The Winged Guardian

I did not come to school at night to have fun to begin with. I was painting a picture of Hydrangea earlier this evening when mum came home from work bringing along her new date, Galvin. Things got uncomfortable when she said that she was going out for dinner with him.

I let mum go, thinking how lonely she was these past years. She had rights to be happy after all. And while she was happy, I adopted ADHD. It was not the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder like you all understand, it was rather—

A. Anger-for being left behind all alone. I thumbed angrily on the i6 screen and missed the password twice.

D. Disappointment-I was disappointed at not having a mother-daughter quality time I was looking forward to. I wanted so much to show her the Hydrangea and she had to dart out as soon as I said I was not hungry.

H. Hunger-yeah, alright, I was hungry, very. And it tripled the two things above.

I sighed. The music playing on each icon accompanied my growling stomach. It was hard to focus on the name list but I finally got to the name-Dale.

The line went on for like an eternity as I was cooling off believing that in the end he would pick up,

"Hello…."

"Dale!"

"… This is Dale Cartner. I'm not available at the-"

I found myself furiously pushing the pedals of my rusty almost-off-balanced bike minutes later, and that the sky ahead was growing dark with enormous black cumulous clouds advancing onwards like an army of reapers escorting me to death.

Lightning flashed, briefly shined on the winding road ahead, followed by a little rumble from the dark heaven. I blinked a few time to adjust my sight and accelerated my legs. I hated summer storm. It was always ruthless to cities close to the sea like here.

The disastrous weather did not give a slightest clue to an unfortunate event ahead. I did think that I might get stuck at school for a few hours, get really cold, get a cold, or worsea fever. I might end up hungrier, or the night guard might catch me and give me detention. None of it came close to the real situation. My thought had not included anything about a winged man at that time.

My face was pressed flatly by the ferocious wind and my hair was lifted up like a dancing clump of seaweed as I came closer to the shore. The storm was obviously trying to stop me from going any further, but anger prevented me from turning back.

My bike creaked and wheezed and threatened to fell apart. The brutal wind whipped us left and right and down a couple of times. And by the time I arrived at school, bruises littered my bare legs and rain started to sting on my face.

It was not because we could not afford a new bike. But this one was a present from dear long dead dad.

I hurried inside with my precious present and rested it near the exit, otherwise it would surely have turned into scrape and flew away like a piece of paper in this gale. I stomped along the corridor heading to the Music club temporarily forgetting how dark it was.

The sudden roar of the thunder startled me and I quickly ran for the comfort of the illuminating exit sign—the only source of light around. The poster announcing the coming charity concert, dyed with green light, made me sigh.

Dale worked too hard for this.

I stared at the flat faces of the school orchestra members on the paper realizing how stupid I was to think he might still be working here this latein the middle of a storm.

The thunder gonged and it sounded not very nice in this narrow space. I slipped into an unused room on the right side. The green light blacked out as soon as the door closed but my vision was not robbed away. The rolling lightning was the one driving the darkness out from time to time.

The storm rocked the window. Heavy raindrops hit the mirror giving weird rhythm like percussion. Lightning struck the soil timpani and thunders drummed the sky. The wind blew across the building creating a thrilling singing-like voice. As the room got colder, I wrapped myself with both arms with a faint hope that they could warm me. Gazing outside, I saw nothing but silvery stripes flashing now and then in the darkness.

Out of the blue, my rumbling stomach joined the band.

It was not a nice music, but it reminded me of my hunger. I gulped the air down as if it could fill the void while looking around. I scurried to the row of lockers at the back of the room and began my search for foods.

A tip-tapping noise sounded on the other side of the wall.I strained my ears while moving on to the next locker. It was dawned on me as the noise came closer that it was the sound of footsteps and every single hair on my body stood up in harmony. The echo became louder with my thudding heart. I did hope at that moment that it was the night guard. I preferred detention than a close-up horror movie. Well, I didn't see a single soul in this school, so whose footsteps could this belong to, if not a g-go-ghost!

My instinct immediately guided me inside the locker. I squeezed myself between mops and brooms and closed the door lightly as the moldy smell engulfed me. My eyes were right at the louver so the whole classroom was clear to my sight. Seconds later, a black shadow slowly strode in.

My pulse thundered my ears but the next lightning showed me the familiar face of my classmate. I sighed noiselessly with relief.

He's D-What's it? Yes, Dylan-Dylan Ziarre from Geology.

He stopped at the window and stood still gazing through needles of rains far away outside. As I looked at him, the lightning reflected his black pupils turning them into blue-green. It was hard to know what he was thinking because it was the first time I saw him without a smile. Silence made him look so different and his blank face was unbelievably adorable that I temporarily lost into his heavenly divine.

Shit! No, no, no! Okay, okay, it's the atmosphere and lights and shades and all.

Dylan was popular since his arrival half a year ago. And I was an anti-popular kind of person, not exactly an outcast though. He was loved by everyone because he was nice and friendly, good at studying, good at sports, has a good face, and seemed to have a good amount of money. Too perfect to be true.

I thought I should paint him for my next piece.

More people entered the room. Unlike Dylan whose black hair and black clothes were one with the night, these people were easy to recognize.

There were three of them and I saw at once the light blond wisps of hair from Conner Rider that shined faint yellow in the dark above his sparkled blue eyes. He's in my art class and is pretty goodI hate to admit he's a geniusat drawing too.

Next to him was Phoebe Zitkalasa. She had a weird taste for red tone color judging from her fiery red hair, the red boots she always had on, the red contact lens, and an orange red handbag hanging beside her scarlet dress. She was smiling smugly with her red lips.

Finally, coming in like a glow was the last boss of this last-week new transfers. He was Seth Lee whom, despite being an Asian, had white hair, super pale skin, and amber eyes. Someone said it's albinism, but how would you explain the yellow eyes? Adding in the white outfit he had on, he floated in just like a living lamp.

"Seth! It's so great to see you! I've been looking for you everywhere!" Dylan exclaimed livelily and was about to throw himself at the lamp.

"Stop!" Phoebe scolded while Seth slid aside and gave the guy a cold look before saying, "We're not here to befriend you."

"But we are friends!" said Dylan looking perplexed.

"No, we're not." Seth said again harshly. "And I called you here just to warn you that-I'm watching you. Don't ever think of doing your evil here."

Dylan seemed to be stunned. I felt really bad for him. He was all alone while those people were ganging up on him.

"I will never do anything bad." Dylan said with such heaviness in his voice.

Phoebe smirked. "Easy for you to say. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here."

"What are you doing here?" Dylan asked.

Seth threw Phoebe a shut-up-or-I'm-going-to-freeze-you stare and silence took over the conversation. I felt like struggling in a powerful psychic fight between them. As the smoldering atmosphere infiltrated the coldness, Seth seemed to be illuminating more and more.

I blinked a few times. Maybe listening to other people's petty business made me confuse and huffy that I thought he glowed.

"Anyway, no matter what you say," Dylan finally began again. "I will always be your friend."

"We are not friends." This time it was Conner but he said it so gently. "We can never be friends."

Dylan's face grew somber.

The trio was about to leave and I felt even sorrier for him. It must be hard for the guy whom everyone at school wanted to be friend with, but was not successful at making these three his friends. I was about to step out of my hiding and tell him that he doesn't need to make friend with these smugs when Seth swirled back his head and gave Dylan a disgust glance before leaving.

I followed Seth's gazes and saw something strange with Dylan. His back was hunch so I thought he was scrunching his neck crying at losing three friends, but I was soon to find out that he was not. His bloated back kept getting larger together with my dilated eye. When I thought that it was going to explode, a pair of black wings whirled out gracefully.

Seth's words retraced through my head. 'Never be friend…not friend…evil…'

And that was when the last D jumped in sealing my fate.

D. Desperation