CHEMISTRY CLASS PRISON
The classroom. Chemistry. Nothing to do.
I am a teenage boy, sitting in the front row. I watch the clock in the corner of the room. Tick – tick – tick – the second hand goes by. Seconds later, I am still sitting in the front row. I am still in chemistry class. I just sit there, doing nothing, saying nothing.
I begin to daydream. I begin to daydream of a cemetery.
The cemetery. Nighttime. Shrouded in mist.
The graveyard gate opened, creaking. A man stepped through the gate, through the metal archway, into the cemetery.
In the front of the room, the teacher explains something, droning on and on and on. He speaks slowly. His dull voice hurts our ears.
"As you can see on the periodic chart," he says, "Sodium, or Na, is in group one."
The teacher continues to waste our time.
"This makes it an alkali metal," he says. "You may notice that sodium's atomic number is eleven. Now, alkali metals have one valence electron."
Gravestones were aligned in rows from the metal gate to the horizon. Surrounding him, all around him, graves covered the ground, spread as far as the eye could see. Fog blanketed the graveyard, surrounding the graves with white mist. Above the mist, in the starry sky, the full moon glowed.
The girl next to me is doodling in her notebook. Two guys behind me are talking about a computer game. Some students are passing notes.
No one passes notes to me. No one talks to me. In the classroom, I just sit there, trying to ignore everything.
The full moon glowed.
Nervously, the man looked around. His breath was unsteady. Swiftly, he walked through the graveyard, surrounded by mist. He nearly stumbled over a gravestone. Wide eyed, he looked over his shoulder.
Something was watching him.
"Now, with this particular problem," the teacher says, going over the homework, "The book was asking for you to define the characteristics of halogens."
Minutes later, I am still sitting in the front row, doing nothing, saying nothing. I am trapped, forced to stay in my seat.
"Now, for the next problem," the teacher says, "We're looking at ions and electron orbitals."
This is torture. Torment. Agony. I try to ignore everything. I try to daydream.
Something was watching him.
The air was cold, chilling him. The grass, wet and slippery, glistened in the pale moonlight. In the distance, an owl hooted.
The man kept moving, walking between gravestones. His foot slipped, and he slid to the wet ground. Breathing heavily, he stood up, his legs damp and aching. He kept moving.
Ions and electron orbitals.
Let me out of here. I want to shout. I want to run. I want to break free.
"Now, these two elements are exceptions," says the teacher, "But we will move to the next problem. Number fifty-seven."
An intelligent girl raises her hand to ask a question.
"Excuse me," she says, "But could you explain why there is an exception for determining the number of electrons in that specific orbital?"
I squirm in my seat. I want to get out of here.
"I wouldn't worry about that," says the teacher. "I'm not going to put something like that on the test."
"Yes," says the intelligent girl, "But–"
The teacher just says, "Now for number fifty-seven."
The man kept moving.
The mist seemed to part around him, enclosing him in a circle. The sky above twinkled with stars. A cloud crossed over the moon, and the graveyard grew darker. In the distance, the cemetery gate creaked and closed shut.
Something was following him.
"In this problem," says the teacher, "The book is asking you to tell what halogens are like."
The teacher continues to talk about last night's homework.
Something was following him.
The man hurried through the cemetery. His leg slid, he fell, and he ended up kneeling before a specific tombstone. The man's eyes grew wide. His mouth opened.
A name was carved on the tombstone.
I sit in my seat, doing nothing, saying nothing.
"Oh, pardon me," says the teacher. "We already did that problem."
This is cruel and unusual punishment.
A name was carved on the tombstone.
The man stared at the tombstone. On the tombstone, written, carved, engraved, was his own name. His very own name.
The man was already dead.
Ions and electron orbitals.
I squirm in my seat.
This is prison.
seeing as you were talking about your story on chat the other night I thought I'd check it out! I wasn't disappointed either, I think you have written this really well and the italics work fine in showing a different subject 
