Chapter Four
First Sighting
It was raining. Jessie and I hesitated outside the school's glass doors. People were pushing past us; some tried to push us out.
"Stop it!" Jessie snapped at them. "This is going to ruin my hair." She bit her lip and looked at me.
I shrugged. "School's over."
"I do have a life outside school, you know!" Jessie said and looked back towards the rain. "Well, more after school activities."
"Okay," I said and drew a breath, pushing open the glass doors.
"Tonia!" Jessie yelped, but she followed after me, holding her hands over hear head in a poor attempt to keep the water off. After a few steps, she turned on her heel and ran back into the school building.
I continued to the area where the bus picked kids up, water drumming on my head. It would mess up my straightened hair a little bit, but I didn't care. My appearance wasn't what bothered me about the rain. I was heading home, no one to look somewhat respectable for there. I just don't like getting wet.
"Hey Tonia!" Sarah shouted from behind me. She jump from the steps leading up to our school and landed in a puddle next to me, splashing me with water. She held a bright pink polka-dot umbrella with a yellow background. The colors clashed horribly in my opinion, but that was Sarah's style. She smiled at me and closed her eyes like an anime character.
I looked down at my wet pants before continuing towards the bus. Sarah followed after me, sticking headphones in her ears. She switched on a song on her MP3 player and started singing out loud. It was in Japanese. I recognized it only because she'd played it so often. Her accent was pretty bad. It wasn't that I didn't have the heart to tell her she sounded like crap. It just didn't bother me enough to do anything about it. Some people shot her looks, but people were always shooting her looks.
She followed after me and stood close enough that her umbrella covered both of us. She smiled at me again, and started singing to me.
I let my hair fall in front of my face and looked away.
That was when I saw him.
A better expression would be: that is when I saw it. He was taller than any man I'd ever seen. He was standing with his back leaning against the school building, just around the corner. I only saw his profile, but even through the rain I could see he was dressed strangely.
He wore a cape for one, and a red mask. To be honest, I thought he looked a little fruity. He lifted his hand, with two fingers pointing into the air and several strange things happened at once.
"Ouch!" Sarah shouted, yanking out her head phones.
Simultaneously, everyone's cell phones suddenly went off. People lifted their phones to answer them. Mine would have probably gone off as well, but I didn't have a cell phone. I was only a little distracted by the odd occurrence, but my eyes remained fixed on the ridiculously tall man.
"My MP3, it's acting all weird," Sarah said. "Crap, I shouldn't have brought it out in the rain!"
Above the man's two fingers, the world warped. I can't think of any other way to describe it. The air seemed to ripple, at the same time swirl and turn black. I could see weird shapes in the warp. They kinda looked like bats.
Stranger still, something came out of the swirling black warp. I couldn't catch what it was. I squinted my eyes, trying to get a better look. The warp in the air was getting smaller.
"Tonia!" Sarah grabbed my arm and started dragging me towards the bus. "Come on!"
"Wait," I tried to pull my arm out of her grip, but she was very persistent. "I just saw something weird." I turned my head back towards the school building, but the man was gone. I blinked and let Sarah haul me into the bus.
People were talking about their cell phones.
"It must have been some hacker or something," a boy I did not recognize said.
"Do you think it might be Aliens?" another kid asked. He was a small little thing. He bit his lip and looked out the bus windows, into the cloudy sky. He wore one of those stupid umbrella hats.
"Yeah, it defiantly was Aliens," Sarah mocked as she passed him. "They're going to come for you and eat your brain! Woooooh."
The kid looked towards her, horrified.
"It probably was a malfunction with the satellites," a girl said, sitting down heavily.
Sarah and I took seats towards the back. Our stop would be one of the last ones. I managed to get a window spot facing the school. I looked through it, trying to spot the tall stranger again. People that big don't just disappear.
"Hey, my MP3 is working again," Sarah said and let out an exaggerated sigh. "I don't know what I would have done without it."
He wasn't anywhere.
Weird.
Whatever.