Wildfire
©Eric Thomas, 2013
The day after served as a particularly
awful one.
When Rachel showed up to class, late
thanks to her phone-come-alarm dying on her in the night, she knew something
was up.
Even appearing late, she had grown
accustomed to being studiously ignored by her classmates, and her teacher for
the most part as well.
When all eyes were locked on her as she
made her way to the back of the class, she knew something was off.
Even more bizarre was the fact that
three of the students were a full two rows further back than they usually
occupied, putting them right by her seat.
Ignoring them as best she could, she
booted her computer up and fell into her routine of pulsing music and drawing on
the digital tablet.
She’d managed, much to her pride, to
actually finish her current project after Ai’s initial distraction, and the two
that had followed throughout the evening.
With the assignment done, she had
debated showing up at all, since it wasn’t due for another week.
Clearly, she’d made the wrong choice.

