked harmless. Didn't look like a girlfriend beater. Heck, they shared the same interests. It had been good to relate to someone since J.T. started hanging out with the cooler crowd, and it really helped since he and Kendra broke up...
He sighed again. Kendra. He wondered what went wrong. She had said he was always crowding her. He had made an effort to cut down on that, but he had hoped she would go to the same summer camp with him. Sure, he went as a counselor, but he thought there wouldn't be a problem. She must've seen one because after telling her, they slowly drifted apart, and his first romantic relationship ended in a whimper rather than a bang. He would see her in the hallway with Nadia and other kids from her grade, but every time he wanted to talk to her, his stomach would bubble, and he ended up walking without another glance at her. Still, he wished he had someone to talk to. Heck, he wished his monitor would stop acting up.
"Hee hee hee...maybe you need to hurt them back."
Toby blinked and looked around again. Sure enough, he was still alone among the flickering computer monitors, and Mr. Simpson said he would be back before the end of lunch. The strange voice had come out of nowhere, and he wondered if he was imagining it.
"Yes, yes. You need to hurt them for hurting you."
The words echoed through his head. Toby wondered if the loneliness was getting to him.
"You got hurt. Hurt them back. Make them all pay. Master will help you," the voice whispered.
Toby looked around the room again. "OK, is this some kind of joke?"
"Hee hee hee. Me sense your pain. Master can help you."
Toby frowned and wondered if this was one of J.T.'s pranks. Heck, he wondered if Spinner was the mastermind, then remembered he had been expelled. He looked at his monitor and gasped. Aside from the jumbled content and flickering, he could've sworn two red eyes were there.
"Hee hee hee. Me almost done here, but me think me tell Master all about you, Toby," the monitor said, the two red eyes narrowing. Before Toby could ask how the voice knew his name, it said, "Me know everything about you and everyone else here now, Toby. Master will get the other boy first, and maybe he get you later, hee hee hee."
Toby pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. "OK, I must be losing it..."
"Hee hee hee, me done now. Me help Master, and maybe Master will help you later, Toby. Bye-bye."
"Toby?"
Toby's head shot out from behind the monitor and saw a short-haired Chinese girl standing there with a small wrapped bundle. "Kendra?"
She smiled sheepishly. "Been a while, huh?"
Toby stared at his monitor. The web page he had been looking back was back in order. No pair of red eyes was present. "Yeah...yeah, it has." He looked around and saw that all of the screen savers on the other computers were working normally.
"Something wrong?" Kendra asked, looking around with him.
"Oh, I'm fine," Toby said quickly, although he still wondered what had just happened. "Hey, are you shivering?"
Kendra looked at herself and noticed a little shaking going through her body. "A little. Must be the air conditioning in here," she said as she straightened herself out. Actually, the shaking has begun as she was walking towards the nurse's office. It had intensified when she had spotted Toby all alone in the computer lab. Curiosity got the best of her as she walked in to see why her ex-boyfriend wasn't in the cafeteria or outside. She sensed the loneliness in him. "You sure you're all right?"
For a while, no one spoke. They hadn't spoken since the summer, and they stared at each other.
"Yeah, I'm sure," Toby said finally, dismissing the previous events as a figment of his imagination, although a part of him was still unsure about that, and he found the silence reassuring compared to an evil voice telling him to hurt people. However, it was nice Kendra was talking to him despite their breakup and the recent shooting...
"Sorry about Spinner," he blurted out, and the wince on his face told her he quickly regretted what he said.
Kendra sighed. "Yeah." Her feelings on him were split. He was her brother, but what he did...
More silent staring followed. Toby couldn't take it, and this time he was careful with his words. "So where are you going?"
"Going to check on a friend at the nurse's office, and I thought I'd bring some food for her," she answered, showing the small bundle she had.
Toby looked at it. "The rolls, huh? Good thing I brought lunch." He paused. "Say..."
Kendra watched as he dug through his backpack at his feet and pulled out an almost full brown bag with his name on it. "Please don't tell me you're trying to starve yourself thin again," she commented.
"Nah. Just wasn't hungry much." Toby stood up and held out the crumpled bag. "I hope your friend doesn't mind a carton of fruit juice and two brownies. Ate my sandwich and bag of chips before coming here, though."
"I'm sure she won't mind," Kendra said. "Say, why don't you come with me? It's good to be looking up stuff on Anipike," she said, looking at Toby's computer screen, "but it'd be nice to have some company."
"Yeah..." Toby looked around at the almost-emptiness of the room. "Guess you're right. I hope you don't mind, though."
"Hey, just because we broke up doesn't mean we have to hate each other, right?" Kendra said as Toby closed his browser window.
"Right," Toby said as he slung his backpack over his shoulder, and he followed her out. Before he exited, he took one last look at the computers, and once he saw them displaying their screen savers without any trouble, he made sure to lock the door behind him and continued on his way.
"An interesting choice of food," Henrietta said as she looked over one roll while sitting up on the examination table with the rest of the donated food lying in her lap.
"Sorry, but that's all the edible food we had to spare," Kendra said with a smile.
"I highly recommend the brownies," Toby said.
"Thank you," Henrietta said softly. "I appreciate what you've done for me." As she took up a roll to eat, she looked at Toby through half-opened green eyes. "So, you're her ex-boyfriend."
"Um, er, yeah," Toby said, blushing a little.
"Feeling better?" Kendra asked quickly as Henrietta finished her rolls.
"I am now," she answered before drinking from the fruit juice carton with a thin plastic straw and swallowing loudly. "It's not here anymore."
"Er, what's not here?" Kendra asked.
Henrietta swallowed the mouthful of brownie she had been chewing on. "The thing from the darkness. Surely you felt it."
Toby paused. "Is she like this all the time?" he whispered to Kendra.
"Yeah, she always talks about light and darkness in people's hearts," Kendra whispered back as the frizzy-haired girl wolfed down the brownies between sips of juice, "but she never talked about things coming from the darkness before."
Toby recalled the voice from the computer lab. "Er, does she say she hears voices?" he whispered.
"Not since I've known her," Kendra answered. "Why do you ask?"
Toby stammered. "Er, um...nothing..."
"You heard voices?" Henrietta said to Toby, who nearly jumped in place.
"You could hear us?" Toby said.
"Not that hard," Henrietta said, "and Kendra is right. I like to talk about the light and darkness in each of us. However..." She paused, and her lip trembled. "I don't like what came here. It came from the darkness." Her eyes focused on Toby. "You have a strong light, too."
"OK..." Toby said, staring at the frizzy-haired girl.
"You'd better be careful, though," Henrietta added. "You're very vulnerable." She looked at both of them. "We all are," she added solemnly.
"Um, sure..." Toby said, his eyes getting wider behind his glasses. He edged slowly towards the door, which immediately flew open, nearly knocking over.
Hearing heavy panting, Kendra turned around and saw Oliver standing in the doorway. He was holding himself up against the doorway and held a carton of milk in his other hand while his backpack hung over his shoulder.
"Oliver?" she said, staring at him. "What are you...?"
"Thought...Henrietta...could...use...a drink..." Oliver said between gulps of air as he held up the milk carton while looking at Kendra.
"I'm good," Henrietta said, smiling as she showed Oliver her juice carton. "Toby was kind enough to donate his drink."
"Toby?" Oliver looked around and saw Toby. "Oh, so you're Kendra's ex," he said after looking over him.
Toby raised an eyebrow at Kendra. "You told every one of your friends about me?"
"They asked," Kendra replied with a grin. "Henrietta, you feeling better?"
"Sure," Henrietta answered.
"We might as well head for our next class," Oliver said. "Lunch is almost over."
Kendra looked at the clock on the wall. "You're right. We'd better get going."
The four teens left the nurse's office as the hallway began to fill with students. As Henrietta walked behind everyone else, Oliver kept pace with Kendra as she talked with Toby.
"You know, if you squeeze a little harder, you might break that," Henrietta commented.
Oliver looked down and saw how tightly he was holding his milk carton. He relaxed his grip, and when he looked at Kendra and Toby talking, he frowned.
They made their way to the front of the school. Then, they stopped walking. "Uh, guys, we have to get going. Class," Oliver said. Looking around the hallway, he saw the rest of the students walking along while Toby and his two friends were looking out the glass doors. Kendra was shivering, and Henrietta looked like she was about to faint.
Kendra couldn't believe her eyes. A short dark figure with drooping rabbit-like ears stood at the bottom of the stairs. It hunched over with its long arms hanging at its sides. It wiggled its sharp claws and looked back with red eyes while grinning maliciously. A man with a dog passed by and didn't notice it as he went on his way. How couldn't he see that? she wondered.
Toby watched as the creature giggled as it pointed at him. Its grin grew wider, and a grim chuckle escaped from the corners of its mouth.
"Toby," Kendra whispered as her shivering got under control, "it's pointing at you."
"It is," Henrietta said, still staring at the creature.
Before Toby could reply, the creature turned around and ran away. Kendra started to walk towards the door as the creature ran, but Oliver stepped into her path. "Hey, we got class, remember?" he said.
"Huh?" Kendra blinked as if coming out of a trance. "Oliver, did you see it?"
Oliver looked through the glass doors. "See what? The guy with the dog?"
"How could you miss it?" Toby said.
"Miss what?" Oliver scratched his head.
Kendra looked out. The creature was gone.
Oliver gave everyone a funny look. "Are you guys OK?"
Henrietta stared through the glass doors. "Darkness is emerging," she said faintly.
Around the four kids, the sea of students continued to move.
