Alyssa did get into her new dorm. Where she, Amiya and Tarlos would be staying. Her other friends, Mia Marley and Basil Dwarn, lived in their own homes.
Alyssa was an owl. She loved staying awake late into the night. Tarlos was dead asleep while Amiya was lightly snoring.
Alyssa sat on the window sill, surfing through her phone. Five new contacts had been added to her phone that day. Amiya, Tarlos, Mia, Basil and Jaden. She found her friends great people.
Even Jaden, despite being friends with all weird people like Parker Davis and Jason Rios, was amazing.
She hoped she wouldn't lose them the way she'd lost her old school friends, except Jen and Brodey.
After all, later into their Skype conversation, she'd found out that Fanny, Disper and the others... once they'd found out that she was moving, they hadn't even bothered with the basic why, where and how's. They'd just gone back to their flirting and laughing.
Alyssa sat wondering about all the differences that were creeping into her life and changing it - For the better or for the worse?
Later into the night, Alyssa fell asleep on the floor, tear glistening in her eye.
***
She woke up to Tarlos shaking her, her black hair tickling Alyssa's face. Her back felt stiff, and a ray of the morning sun floated into her vision. She blinked.
"Wassup?" she grouchily asked.
"You'll be an old lady with backache, if you sleep in that position anymore," Tarlos told her, grumpily.
Alyssa blinked, trying to clear her foggy mind. She had not understood a single word that Tarlos had said.
Meanwhile, Amiya (definitely a morning person) smiled. "Good, you were sleeping like dead. Now, rise and shine!"
Alyssa blinked again. Something was feeling highly unusual... She couldn't pinpoint it.
And then it hit her. For the first time in almost three to four weeks, she had slept without having The Playing Demon's face clouding her mind... Without Ander and Liarane's faces screaming accusations at her...
Amiya snapped her finger in front of Alyssa's face. "Earth to Liz!"
"Sorry, got a bit absent minded there. What time is it?"
"Seven. Get ready fast, baby! Oh my god, that rhymed!" she said excitedly.
She was already dressed, but Tarlos was still trying to navigate her way to the washroom without stumbling over her own clothes.
"Okay," Alyssa got up, ignoring the pain that shot through her back, right where the long scar stretched. Ready for another big day.
To her horror, first period was History. A subject she did not like. More like, the History hated her. Mrs. Farthington, though, was a nice lady, despite the nightmare of a subject that she taught.
Mia and Alyssa sat at the very last bench. Mia was a nice, friendly girl. She was a strawberry blonde with cute, dark tinted spectacles that hid her pretty gray eyes.
Mia was telling Alyssa about how her parents had yet again refused to buy her normal spects, when Mrs. Farthington walked in.
While she was checking out the attendance records, Alyssa whispered to Mia, "But I really like your spects. They're cute!"
"Oh come on, John hates them!"
John was Mia's long time boyfriend, and he definitely did not hate her spects. But still, Alyssa decided to humour Mia. "I'll tell John that you wish to change your glasses just because of him."
"Oh don't! You know I'll never hear the end of that!"
However, their pleasant talk was interrupted, as Mrs. Farthington gave them the crappiest news ever.
"Students, you'll be having a project on the two World Wars."
Most of the students gasped in horror.
"But terms just started!"
"Please no!"
"Why?!"
Shots ensued in the class, despite everyone knowing that protesting would be useless.
"Quiet," Mrs. Farthington bellowed. "Now, this will be a different kind of project. Not written, but an audio-visual one."
The class immediately became quiet, as if that was new to them. It wasn't to Alyssa, though. She had done a similar project with Jen. And it had been fun.
However, her excitement soon lowered and went to absolute nil as the pairings were called out.
God must've really hated her. After having played with her for so long, he was playing with her again. Because she was paired off with none but Jason Rios.
Mia gave her a sad smile. She knew what had happened the first day, after all.
Alyssa looked towards Jason, as he sat with one of his hooligan friends, Parker Davis.
She and been worried that he would remember her and throw a tantrum over the pairing. But...he did no such thing. In fact, he didn't show any indication that he was even interested. He didn't even turn back. He just continued writing...whatever he was writing.
And unfortunately for Alyssa, this History project just happened to be a difference between life and death for her.