Souls Of The Innocent

Chapter Four: Weird things

Laughter erupted around her and she turned around to see the other students who were in the detention class staring at her, some were laughing and some were just sitting there looking at her weirdly. She turned to look towards the teacher and  Mr. Fred was sitting there staring at her with an annoyed look.

" Miss.Jones, where do you think you are?", he asked.

Amber bent her head in embarrassment as  stared at the desk. As if it wasn't enough that she was being treated like an outsider by the others, now she has to embarrass herself in such an awful way. The laughter didn't stop and some were even giving her nicknames, causing unshed tears of embarrassment to burn her eyes. I must have been dreaming, she silently said to herself. Even if it was just a dream, she could still feel the goosebumps tickling her skin, she ran her hands over her arms but it was impossible to get rid of those goosebumps. A shiver ran down her spine and she breathed out slowly. 

Go away, just leave me alone... she repeatedly said to herself. Amber closed her eyes and that woman's face appeared in her thoughts, it wasn't like she was going to leave her alone at any time. She quickly opened her eyes and looked up at the clock, hoping that her detention time was almost over. It was nearly 4, and she heard  Mr. Fred saying that they could leave.  

Amber quickly grabbed her backpack and got up, she didn't have to be told twice. She waited for everyone else to get out before she exited the room. Amber made her way down the corridor walking quickly so she could catch the last bus which leaves the school compound in the next fifteen minutes. Her phone vibrated in her backpack and she had to stop walking for her to check who was calling. Nowadays, every phone call was important for her to answer. As she flung her back off her shoulder it slipped from her hand and fell to the floor and to make it worst she had not zipped up the middle compartment of her backpack properly. Amber rolled her eyes as she kneeled to pick up her things which had fallen on the floor It was as if the whole universe was against her. First thing, she would have to answer her cellphone, but as soon as her fingers touched her phone it stopped ringing. She checked the caller ID of the missed call and the number was displayed as Private, which means that she couldn't even return the call. 

" Just great, why do you put your number on Private! How do you expect the person to call you back!"Amber annoyingly mumbled as she pushed her cell phone into her jeans pocket. She grabbed her books and put them in her backpack, this time she made sure that she zipped up the compartment properly. She realized that she must have lost a good five minutes so she better hurry if she wanted to catch the school bus. 

As she stood up she heard what sounded like someone crying hysterically, she shrugged her backpack on as she slowly turned back and glanced down the hallway and she spotted two young girls standing in the far corner of the corridor. One of them had her head down and the other one had her back turned towards her. She looked around and found it weird that as this time there was no one else around.

" Hey! Are you ok?", she shouted.

The young lady didn’t  answer her question and she didn’t even stop crying. It was as if they couldn’t even hear her.Amber sighed, she couldn't just walk away and leave those girls like that, what if they were in some sort of trouble. She walked towards them hoping that those girls were not just playing a joke on  her or something like that.

" Hey ...Hello...I'm talking to you...what's wrong?", she asked out loud, her voice echoed in the empty corridor.

A few meters away from them, Amber noticed something weird about the two girls, something that she couldn't even explain herself. She slowed down and then she came to a halt. The crying stopped and Amber narrowed her eyebrows as she stared at the young lady whose head was bent.  For some weird reason, her heart started to beat faster and she quickly took a step backward.

" What's wrong?", she asked again, this time her voice was trembling a bit.

The young lady slowly raised her head and looked straight at her. Goosebumps erupted all over her body and once again fear squeezed her stomach, she was finding it hard to breathe as she looked at this girl who from a distance looked exactly like her sister! She shut her eyes, squeezing them tightly together as she tried to compose herself and when she opened them up again,those girls were no longer there. Amber pulled herself together and started to walk in the direction that they were standing and the image of that girl flashed through her head. She kept saying to herself that she didn't imagine any of those things. That she saw two girls, standing there in the hallway and one of them looked like Nora.

" What if it was Nora... but she looked different as if she was a .. ghost!", Amber thought and her hair bristled as a shiver coursed down her spine.

" Nora, Nora!!", she shouted, her voice echoed throughout the corridors. 

She ran towards the gymnasium which was the only room at the far end of the corridor, there was nowhere else that those girls could have gone. She tried the gymnasium doors but they were locked, in anger and frustration, she kicked the metal doors which caused an ear-splitting noise to erupt down the corridors. Amber took in a deep breath as she stood there with her forehead leaning against the door, she slowly shook her head. She couldn't understand what was going on around her, it was as if she was in a movie or a nightmare and couldn't wake up. She turned around and glanced down the corridor, she walked back  towards the exit door, and along the way she tried to open all of the classrooms. She didn't care if she was caught by the security guard all she wanted was to find the answers to all of those questions popping up in her thoughts. To be honest with herself, she didn't even know what she was looking for. She stopped and leaned against the wall, she placed her hands over her head, everything seemed blurry and confusion flooded her mind drowning her in more doubts and questions than answers.

" Where could they have gone?! They couldn't have just disappeared like that!", she whispered as she tried to focus. She needed to pull herself together so that she could think clearly. 

Sometimes we come across things that baffled us and we couldn't even find words to describe them or find the right person to talk to who will believe us. Amber had no one to turn to, she couldn’t even speak to her parents,  they would probably lock her up in a psychiatric hospital if she tells them what happened to her today.

" You are not losing your mind... you are not losing your mind Amber Jones ", she kept repeating those words as she walked back towards the main exit door. 

As she stepped out she noticed that the school bus was leaving. She started to run as fast as she could shouting on top of her lungs, with the hope that the bus driver or someone could hear her but to no avail. She stood there shaking her head as she watched the bus disappearing out of view.

" Great! Now I need to take the public bus !", She mumbled as she glanced around her. 

If she wasn't chasing ghosts in the school hallway she wouldn't have been late to catch the school bus. She couldn't believe that she was now daydreaming about what she saw in most of her nightmares.She pulled her hoodie over her head and started walking towards the public bus stop which was a few meters away. Amber started to think that there must be a reason why she was experiencing all of those weird things. She wondered if her sister was trying to tell her something or even warn her. A message from some other world? A cry for help? A loud car horn from behind her startled her bringing her back to reality. She didn't even turn around to check who that imbecile was who didn't have any respect for other people, instead, she started to walk faster. Someone called out her name and she stopped walking, she turned and looked at the car behind her.

" s**t!", she mumbled when she saw Nathan and two of his friends in his blue convertible. She remembered his words about catching her later and she gulped.

She turned around and started to walk faster almost running towards the bus stop. Nathan slowed down next to her and revved the engine as if to intimidate her, but Amber didn't pay attention to him nor his friends who were laughing. Someone from the car threw a bottle of water at her which hit her on her thigh and then they sped away laughing.  Amber stopped walking and breathed a sigh of relief as she rubbed her right thigh. She looked down at the bottle of water next to her feet. You'll pay for this Nathan... you'll see...she silently said before she hurried towards the bus stop. She was glad to see that there were other people  waiting for the bus as well. She was scared that Nathan would come back and try to hurt her. The thought of Nathan reminded her why he was upset at her and she thought about calling Eva. She wanted to know why the police asked to see her again. Her parents had stopped telling her about what was going on in the police investigation as they were scared that it would affect her even more. They were scared that she might need other medical attention since she was already on sleeping pills because of the nightmares.Just when her family thought everything was working out so well for them, now everything was shaken up and upside down. She thought about how she never told her sister how much she loved her and how she was so happy to have her in her life, her heart was filled with sadness because there were many words left unspoken between them.

" I miss you Nora", she whispered as her eyes swam with tears.

Amber got out of the bus and it was already dark. Her parents had called her over a dozen times and she didn't answer. She didn't want to speak to anyone and she knew that she will get an earful from them since they must have been worried sick about her. As she walked towards her house a black cat jumped in front of her and she nearly had a cardiac arrest. The cat ran towards the house across the road. Amber stopped walking and she stood there starring at the house which was now being occupied by someone whom they haven't seen outside the house during the day. She had only seen that woman during the night, sitting there on that creepy swing on her porch staring at her house. She took in a deep breath and pushed those thoughts aside, she had to go home and she didn't have a choice but to walk past that house which gave her the creeps. As she approached her neighbor's house, she noticed that the woman was sitting in her usual position in the swing. She decided to walk slowly so she could have a good look at her neighbor's face but she found that her back was turned towards her. Amber knelt pretending to tie her shoelaces so that she could check out the house. Since the day she saw that little girl with curly hair in the windows, she had been curious to know who else was living with that woman. Suddenly, she didn't hear the sound of the swing, Amber's heart skipped a beat. She slowly stood up only to find that the woman had stopped swinging, instead, she was standing there staring at her.  From the light coming from the porch Amber had a good look at her face and she almost collapsed. Fear tickled inside her and she walked away briskly.

" No, it can't be! I'm must be going mad or something!", she said under her breath as she increases her speed almost running towards her house. 

She was so lost in her thoughts that when she bumped into someone, her mouth opened in a frozen scream and her body paralyzed as she passed out.