𝔦𝔳. chapter four

                                    

                                          
𝕴𝖁 : Count Your Blessings.
✡

WITH EACH SECOND PASSING BY, ALASKA FELT LIKE SHE WAS STUCK IN A NONSENSICAL TIME WARP INSIDE THE MONOTONOUSLY STURDY WALLS OF HER HIGH SCHOOL.
Time flowed like cement and minutes felt like hours. Peering at her hand-watch for the fifth time, Alaska let out an exhausted sigh. A minute had passed since she last checked an hour ago, or so it seemed. 
Alaska felt completely worn out, and it was not even the last period. Her brain truly felt as if it had been on a treadmill and it wanted so much to just press stop. It was as if it had been years upon decades upon centuries since she first woke that morning, and in that time she had aged an immeasurable amount.
In the hall, teachers and students swarmed around her, rushing off to their next class. Alaska walked in bleary-eyed and world-weary, watching as the crowd parted slowly. The brunette let out a bitter chuckle, testing her own weight on her shoulders; and they hunched for a moment, and her spine curved (along its vertebrae, one-by-one), fingers wringing together like puzzle pieces in front of her chest.
She wanted to flow right along with the other, dissolving into the stream and letting herself be carried along with the rhythm that they set, making herself incomprehensible through their movement and their murmurs.
But Alaska always stood out. They always noticed her, turning away like one would turn away in the face of brightness. It left her biting her tongue until blood pooled in her mouth, and the tang of iron became a constant hint in her breath.
She hated the attention, then craved it all the same. It was a sickening feeling.
Alaska didn't like to dwell on it. The girl figured that that sort of thinking never did anyone good and so she sent that odd sensation that had been creeping up on her throat rolling off her back.
She learned to smile again, a small, docile thing. It lured people in, and they slowly started to forget the way she still would make crowds part with a smile, and bullies sob with a sneer. Alaska kept herself steady and she checked the time again.
The brunette decided to get to her locker by cutting through the commons-she needed some fresh air. That way she could avoid talking to people too.
Outside, she trudged not on the commons' winding stone path, like you were supposed to, but through the grass. The air was thick with the scent of freshly mowed grass and tree pollen - something familiar to her from her last visit to Aunt Georgia in Peterborough. Suddenly a stringed instrument threaded through her memory. Alaska glanced around, expecting someone to be playing a tune. But there was no one there.
And then...then an exotic aroma, maybe a unique breed of flower, wafted right under her nose. Alaska clenched her fist, not really feeling lucid. She was tackled by instant sensory overload.
The moment Alaska decided to inquire the source of this mysterious activity, peculiar music, and blooming scent all vanished. Alaska stood still for a second, then shook off the sensations, shoved them back into the treasure chest of her mind until she could go where she needed to. She was tired. All of those absurd things were a product of her exhaustion. 
The morning was somewhat dense. Alaska could barely see her legs below her. Her footprints vanished in the squishy grass as quickly as she made them.
Good, Alaska thought. Suddenly, she didn't mind disappearing completely.