Rayne was struck by the gloomy atmosphere as soon as he entered the class.
No one was chattering and laughing as usual. They were either staring off into space or looking at their phones.
Though there were quiet whispers among friends, voicing their concerns and dissatisfaction.
Even Mrs. Pritchett looked listless.
Rayne went straight to his seat at the middle left side of the classroom. It was close to the only window in the classroom.
The late bell rang and Mrs. Pritchett began to teach with little enthusiasm.
While scrolling through reddits, discords, and twitter pages, Rayne would occasionally look up to observe everyone around him.
It was a habit he develop after that experience 3 years ago.
The past few times he did it, he didn't notice anything strange or out of the ordinary when he looked up.
This time was different.
The girl two desks in-front of him was checking her reflection using her phones front camera.
After fixing her hair a bit, she lowered her head and began to text someone..
If he wasn't paying such close attention, he wouldn't have noticed it. Her shadow, it paused. As if it was having trouble following her movements. It lagged behind her every movement. The delay was short, but clear.
A shudder ran through him. Rayne's heart dropped and he couldn't breathe.
He hurriedly looked away. His heart thumped madly. A cold sweat started to cover him. His thoughts were all over the place. His body trembled. He wanted to run. He wanted to leave the school. He was scared.
He was excited. He was right. He wasn't crazy.
Rayne began to take deep breaths to control himself, but it barely did anything. He slowly raised his own hand and watched his shadow mirror his movements with rapt attention.
There was no delay.
A few people around him noticed his weird actions, but just scowled at him.
Rayne didn't want to look up anymore so he looked at his phone and tried to act as if nothing was wrong.
He went on his phone and began to rapidly sift through websites and articles.
Eventually he found an article titled 'Changeling Stock'.
The more he read, the more his fear grew.
This was the closest match to what he was seeing, although he wasn't fully sure. Inside that girls shadow was likely a fae. They could come in many forms and were either malicious or reasonable, few were inherently good.
These supernatural creatures would sometimes pick a victim, usually a young child then kidnap or consume them. They would then assume the identity of the child.
In order to get close to the child they would shapeshift into something close to them, be it an inanimate object...or their shadow.
Rayne continued to research until the class ended and left as fast as he could while trying to look normal.
He felt pathetic.
It was not as if Rayne didn't want to help the girl or say something, but he was truly terrified. He couldn't deal with the creature by himself and the girl, Isis, likely wouldn't have even believed him. Or maybe he was just making excuses for himself.
As he walked to his next class he was able to calm down a bit more and think more rationally.
'I can't stay at school. I have to leave and find mom. I need a plan'
Rayne wasn't firm in his decision to leave his school. He was terrified of what he would find out there.
Even if a lot of people in school didn't like him, there was safety in numbers. As long as he was careful, he could probably remain relatively safe. But then again how many people in the school have already been taken? Was there really any safety in numbers in a situation like this?
But he also wanted to protect his mother. He couldn't leave her by herself.
He was scared, torn, and confused, so he decided to give himself more time to think.
He would give himself four days to decide and make a plan of action.
He would check in on his mom every day and note down every strange occurrence the he sees. If he sees more than four, he would definitely leave. He would also check the internet for any news about what is happening and the scale of it.
'Okay, I got it. That's the plan'
Although Rayne felt a lot better than before, all his other classes up to 6th period went by in a flash of anxiety, fear, and worry.
6th period was his Spanish class and the teacher was always nice, so he tried his best seem interested. But today he just couldn't.
The class ended after a while and a lot of students left to wander the hallways or find their friends.
Rayne was also one of them. He wanted to see Navia desperately. He texted her to wait for him in her class till he got there.
Rayne walked towards the literature hall. When he arrived, Navia was sitting and talking to two of her friends, Carly and Sam.
Neither of them really liked Rayne, but they weren't really mean to him either.
Rayne sat down at the desk in-front of all three of them and forced out a smile.
"Hey girls, what's up?", he asked.
"Nothing really. We don't know what to do anymore," Carly said with a sigh.
"Yeah, we can't do much other than sit on our phones or walk around," Sam added.
"What do you think happened? A chemical leak? Nuclear war? A zombie apocalypse?" Sam joked.
Carly and Navia laughed, but Rayne couldn't bring himself too.
"Can you guys tell me if you see anything strange or see anything on the internet?" Rayne asked.
"Sure," Navia answered for all of them.
The girls continued to talk and Rayne opened the notes app on his phone. He began to jot down things he would need if he wanted to leave.
'I think I need a notebook. It would be really hard to find a place to charge my phone once the power goes out until I find a generator. Damn, I sound paranoid as fuck.'
Rayne got up and asked Navia's literature teacher for a notebook.
Mr. Peterson was shocked to see someone asking for a notebook in this situation. He thought that students wouldn't consider their grades important. That they would use the "stress" as an excuse.
He felt a little touched.
Mr. Peterson didn't have any more spiral notebooks, but he bought a cool looking journal for the person in his class that scored the best on their end of course exam.
He figured it didn't matter anyway, so he opened the drawer on his desk and handed it to Rayne.
"You can have this if you want," said Mr. Peterson.
"Thanks, I really appreciate it."
Rayne looked at the journal in his hand as he walked back.
It was a dark brown leather bound journal. He felt it looked kind of cool, but was embarrassed for Navia to see it. He felt it would make him look cringey.
Rayne looked up to see Navia and a guy named Mark, chatting and laughing, and suddenly the notebook didn't seem all that important anymore.
Rayne didn't feel like walking over there anymore so he went to a corner to sit.
Rayne felt jealous. He didn't hate Mark, in-fact he thought he was a nice guy, except he was Navia's crush.
Rayne sighed and got back to work on his plan.