3. The New Girl

*

(Aurora)

Leaves dry and fragile crumbled under Aurora's feet as she walked inside the woods. The thick, unkempt forest had long arms, twisting, and whirling like a hungry marauder. Vines reaching around, trying to capture the unsuspected victim.

She noticed a trail leading towards her home and turned towards it with a small prayer. As she neared it, the trail disappeared.

The trees started to move closer, trapping her within the circle. She ran, round and round, and didn't find a way to get out. The branches bent towards her, laughter in their voice, and curved around her in an embrace that was slowly turning suffocating. The stems bled black, like tar.

The tar coated her skin, sizzling hot, and scorching. The air in her lungs was cut off as the vines squeezed tighter and it came out in a shallow whistle. She struggled to step away from the trees, to breathe.

She let out a dispirited sob, half air, and half empty. Her face turned blue. 'I don't want to die. Please I don't want to-"

Someone knocked on her door.

Aurora jumped up from her bed, and then promptly fell back down when the sheets restrained her from moving. She was sweating and her legs were tangled in her sheets.

Her breathing was laboured, head was pounding as she tried to stand. She swayed and her eyes blackened. She sat back down as she thought about the damn nightmare.

"Rory, baby, it's time for school, you don't want to be late for your first day, do you?'' Her mom knocked again and she wiped sleep off her eyes.

Aurora absorbed the voice and let it soothe her bones. Her rapid heartbeat slowed a little as she closed her eyes and struggled to wipe the residue of the dreams. She wiped her sweaty face with fingers so tired and wished for the millionth time for these nightmares to stop.

She couldn't even tell her parents about them. She was thirteen when these nightmares first started, and she would be eighteen in two months and the nightmares were still not going away.

"I am up. I am up. Will be there in... say fifteen minutes?!" She hollered back and untangled herself from the drenched blanket. It smelled like sweat.

Of course, she often had the nightmares, but the forest in today's nightmare was not her original one.

This one was bigger, meaner, and colder. The swaying trees were full of laughter, their malicious voice drumming around like an incessant headache. She could still hear them laugh-hear them in her bones, like the plague of bad memories.

Somehow, she knew the woods in her dream was the same one flanking the backside of her new house. She didn't know how she knew it, but she knew, and she feared her knowledge. She feared the cost of that knowledge.

Sometimes, too much knowledge did come with a significant price. When she was fourteen, she knew her Math teacher, Mrs. Williams, was going to die the next day. It was like a danger signal, calling above her head. Rory could almost see the pulsing red around her. She had ignored it as the wildest of her imaginations, but the next morning, she had learnt Mrs. Williams had died in a car crash.

Still so young, it bothered her, and frightened her. She didn't wake up from her bed for the next two days, chilled with fear and fever. Her mom had promised that it'd all go away, but it never did.

After that, Aurora just knew there was some truth to her imagination, but she didn't want to delve too deep into that. If she went any deeper, she would forever be trapped within it. Full of chaos and disorder.

She didn't need that, but she did know that something was amiss with her. She knew she was a little skewed from the road to normal.

Standing under the shower, she let the hot water do its job on her weary nerves and tired bones. The nightmares not only mentally drained her, they physically affected her, as well.

She tried to muster up a tune, a song, but the ringing in her head was so loud that she couldn't do anything but close her eyes and wished it would stop.

She dressed robotically in a red silk blouse and a soft pink jeans, and walked downstairs.

Her mom placed a cup of milk and a French toast in front of her, with a kiss on her head. "Morning, Rory. So, are you eager to go to school."

"Nope." Aurora stressed the word with a frown and her mom shook her head.

"This again, Rory? Just give this town a chance. You will like it." Her mom frowned. 

"No, I won't." She shrugged.

She finished her breakfast and looked at her watch. There was still twenty minutes for school, but she decided to take a walk. Time to brave the walk towards a new school. A new life. Starting over was always so difficult, even when you wanted to.

"Mom, bye." She yelled over her shoulder and walked outside. She didn't have a car and her bike was destroyed in the move. Stupid movers.

Her dad told her he would drop her off at school, but she decided she would walk today. She needed to see what this town had to offer. It wouldn't be much, she knew that.

New people, new friends. Everything she hated was here in front of her-she hated starting over, she hated to intrude when they would already have friends of their own, group of their own.

The population of 4100-now, 4103-must have known each other from the diaper days, and would've been friends, since then, too, or at least, not strangers. She was the outsider, the one who would walk in, and considerably disrupt their day-to-day events. She didn't want that.

She avoided the woods, but stopped when her eyes caught a quaint little place at the turn of the second road.

It was a small storefront. It was pink, like a doll house and it smelled like sunny morning and wonderful dreams, dreams of pastries and desserts.

'Sweet Tooth' was aptly named.

She stopped in front of the glass display with a delighted smile. She looked at the display of cupcakes with colourful frosting, donuts, pastries and so many and forgot her hatred for this town for a moment.

"Welcome sweetie, you're new here!" The woman at the counter greeted with a smile, and no shop owner had ever called her a sweetie back in N.Y.

"Yes, we just moved here yesterday. Can I get a coffee cake? I am Aurora." Aurora said, and the woman handed her the cake and when she opened her bag for paying for the cake, the woman waved it off.

"That is a beautiful name. And this is on the house. It is a welcome gift and a business trick. You will come again, now. I am Miranda." Aurora waved to Miranda as she walked off, biting on her coffee cake.

It was delicious, It was magic. The woman knew what she was doing with her cakes and batters.

This was the first good thing that happened to her in this town.

***

'Small,' was her first thought when Aurora saw her school, but beautiful in the small-town kind of way.

In a small board, it was written 'Falcon High' and the trees around the campus looked famished and tired. This place was another insignia of small towns, but she knew the faces milling around her were proud of it, proud of themselves.

Who was she to critic their lifestyle? She wouldn't, but she wouldn't also accept that this could one day become her life.

She didn't like walking into the diner and be called by her first name. She loved her privacy, and she loved walking around, a nameless, faceless, just-another-girl in the crowd. But she knew it wouldn't be like that here and her thoughts were proved right by a smiling guy sliding next to her.

"You're new here, right?" He looked too cheerful for the early morning. "An out-of-towner? That is awesome. We only ever had one OOT in the past five years. Julie Craig and her family moved in before a year, and Art hit the jackpot four months ago. They're dating, now."

He talked as if she was from some exotic place, which you can't properly pronounce. She was just another American girl.

'That is one big monologue.' Aurora shook her head with a dazed smile. If all the people in this town were like this guy, she was going to go insane. As she said, she liked her silence.

She stared at the guy, who had forgotten to tell his name even though he had talked quite a lot.

He was good-looking, blonde, light blue eyes. Oh, yes, he was easy on the eyes. But if he talked like this to a stranger, imagine how it would be with a friend. Phew.

"I am Aurora Baker, and you?" She quirked her brows.

"Shit, the name's Zachary Brandon. Zach. If you're free tomorrow, we can go to a movie, or if you like bowling, we can go to bowl-me-in?" He said and she had to give it to him. A fast one, this guy was. She chuckled.

"You have theatres and bowling alley? That is so great." The words were out before she could stop them. He looked offended.

"Hey, we may be a small town, but we have everything we ever need right here." His response came out in a defensive tone. She gave him a nod.

"Yes, whatever. Do you really only have 4100 people here?" She asked as she looked at him.

"That board, hmm, it was placed years ago when I was still not born. Now the population will be around..." She was eager to hear what came out next. He stopped, looked down, and scratched his head.

"A ten thousand?" She asked hopefully, but she knew it was too much to ask.

"Well, not that much. 4500, maybe. You know, death and birth tallied, it will not be much." He said as he made math with his fingers.

"Uff..." She sighed and continued to walk with him.

She super liked this place.

"Hey, I need to get my schedule, can you help me?" She asked and he nodded, looking very eager to help an OOT. Aurora had to smile at that. At least, she didn't have to walk alone all the way to the admission office.

"So... Why did you move here?" Zach asked.

"I don't know. My dad is going crazy, I suppose. I mean who in their right mind want to leave NY city for this du-" she had almost said 'dump' but then realized how offensive it might be. "This town. I mean, not to sound rude, but I don't even think your town is on the map."

"We are in the map, too," he retorted with a offended look. "and... We are fun. You will soon see how fun we are. This will be an adventure for a city girl like you."

"Adventure? Here? In this nowhere?" She rolled her eyes.

"God, you are very arrogant, but... I forgive you because you are beautiful. I think, you get away with anything just because you are beautiful."

She laughed as she looked at him with real happiness. Maybe he was not that bad. "Me? I am not arrogant." She said.

"And me, I am a vampire."

"Haha. Very funny, Zachary Brandon. Very funny."

They stopped in front of the admission office and the woman in the desk looked up and gave Aurora a grunt. Her eyes turned into a slit as she appraised Aurora as if she was an art piece.

The scowl in her face was almost relaxing. Too much smile was hurting her eyes.

"What?" The thick, burly looking woman asked in a gravelly voice.

"I need to pick my schedule."

"Aurora Baker." The woman said the name as if it hurt her lips. "Here is your schedule..." She pushed the paper towards Aurora. "Here, your locker key and locker number. Zach here will show you around, won't you?"

"Yes, Lilith. I will. Good morning, and bye." Lilith smiled a little.

So Lilith must only hate newcomers. Or just Aurora. Whatever it was, she didn't care. She didn't have time to care.

Aurora shrugged as she walked towards her first class, AP Chemistry.

"Don't worry. You will like it here." Zach said with a smile in his face.

She doubted it, but she just nodded in response.

"We will see, Zachary, we will see!"

___