A/N: I know I keep switching back and forth between one and two weeks left until her move. To clarify: it’s ONE week. Repeat: ONE week.

Chapter 3

Click

Theresa moved through the hallways of her school head bent low over her books. She was very good at playing invisible. No one looked at her, though they all jostled her. Theresa was a good enough student; she got mostly B’s, never got in trouble, and could cruise through all the normal classes. She was the kind of student who sat in the back of the room, and though she never volunteered the answer, she always had it, and it was always right. Hers was the only unadorned locker on the hallway; the one that the groups avoided and stood awkwardly next to when they had to. She was the girl everyone recognized, but whose name no one knew. Only one person in the school knew Theresa as someone other than “That Girl”: Marie, Theresa’s sole friend and confidant.

As the pale blonde girl made her way into the cafeteria, she looked up, and immediately caught Marie’s eye. Marie smiled her crooked smile and nodded at Theresa. Marie, like Theresa, was afflicted. She already lived in Cynthia’s apartment building, and Theresa planned to take the room next to hers. Marie was more out-spoken and social than Theresa was, though not more energetic. The disease took most of one’s energy. Marie’s usual lunch of three cheeseburgers and a Coke was piled onto her tray.

“You’re going to die soon, with that diet,” Theresa remarked as she slid into the seat across from the brunette.

“We’re all gonna die eventually, hon. French fry?” Marie was definitely the sort of woman who would call a person—even an axe murder—“hon.”

“I’m good, Marie. Thanks anyway.” Theresa pulled a brown lunch bag out of her backpack. The disease thinned and weakened the entire body, including the digestive system. That meant that anyone afflicted was doomed with a slow metabolism, which explained Marie’s pudginess and Theresa’s infrequent meals. “Thank god it’s only one week to graduation. No more brown-bagging tuna salad for me.”

“Yeah, after that, you’ll be buying your own tuna.” Marie lathered her first cheeseburger in three mini ketchup packets and started tearing at the mustard’s slippery plastic casing.

“True, but we won’t have to fight for seats in a crowded cafeteria.” There were five thousand students currently enrolled in their high school, and the cafeteria, according to the faded sign on the wall, “Comfortably seats 650” which meant that it could uncomfortably seat eight-hundred and twenty-five, if about thirty sat on the floor between the tables. Maria was always able to reserve two seats, because she had a way of looking at would-be table invaders in a manner that suggested that she new exactly where you lived and when you would fall asleep.

“You’re moving in after graduation, right?” With a thousand too many students, their high school ceremonially kicked their seniors out with the end of the first semester, providing they’d been able to squeeze in the necessary credits.

“Yeah, that afternoon. No point in dragging it out.” Theresa poked warily at a brown spot on her apple. “Did you hear that this year’s graduation is going to be an hour shorter than last year’s?”

“Everybody rushes everywhere these days,” Marie replied in a distant, disinterested manner as she tried to gauge how much of the next burger she could eat in one mouthful. “Don’t see how they actually fit in teaching with all their rushing and budget cuts. They don’t even give us pickles anymore. I still can’t believe they cut pickles out of the budget…” Marie had liked to pile five or so on her burgers and eat another ten plain.

“Well, they’ve been barely teaching us at all this past week. I guess once we’ve amassed the right number of classes, it doesn’t matter if we actually learn anything from them.”

There was a moment of silence for the end of the first burger before Marie began the next with gusto. “By the way,” she managed between swallowing, “How’s the job at the pharmacy going?”

“Well enough. People keep complaining because we don’t stock the ‘right’ shade of nail polish. Working the counter’s easy enough, though. And minimum wage is at least enough to keep me in tuna salad.”

“Are you gonna keep it after graduation?”

“I guess. I’ll probably start working full-time, though.” She sighed. “One more week…”

Click

The graduation was a short, hour-long ceremony. The principal and valedictorian each made seven minute speeches and the gown and cap-clad graduates received a diploma and a handshake. The parents/guardians in the audience applauded politely for each student and wondered how much longer it would be until they could take their kid out for a celebratory dinner.

Hannah and Terrence Desman had taken half the day off from their respective jobs to give their daughter a hug, an electronic organizer (“Because adults need to keep track of all their appointments,” they would tell her later), and to drop her off at her new home.

“We’re going to miss you, sweetie,” Hannah told Theresa when the graduation ended. “Be sure to visit us now and again; we’re only twenty minutes away.”

Theresa put on a smile for her parents, but was already twenty minutes away in her new apartment and her new life. She’d live right next to Marie, and with many other people who could actually understand her disease. She’d get her peace and quiet, and a place without questions or ignorance. No more days of avoiding the stares of classmates, or dealing with pointless classes. Looking at it that way, the tiny apartment and minimum wage job were looking down-right cozy.

But, as Theresa already knew, there’s was no way to hold on to serenity for more than a few moments. As was the way with the world, something was on its way to shake her life and rupture her happiness. And it was only one week away.

A/N: If you please, forgive the short chapter, hurried ending, completely unsubtle foreshadowing, and general sub par work. The plot is on it’s way, and I promise to get better!

Your favorite demon author

Oni.