We are the Damned - Chapter Three

A brilliant sapphire streaks across the dark sky, pulled by the sun and escaping the sleeping Earth’s icy grasp. My visions say this is the time of day when the Earth only just begins to gain warmth, when barely anything braves the subzero temperatures, no matter the circumstance.

Apparently, they have decided that I am critically insane, and need to be put in a mental hospital, because I am determined to catch my death of cold, which, all in all, is not a spectacular first impression of the human race, if they think that. They may be weak enough to fall to their knees at this temperature, but personally, I find it no more than a cool relief, my escape from the Mantle's scorching, bright flames of darkness.

In the distance, a dog barks, its raspy throat’s residue breaking the untarnished haze of silence. “Shut it, you,” I snarl at the creature, ignoring the voice in my head that tells me, "No, get away from it!" and the dog whimpers at the sound of my voice, shrinking into the shadows.

After a few moments of blissful silence, the dog barks again, though quieter, and paws at the ground, making its way towards someone.

Towards me.

Hurriedly, I scurry away, heart pounding, tears welling up in my usually drier than the sun eyes. “Get away from me, you filthy beast!” I shriek, rolling over and crawling on my hands and my knees in an abnormal state of mind. The dog continues its journey, eyes glinting with a kind of manic demeanour, scintillating teeth reaching for me, for me, for me.

"No," I whisper to myself, shaking. "No, no, not that. Not a common, stupid mongrel. No." My weak protestations do little to stop the creature, which bounds to me, leaping up to the sky, and falling down to earth with every passing second.

"Yes," a voice whispers in my mind as I begin to scream. "Yes, yes, my dear Kear. Yes." I can't tell who this voice belongs to, or why it is here, but all I know is that it doesn't like me. At all.

"Leave me alone!" I shriek, scrambling to my feet and grabbing a stick, at which the dog's eyes light up spectacularly like the Northern Lights, and it runs at me. My arm goes numb, matching my heart, and I throw the stick away, racing from the dog like a crazed drunken driver. To my surprise, when I look, back, the dog is chasing the stick, not me, and trots off down a path with a human, who holds a rope around its neck. Oh, how I would love to be able to do that.

"You alright?" a man bellows from behind me, and I jump, startled, as my hand reaches instinctively for my hair.

"Wha - oh, yeah," I say, shuffling away awkwardly. "Um, just got a fright, that's all. Dog, big Rottweiler, came ut of nowhere, tried to bite me. But I'm - I'm fine now."

A look of disbelief washes over his face, but then he chuckles and turns away, muttering, "Kids," under his revolting breath. I don't think he brushed his teeth this morning, although I'm not entirely sure if humans know what that particular activity even is.

In the distance, a clock tower chimes, sending shivers up my fragile spine. Eight o'clock. Quickening my pace, I make my way down the path, dancing on the light air and smiling daintily, keeping up my 'beautiful, popular girl who everyone loves, including herself' façade with what is, in my opinion, considerable grace, given the circumstances.

I round a bend in the pavement, finding my way to the dense main road. A car - a metallic, churning, creaking contraption which emits heavy, thick smoke designed specifically to choke everyone above me - whizzes past me without a care in the world, as though it has no idea who or what it just drenched in dirty rain water. "You absolute - " I catch myself from letting my inexcusable French run off from my mouth just in time - oh, how could I ever bring myself even to think of speaking as humans - as a bewildered mother and her daughter round the corner.

"Oh, the youth of today," she mutters angrily, lips forming an irritated pout. "So rude. I hope you don't end up like that, Cindy," she murmurs to the baby, who looks at her quizzically for a moment, before smiling and continuing her game of trying to touch the ground.

I roll my eyes in disgust, and flex my hand slightly, twisting it in her direction. "Fear," I whisper in a voice too low to even comprehend, and her eyes become rabid, inflamed with the inferno of aversion, and she taps her foot on the ground, shaking her fingers and nearly forcing the child out of her quavering arms.

Satisfied with her reaction, I turn away, mouth curling in a shop window. How I enjoy to torture these crude beings, how I love to feel their pain. A warning rings in my mind, a warning I can't quite decipher, for it is spoken in a togue unwelcoming to my ear, and I shake my head, clearing it of the obnoxious tone. "Shut it," I growl at the narcissistic voice.

An elderly passer-by looks at me oddly, and even more strangely, not releasing his gaze when I growl the same warning. Instead, he just grins his toothy grin and wanders off again, waving his stick from side to side like a yacht on a calm blue sea.

The clock's hand strikes at the two, and I hasten to reach the rising grey building on time, gnawing at my lip as I nearly fall over myself. My hand is grazed my the walls it leaps at, and I fly along the pavement at rocket speed, my bag nearly becoming airborne as it slips further and further down my shoulder.

Panting, I reach the glass doors, bolting through them and averting my eyes away from a damaged window. This is the café I broke through, next to the school, and all of a sudden I feel a pang of guilt as my gaze meets a worker, on her hands and knees cleaning up my mess. "Sorry," I apologise inaudibly, and go on my way.

Instantly, the stench of grease and humans wafts its way up my nostrils, and I gag, elbowing the nearest disgusting, idiotic mortal soul to me. "What was that for?" the girl with a fraying skirt and ruffled blouse demands, pursing her ruby red lips.

I scoff at her humanness, ands stalk away, disgust striking the mirror at my side. Water runs in a basin, and a rectangular contraption roars at a pair of Human hands. Jumping, I run to the Human, eager to discover what she did to provoke this attack.

"What did you do?" I ask, as she turns her confused gaze on me.

"None of your beeswax," she tells me, words rolling together in one jumbled sound. "Who are you anyway? Something the cat dragged in off the street?" Her gaze travels to my black mini-dress and crisp white blouse, then to my exposed legs and boots.

"Um, no, my name is Kear," I tell her, forgetting myself for a moment. Revealing my real name is a big mistake - even the darkest Core knows that. "And what does that even mean, what you said?" My fist clenches with the urge of drawing blood, and I lift my foot slightly, preparing to move it jerkily.

"Well, that you look like a Carlotta Smith wannabe." Both of our lips curl in disgust at the exact same moment, and she begins to giggle.

"I can assure you, that is not my intention. She infuriates me greatly, from what little I know of her, and it is against my incredibly strong will that I must associate with a being so despicable as her. It is only because our parents are acquaintances that our paths must cross, in my mother's hope that I will make friends on my first day." Gales of laughter escape the girl's mouth at my rather well-thought-out lie, as she clamps a pink hand over it, nails like small rectangles.

"In that case, my name's Kasey. If you want, you can sit with me and my friends at lunch."

Dread fills my stomach, and I cringe inwardly, something I never expected to do, not in the presence of a human, which just proves how bad an idea my coming here was, and that I should leave right now. "Sorry. I have to sit with the Bane."

A smile plays at Kasey's lips, and her eyes sparkle mischievously. "Have fun then," she chuckles as she leaves, laugh still echoing around me.

"As if."

My gaze meets that of the girl herself, Carlotta Smith, and I cross to her, my strides confident. "Oh, what is she wearing?" I laugh spitefully at the girl Carlotta is currently glaring at disdainfully, and she grins at me wickedly.

"It's hideous, right?" she agrees, making sick motions. "I wouldn't be caught dead like that."

The girl scurries past the pair of us like a frightened mouse, lowering her gaze nervously. Carlotta flops down onto a plastic chair dramatically, pressing a hand to her foundation-covered forehead, as though she has been through a great labour, and wafts a hand like a fan in front of her.

My feet shuffle slowly away of their own accord, probably, judging by the throng of people at the foot of the stairs, overdoing the speed limit. "Well, sit down then." Carlotta's eyes glint with malice, more deadly than the best polished steel knife, as though their sole purpose is to kill.

"Oh, yeah, sure." My words tumble over each other slightly as I sink down, resting my cusped elbows on the table, and leaning on them tiredly. "Hi."

Her scrutinising gaze traces my body, and a faint smile emerges, finding its place on her painted lips. "I'm Carlotta." Her eyes reveal everything she is asking: What's your name, why are you here, what age are you, do I know you, where do you live, what on earth happened to your hair, because it is absolutely beautiful?

"I'm Layla Greene. I was born on 3rd September 1999, I moved here with my family after my dad got a new job in the town, and I live quite far away, but we thought this was a good school for me to do my exams."

"Cool."

More girls begin to flock to our table, bounding up to Carlotta and asking stupid, stereotypically human questions which make my ears bleed. "This is Layla Greene, everyone," Carlotta says, plastering on an entrancing smile. "She's new."

They grin as though to say, "Fresh meat for us to eat," and I smile back sickeningly, with the specific intention of infuriating the crowd.

Immediately after my display of perfectly proportioned pearly teetch, I am bombarded with questions, and am eternally grateful when the conversation is cut off by the sound of a screechy bell, at which I jump and begin to ask myself where the fire is?

"Whoa, calm it, Layla," a girl with black hair laughs, "it's just the warning bell."

"Oh, right," I say, blushing. "Sorry, my last school didn't have nearly as loud a bell as that. I thought it was a nuclear war siren." They are unimpressed by my joke, and a few drift away, until only six of us are left.

"Do you know how expensive the new Lipsy fragrance is from Harrods?" Carlotta shrieks to them obnoxiously, revelling in the awe presented by the other girls. "Seven hundred pounds. But my dad got me it anyway, says he'd do anything for his darling little angel." It sickens me.

"You know what's really funny?" I can feel the spark of a flame leap in my eye, even though I am new to their world, as they all turn to me, ready to hear the new girl's second joke. "The fact your nickname is 'Angel'. I mean, you're hardly Holy." This time, there is actually some laughter.

Carlotta revolves her tongue around her mouth, smiling sheepishly, arching her eyebrows, occasionally letting it slip out like a writhing serpent, sharper than a new pencil. "Well, not where Carlos Hans is involved."

There is an instant chorus of 'oohs' and 'aahs' and 'ooh la las', as Carlotta flashes her pearly white smile at Carlos, who makes his way over, messing with his hair in the way every human does, so idiotically.

He's about to say something when the second warning bell rings, much to Carlotta's distaste, and a girl hurries up to him.

"You coming to class, babe?" she asks, pecking him on the cheek. I recognise her as Kasey, and gasp slightly, although thankfully it goes unnoticed.

Out the corner of my eye, I can see the something in Kasey’s bag, something I didn’t notice earlier, which means she must have been given it by someone, presumably Carlos. A feather. A beautiful emerald green feather, which surely could only be from one of those massive peacocks - you know, the ones from block buster movies with a thousand human clichés, when they fall in love on an island - whose melodramatic demeanour can rival only that of us. I wonder where she got it.

Carlotta follows my gaze, and see a spiteful look form in her face, accompanying her eyes, which glint like the scissors she holds.

The scissors. Where in the name of Laorei did she get those from?

The rest of the group, along with Carlos, have scarpered, so it is just the three of us. Carlotta advances on Kasey, who shrinks back unexpectedly in fright, gnawing nervously at her lip. "Please, I’m sorry," she whimpers. “If you want, Carlotta, I’ll break up with him.”

“Lose the act of fear,” Carlotta scoffs. “We all know you’ve got a criminal record.”

Kasey snarls, and hits Carlotta, knocking the wind out of her as she flies to the ground, caught by a shocked me. Carlotta scrambles disgustedly out of my rigid arms, and roars at her, fist colliding with Kasey’s nose as she plummets to the ground, with no one waiting for her.

For good measure, Carlotta kicks her and plucks the feather out of her tight hand. “I’ll be taking this,” she says haughtily and saunters off. “Come on, Layla.”

I shoot an incredibly confused Kasey a sympathetic look, and follow Carlotta, slightly less disgusted by the Humans after that show of strength.

Perhaps there is hope for this assignment after all.