Kaiser frowned:
"The new girls?"
Yuki nodded, pointing to a corner of the cafeteria:
"Yeah, the twins. You were napping when the principal introduced them."
Carter gestured discreetly toward the table where the two new students were sitting. They were already drawing a small crowd of curious onlookers. One of them was smiling, answering questions with ease, while the other remained more distant, her hood pulled over her head, observing her surroundings with an impassive expression.
Hassan: "They're already popular."
Benjamin, however, seemed fascinated by their features:
"Their eye color is pretty exotic."
Yuki snickered: "They're just pretty. If it were just about eye color, Kaiser would be the most popular guy in school."
Kaiser: "Huh? What are you implying, bastard?"
Carter burst out laughing: "He's implying you're ugly, man."
Yuki shrugged with a smile: "No, I'm talking about the color of his eyes."
Hugo tilted his head, intrigued: "Huh? They're blue, right?"
Benjamin leaned in for a closer look: "Now that you mention it, they're not really blue…"
Hassan looked at them one by one.
"I'd say they're more gray."
Yuki: "It's super rare. They say it changes color with emotions."
Kaiser blinked, a bit surprised:
"Really? I didn't even know… But whatever."
He shrugged, and the conversation naturally dissipated as the bell rang, signaling the start of the next class.
*POV: Kaiser*
"Today, we'll be studying the decolonization of Africa..."
The teacher resumed the lesson, summarizing colonization and then detailing the various aspects of decolonization. The calm of the class allowed me to focus quickly.
Time passed, and fortunately, no one disturbed me during the lesson. The subject was relatively interesting, and I took some useful notes, even though I already knew most of the concepts.
Finally, the bell signaling the end of class rang, marking the end of this long day.
"3:30 PM..." I said, turning on my phone.
As the other students began packing up their things, I stayed seated for a moment, enjoying the calm.
*'At least this class seems less exhausting than the other,'* I thought, glancing around the room one last time before finally standing up to leave.
"Everyone's attention, please!" A loud voice echoed in the room. Hannah had slammed her desk to get everyone's attention. She stood in front of the class, clearly trying to assert herself.
She was tall for her age, a typical African-American with a pretty attractive figure. *"7, maybe 8 with a bit of makeup... She's got good curves but... Yeah, 7 at most,"* I muttered to myself as I opened the door to leave.
"Hey, where are you going?" she asked, her voice tinged with irritation.
"I'm leaving, isn't that what I'm supposed to do when there's no class?" I replied sarcastically, without even turning around.
"But we're doing introductions!" she explained.
"Why bother? I've got stuff to do."
A slight smile spread across my face as I saw her expression twist as if she'd just eaten something disgusting.
She took a deep breath before continuing: "Well, they just arrived and might find it hard to fit in, but if they meet people with similar interests, they can make friends and..."
She suddenly leaned in close to my ear and whispered: "Maybe you'll even find love..."
She straightened up with a satisfied smile, as if she thought she'd convinced me.
"We come to school to learn, not to find love, as far as I know," I retorted, leaning casually on her desk. "And as for love, even a dog wouldn't be interested in that kind of nonsense."
"Ah..." An awkward silence fell, broken only by a few muffled laughs in the class.
Hugo patted my shoulder.
"Hahaha, well said, Kaiser. Dogs don't care about love, they just mate. Humans should take a lesson from them. Hahaha."
"That's not what I said." I sighed.
*'And you just ruined any already slim chances with her.'*
Hannah finally turned away from Hugo's disdainful look and faced the class again.
"Well, I'll start. This class is like a family, and you could say I'm the mother, since I'm the class president, Hannah Brooks..." she began with a proud smile.
"Mother? Really? Awkward introduction..." I commented, shaking my head, both amused and incredulous.
She ignored me, continuing: "I love tennis, and my future aspirations are to become a doctor or a scientist—I'm pretty good at chemistry... Anyway, let's move on to you, Nick." She gestured to another student to speak.
The introductions went on one after another. At one point, I was about to leave to join the others who were probably waiting for me when I heard a Quebec accent.
"My name is Katrina..." she said with a smile.
"Kathy Becker, I don't like anything in particular," she declared simply, before putting her headphones back on and leaving the room.
*'She looks just like... What was her name again... Katri... But their expressions are quite different... Whatever,'* I thought, slightly intrigued.
Completely different from her sunny sister. Kathy seemed dull, her amber eyes empty of any energy.
Our eyes met, and for a brief moment, it was as if I was looking into a mirror.
'Strange feeling,' I thought to myself as I left.
***
In Hassan's car, we were driving toward our HQ. The atmosphere was strangely silent, as if each of us was grappling with our own thoughts. When we arrived, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No trace of the previous night's events. Even the supposed corpse was gone.
Hugo shrugged, a sigh of relief on his lips.
"We must have really hallucinated…"
Yuki, who seemed to have regained his usual energy, snickered and patted us on the shoulder.
"I told you guys, we were just too drunk.
Carter: "Let's forget about it and play something, it'll do us good."
Ben, who had wandered off, suddenly knelt down and brushed aside some straw.
"Guys… Come look at this."
We all approached, our hearts pounding. Under the straw, there was a dark stain embedded in the earth. Dried blood.
A cold shiver ran down my spine.
"Fuck... So we weren't dreaming it..." I breathed.
Carter, however, ignored the discovery and insisted on playing. Maybe he just wanted to relieve the tension, or maybe he refused to admit that what we'd seen was real. In the end, we spent two hours playing, as if none of it had ever happened.