Project: Death for Classroom Zero

Chapter 39: Someone Was Looking At Her

Pulling the towel out from a basin of hot water, Carlissa Fauxier had mildly writhed it, to remove the excess hot water. Having it ready for application, she looked down on her couch.

“Please stay still.”

There was a man lying on her newly bought couch. Morbidly, he was shaking; felt too much cold seeping and creeping through his skin.

Carlissa felt pity towards him. Carefully, she placed the damp towel on his face. Then she wiped it. She calmly cleaned the dusts and dirt that was sticking at the man’s face with the use of her light hands. As she travelled the towel from his forehead, through his cheeks, then through his neck, she could feel the scorching temperature of his body.

“Mister, please calm down,” she said. The worry on her face was noticeable.

The man, even from the first time she had met him lying on the ground, helpless, was muttering one same thing.

“Help… Help… help…”

From time to time, he would open his eyes. With panic, he would add something from his non-stop muttering of help. “The toddlers are coming for me. They need my body.” Then he would shout, and would return back again from muttering help.

He is weird, Carlissa thought. But she could not help herself but attend through him. Because why not? He was a man who direly and badly needs help. She was the first person who could help him. She was the first person who was there and saw him in his helpless condition. So why would she not help? She was capable to do that. She was capable to attend to this young handsome gentleman.

“Help… help… help…”

It took him half of an hour to fully clean the helpless dirty body of the man. Feeling pity, she even changed his ragged clothes. It was a good thing—she thought—that she was still keeping Tristan’s clothes. She knew there were shorts and t-shirts on his cabinet that could fit to the size of the man. Maybe she would just purchase tomorrow for the man’s new shirt.

Thinking honestly, she had kept her son’s clothes and things in the corner of her house because … she was still, subtly hoping that he could come back.

Yes, she was hoping for him to finish the thirty-day Classroom Zero program of Josen High. She was still hoping that she could retrieve her son back. Alive. It was because at the very least, the kid had came from her blood. From her womb. She at least still took him with care, and successfully raised as an exemplary man. But she knew that destiny is a hoe. Destiny would trick everyone. So she believes that seeing her son alive would only be in a thin and narrow chances.

It was just a small thing for her, however.

Because despite the fact that she was still hoping, she would felt nothing, nor felt affected if she found one day that her son was dead.

Because at least, she had the money she greedily desires. She might want her son to come back alive, but it was not because she loves him, or felt affectionate to him, but simply because of mere obligations. She has the role of being a mother to the son she had bear from her womb. It was an obligation for her to take care of him. Raise him.

But to love a child who was a product of wrong and tricky relationship—she could not think that she could do it. Even until now.

When she found the right clothes she could use, she quickly went back to the man on the couch. She was surprised when he saw that the man was already asleep. He was not shaking anymore, or panicking. Yet, he was still feverish. Perhaps, the hot water and towel she used had helped him to calm down.

Now, after changing his clothes, Carlissa stood up and looked at him. Making his body covered from a thick blanket, Carlissa could only see his face. She could not help herself but to admire his manly features. Even from his sleep, he was still as gorgeous as a Greek god. Perhaps as dreamy as Apollo. Or the god of lust and love, Eros. Or maybe Aphrodite’s lover, Adonis.

She shook her head, and sighed. To clear the forming dark thoughts on her mind, she decided to went outside again, and probably to take some freshly polluted air of the city.

When she got out, she had realized how cold the night has become. The midnight was nearing, and yet, she was still outside, staring at the chaos-filled environment of the slums. There were garbages everywhere, recoiled wires attached on an electric line above, and even stools from domesticated cats and dogs.

Yet, despite how chaotic the place is, Carlissa could see no human loitering around the area. The roads were isolated. The slum was silent. The only thing that he could hear was the distant alarm of an ambulance on the next street.

“Were they sleeping already?” Carlissa asked to herself. “That’s pretty rare.”

Indeed, it was. Usually, even at this hour, there were people lingering around the area. At some point, there were even people shouting to each other and throwing bottles of beer because of nonsense kinds of disputes.

But now, there were none.

Carlissa heard an angry shriek of a cat from a dark corner, beside her house. Shocked, she looked at its direction. It was on a dark alley, at the shadows hiding next to a dimly lit and flickering street light.

From there, a black cat had appeared. Gracefully, it walked, and travelled through the wide chaotic street of the slums. It passed on her front but does not paid any attention to her.

The cold wind blew once again. The chilling sensation of it had made her hug herself.

Sooner then, she decided to go back inside her house—without knowing that there were a small dangerous thing creeping from the dark corner where the black cat had came from.

It was looking at her.