The carpet was rough against Tina's cheek, the artificially coloured red fibres tattooing chaotic patterns onto her skin. Through the carpet, rotten wooden boards groaned the muffled steps making an erratic journey towards where she lay. She cracked her eyes open to view the blurry scene of her mother stumbling into the room. Her mother's ankle of pale, brown skin was tinted in a corpse-like grey creating a perfect canvas for the blue and swollen veins snaking beneath it. Tina winced as a kick clumsily collided with her ribs from the sickly foot.
"Get up," her mother snarled into the lip of a mug, she could smell the harsh odour of alcohol and coffee from her place on the carpet. "Lazy ass, never should'a kept it," was grumbled quieter on the woman's walk out after making sure to step on Tina's left hand along the way.
Tina twisted onto her back. Her dark curly hair tangled with the carpet fibres in a complex dance, well-practised in the motions, the blood pumping in her aching hand creating their rhythm. The room she lay in was a sad excuse for a living room. The couch was handed down from so many people that she could see their silhouettes still engraved in the damp, moulding spots on the chair. There was a fireplace covered in dust and a plastic chandelier draped in cobwebs tinkling over her head with every step her mother made upstairs. Why the house needed a fireplace in the tropical region, Tina did not know.
A bang sounded behind the couch and Tina turned her head to the sliver between the couch and the floor to view black dress shoes shuffling in the dim and dingy bathroom. The stench of smoke and something decomposing glided through the living room. She took in a deep breath of the smell. The suffocating stench was her strange comfort, the only thing she enjoyed about her father's presence. As the scent filled her lungs, a wonderful force pulled her securely into the carpet and a satisfied sigh slowly exited her lips.
"Not dressed for work yet?" He asked such alien questions, completely forgetting that Tina was still in secondary school. Snatching the collar of her cotton shirt, he hauled her onto her knees. "Get going!"
Tina slumped where she kneeled, mourning the loss of her only comfort, and he stomped up the stairs after the scent of alcohol and coffee. Raucous laughter fringed by screams of terror followed the heavy footsteps. Tina never could tell the difference between the terror and the joy. Either way, this was her queue to clean up as best as she could manage and shuffle to school.
Tina clambered through her suitcase, she was not allowed a room, and rinsed her face in the bathroom. Each movement completed in a quiet, rehearsed daze. After the miserable routine, she creaked the front door open. While dragging her curls into a puffy ponytail, she stepped into the dismal front garden filled with hard dirt and dead weeds. There, more smoke and a harsher scent waited for her. She froze in the doorway, her hand limp on the handle, and sent a perplexed gaze at the two strangers beyond the rickety fence.
"Good morning!" The shorter girl of the two said sunnily, cheeks flush with joy and plump with entitlement to that happiness. The other, slim in a way that a jaguar hides its true strength, gave a curt nod and shifted an inch forward to protect her companion.
Tina could not move. The taller girl gave off an aura that seemed to engulf Tina in despair and terror, like a baby deer before a cougar. Trapped between fawning and fleeing, her hand trembled, setting the loosely screwed door handle rattling like a faraway bell. A wisp of wind tussled the girl's equally curly but jaw-length hair, highlighted with red streaks that complemented her deep golden-brown skin radiant in the sun. Her eyes burned with hostility, but something else that split a straight line down her irises shimmered within those near obsidian mirrors. Tina did not catch what it was before she turned her gaze back to her companion and encouraged them to move along.
Frozen to the porch front, she waited for the two girls to descend the hill many metres away before following them. They wore the same burgundy skirt and cream-coloured shirt as she did. Contrary to her though, their burgundy cardigans were tied about their waists. Tina picked at the school emblem on the left breast of the light sweater as she followed them to the end of the hill, a nervous habit she only used around her peers, who were much less peers and more people she happened to be in the same environment with.
Tugging the typical school tote bag closer to her side, the only thing she ever bought for herself, she gingerly walked by the security guard. She had convinced herself that she needed only the essentials, two notebooks, a pen and pencil, one eraser, a ruler and a calculator, all stolen as she had spent her only allowance on the bag.
At the gate, other students hustled and bustled about, the noise of their chatter deafening. The beginning of the school year was always a mess. Keeping her eyes on the immediate path before her, she continued to follow behind the hostile girl, occasionally losing her in the sea of bodies. Her shorter companion had already been whisked away by the fray.
Tina finally realised where she had seen the girl before. She was Lei-selle Abaddon, she lived in the house at the very apex of the hill. Behind the house stood a huge tree which dwarfed the building. Of what little she saw of Lei-selle the year before, she seemed well respected by the whole school. However, this year, there was a new look in the glances of her peers. A look of anticipation drew every eye toward the girl with red-streaked hair and antipathetic eyes. The air around Lei-selle also seemed filled with something belligerent directed at her from every gaze as a forbidden space was made around her as she glided through the crowd.
Jealous of Lei-selle's newfound respect, Tina crushed the handles of her tote bag in her small hands as people pressed in on her from all sides.
"Two more years, that's all it is," Tina whispered the reassurance to herself. But the concept of those two years loomed before her mind's eye like a cobra snake hovering over a mouse, coiled and ready to strike at any sudden movement.
Every time someone shoved into Tina, a searing electricity shot through her from the point of contact. At least the pain was dulled by the cardigan which acted as her shield against the bodies that squeezed against her. In a breath of relief, she fell in behind Lei-selle and her unspoken bubble of apprehension to escape the compression of the herd. Tina became the new subject of the furtive glances sent Lei-selle's way and leers of approval which she could not decode were also directed at her. Lei-selle tossed an absent glance over her shoulder down at Tina and then continued walking.
Out of the crowd tumbled a large boy one head taller than Lei-selle. He attempted to through an arm over her shoulder, but she ducked it just in time.
"Don't touch me, Cozbi," Lei-selle said curtly, straightening the backpack on her shoulders.
"That hurts my feelings," a light French accent flirted with his words, he placed a hand over his chest in a tender gesture and Tina glimpsed the mock hurt in his playful expression. "Have you decided yet? Hmm?"
Lei-selle stopped in the middle of the stairs to the main school hall and looked him up and down. Her eyes ran over his foreign features for a moment then to the rest of his physique. He had dark skin and even darker hair that twinkled with flecks of blonde, and his broad shoulders and strong chin gave him an intimidating appearance. She stood right behind them, transfixed by Lei-selle's careful observation of the boy. Cozbi, as Tina assumed he was called, raised a hand to make his already fluffy hair fluffier.
Lei-selle snorted rudely at him. "Lunchtime, table in front of the clock."
"Yes!" Cozbi pulled his fist toward him in a gesture of triumph. "I won't be late!"
With an annoyed roll of her eyes, Lei-selle continued into the hall, Tina hot on her heels. They took a sharp right to the stairs that led to the upper school classes. There Lei-selle spun round and seized Tina's collar, bringing her up to her eye level. In a panic, Tina grabbed her wrist to try to steady herself as she dangled helplessly over the stairs. The students in the immediate area hurried by to avoid Lei-selle's attention.
"The hell are you following me for, tiny?" Lei-selle's breath was hot against her face.
Tina took a hard gulp to clear her throat, her eyes sporadically running over Lei-selle's features not knowing where to look. She dumbly croaked out, "I have class this way."
"The hell you do," Lei-selle spat. "I don't want to see you for the rest of the year, you hear me?"
Tina could only nod in response. Lei-selle tossed her aside, wiped her hand off on her sleeve in disgust then stomped over to the next flight of stairs. Tina held onto the railing for balance, waiting for her to disappear onto the next floor.
"Shitty Mixers," reached Tina's ears as she waited and an unknown feeling ignited in her at the foreign word.
Brushing off the strange emotion, Tina carefully made her way to the second floor and reached her Humanities and Sciences form room right behind her form teacher, Miss Chou. She had encountered Miss Chou last year when she transferred to Aalish Secondary School. The lady was severe, to say the least, with sharp eyes that accentuated her high cheekbones. She was of obvious Japanese heritage, frequently coming to teach in elaborate hairstyles that offset her regular business attire. Today, Miss Chou wore Shimada Mage stylized with a golden comb to complement her beige pantsuit. Tina mused that the students' comments on her choice of colours and styling finally got to her.
"Sit!" Miss Chou commanded, and everybody rushed to a desk. However, Tina took one second too long for Miss Chou, "Libitina! Find a seat or I will make you seated for the rest of your miserable life!"
"Yes, Miss Chou," Tina mumbled and scurried to the only available seat smack in the middle of the classroom.
"Do not chew your words like gum," Miss Chou must always have the last word. "Now, I hope you did not have too much fun over the July-August vacation, it will distract you from the torture of your final two years at this school. You are in Lower Six now and I have the utmost pleasure of breaking every one of you to fit into university standards, for both gruelling years to come."
The class collectively stifled a groan and looked on attentively to their teacher now turned dungeon master.