Rise of Shadows

One: Raine

          "Damn it. I swear I just bought milk!" I grumbled under my breath as I swung the mini fridge's door closed.
          Welp. I guess I'm stopping for breakfast, I thought. I quickly rushed to grab my bag before bolting out the door, hoping the line at the cafe around the corner isn't too long. Thankfully it wasn't. I snatched a donut and a much needed coffee before rushing to get to my first class. I really didn't want to be late, not after I got a public scolding for it last time. Now, you might be thinking, you're in college, the professors don't yell at you when you're late. You'd be correct. However, my best friend does.
          Seven excruciatingly slow minutes later I was sprinting down the corridor, white walls streaming by me as I ran, eager to get to my first period of the day, Biology 2. As I entered the room I stole a quick look at my watch, 9:05, not bad, only five minutes late. That's at least another five or so minutes earlier than the rest of the class usually gets here, anyways.

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          After Professor Grant dismissed us, I blew out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. God. That class is insufferable, she makes it feel like watching a pot boil. Not that I don't like the topic of biology, I do, she just makes it suck.
          My next class was halfway across campus, and truthfully, my least favorite for two reasons. One, it's chemistry. Two, Alexander Rivers. I've only known him for three months and yet somehow I hate him with a passion. And lucky me, he's my chemistry partner this week. Yay.
          As I walked in I immediately noticed Alex, as he was, as usual, the center of attention. Normally, everyone seems to be drawn to him, as though he's got some sort of aura that catches everyone's interest. Though, today he's the center of attention because he is, quite literally, in the center of the room. He's standing on a table, dressed in a knee length white lab coat and a large pair of goggles. I stop dead when I see him, my jaw drops. There's a fairly large crowd of students, maybe twenty or so, crowded around him.
          After the necessary moment my brain needed to catch up, I called out to him, "What are you doing?" I questioned, his attention finally snapped to me and he grinned.
          If he wasn't such an ass you could call that grin attractive, maybe alluring. But, knowing the depths of his aggravating personality, I was immune. He hopped down gracefully before making his way to meâ€"doing what I could only describe as sauntering. The coat billowed behind him slightly, and when he pulled the goggles from off his eyes and rested them on his forehead, there were light red lines left behind.
          The shock and confusion on my face must've been both apparent and massively entertaining to him, because as I finally met his eyes, they were glittering with mischief. "What, you don't like my outfit? I did it myself. I thought I looked good, apparently I can pull off being nerdy." He laughed.
          Instead of dignifying him with a response, I simply brushed past him before finding my seat. Which really didn't solve any problems, since he sat right next to me. Because of course. Once the professor walked in, Alex made his way to the seat beside me, partaking in no less than three conversations on the way. Now at the desk, he grabs the stool and makes sure to drag the metal bottom against the floor. Creating this intolerable screeching noise that I despise. He does it on purpose, I know he does, because he didn't use to. Not before he did it accidentally at the beginning of last week and I flinched at the sound. Now he does it Every. Single. Day. And right on cue was the minuscule twitch of mine that he was so desperately seeking. He sat down and turned his attention to the front of the room.
          I was somewhat excited for today because we were done with the more boring plotting and preparing part of chemistry, and we're going to do a lab today where we get to create a reaction, and by that, I mean a minor explosion. Yeah, today was gonna be fun. As class officially started, we went to our stations, prepping the ingredients. Our professor assigned each group with an Observer, the one to write down what happened visually, and the Chemist, the one who will be in charge of adding the ingredients together for the demonstration. I was, sadly, assigned the Observer, which meant tall, dark, and destructive was left with the dangerous elements. Yeah. Great idea, right.
          It was going well until the last ingredient, the one actually supposed to initiate the explosion. I focused on the clipboard in my hands, filling out the beforehand observations, in the corner of my eye I saw Alex filling up the last ingredient. When I turned back around he had an impish look on his face, which was more than a little disconcerting.
          "What?" I asked, thrown off by the sudden glint in his eye.
          "Nothing, nothing. Just..." he paused, looked at the components on the tables and then back at me before continuing, "you look funny when you're focused, you scrunch your nose. It's almost cute." He finished, a patronizing tone laced his voice.
          I rolled my eyes and grit my teeth before responding, "Whatever, just focus, are you ready?" I asked, nudging my chin towards the vials and jars sitting on the table.
          He nodded and moved aside, we now stood shoulder to shoulder. My clipboard in one hand, pen in the other, I pulled my goggles down and reminded himâ€"not for the first time to put his on. Once we were both ready, I instructed him according to the steps we were given.
          "Ok, take the liquid sulfur and pour it into the beaker," he did as told, slowly transferring the contents of the vial into the larger beaker sitting between us, "now, are you sure you measured the potassium chlorate exactly right? We can't have too much, it'll throw the whole thing off."
          "Yeah, yeah, I did, don't worry." He drawled, except that's exactly what I was doing, worrying.
          But I trusted him, which was my first mistake. When he raised his hand, a scoop of what is potassium chlorate, between his fingers, I immediately noticed the powder piled on top.
          "Alex wait!" I cried out, but I was too late, he smiled as he poured the powder. He fucking smiled. He dumped the whole thing.
          As soon as the potassium hit the sulfur, it exploded, but the reaction was amplified by the extra powder and it splintered the beaker. I heard a loud cracking sound and an ear-splitting shattering. A bright flash temporarily blinded me as I felt hot fire burn the exposed skin on my arms. I screamed and jumped back, Alex startled and flung himself backwards.
          "Shit! Shit!" I heard someone yell, I'm not sure who, I didn't think it was me, anyways, "damn it! Everyone evacuate please!" The voice called again, but this time I recognized it as our chemistry professor, Dr. Gray.
          His demand snapped me out of my daze and I realized I was sprawled out on the floor. The remnants of the beaker were scattered around me, and the desk we'd been working on now had a black mark left from the explosion. There was a distinct smell in the air, char and burnt sulfur which smelt even worse than normal sulfur. Alex was standing slightly behind me, and when I turned to look at him, he was slack jawed, staring at the mangled desk. I suddenly felt this painfully heavy weight on my chest that I recognized as pure, unbridled anger.
          I stood up and whipped around as soon as I was on my feet, I took the one necessary step to be right in front of Alex and jammed my finger at his chest, "What the hell were you thinking?!" I screamed in his face, normally I would've been embarrassed at my display, but my brain was working in overdrive and my heart was beating too fast to care.
          He didn't respond, didn't even acknowledge me, he still was staring straight ahead at the chaos he caused. His ignoring me only made me angrier, I growled and slammed both my fists at his chest, pushing him back so he had to catch and right himself.
          "Answer me dammit! What were you thinking?! Are you trying to get us killed!" I kept yelling, my eyes never left his face, he finally looked at me and I saw the realization of what I'd just said dawn in his eyes.
          "Are you kidding me—I wasn't—I just thought it would be cool! Maybe funny! I didn't—I didn't realize." he spoke with slight annoyance at my insinuation, but his voice cracked slightly at the end.
          But I was too pissed off to care at the moment, "Funny? You thought it'd be funny to mess with ingredients that when combined, explode!" I shouted, my voice breaking as tears threatened to spill, trying to push the water in my eyes back down.
          I tried to swing my hand yet again at his chest. But this time he caught my hand and held it tight, I winced as he squeezed, just now remembering the burning sensation I'd felt when the explosion happened. He quickly let go of my hand when he noticed my recoil and glanced down at my arms. For the first time, I was feeling the pain, I had small cuts on my arms and hands, along with a few minor burns. I pulled my arms close and huddled them to my heart, fighting the small sobs that wanted to escape me.
          I looked at Alex only to see that he was already studying my face, I saw him take in my glassy eyes and trembling lip, and his gaze softened, "Raine, I'm sorry." He looked genuinely sorry that I got hurt.
          But I wasn't looking for his half-assed sorrys, or his pity at my tears, so I did the only thing I knew how to do, I took a chunk out of him. I found a soft spot in his emotional armor and bit down, "Just because people are always crowding around you, doesn't mean they like you. They're not laughing for you, they're laughing at you, because everyone knows that you're just stupid enough to do something they might deem entertaining," I said, my voice low and mocking.
          "That's enough." Dr. Gray grumbled, and I should've listened, but I didn't.
          "And now look," I said, gesturing around us, "you've shown them that you're too brain-dead to think that mixing dangerous chemicals together isn't a good idea." I seethed.
          Alex's jaw clenched and he abruptly turned and walked out. Leaving me in the middle of a mess, with a disappointed looking Dr. Gray in the process.

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          I cleaned my cuts and burns in the girls bathroom, luckily they weren't bad. Now that I'd been given some time to calm down, I'd regretted much no, all, of what I'd said to Alex. I definitely overreacted, but it still was a stupid thing to do on his part. I'd find him and apologize, I would, just...not now. I'm going to give him some time to cool off.

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          I made my way to the front lawn of my building, a large, red bricked structure, narrowly avoiding face planting after tripping over an abandoned pencil on the sidewalk. If there's one thing you need to know about me, it's my ability to get hurt doing anything. And, I quite literally mean, anything, I don't need a lab experiment gone wrong. Harper and I were once playing at a nearby park when we were young, she was climbing the tallest tree she could find, while I was watching from down below. Well, one wrong step on her part, and a branch half the size of my body came flying down. My face was bruised and scraped for weeks.
          As I settled down on the plush grass, I put in my headphones and started to study for my upcoming test. I felt at peace, the sun was shining, there was a light breeze that flushed my hair to the side, and I could only sort of feel the sting of my wounds. However, Harper had a different idea; "Raine! Rai!" I looked up and saw my best friend and roommate, Harper, calling, "Are you studying? Seriously??" Harp yelled as she bounded up the small grassy hill I inhabited.
          "Yes?" I tilted my head and replied with a small smile.
          Harper is one of the best people I've ever met, kind, beautiful, smart, and crazily enough, somehow interested in being my friend. She's studying finance here at Columbia, her parents paid for whatever wasn't covered by the scholarship, and in her free time she played music. Don't ask me what studying finance entails, exactly, because I do not have an answer for you. Her family wasn't, by definition, rich, but they were well off, and significantly wealthier than I was. I used to live at home with my mother, Howard Beach in Queens, that was home. At least, up until 3 months ago, that's when I moved into a dorm with Harper for the school year.
          "Ok, well, you know me, I'm all for studying! Yay studying!" She said, waving her hands around, "BUT, not right now! Because right now you're coming with me." Harper exclaimed.
          "Ok," I paused, "do I wanna know why? Or is this a 'burying a body' kind of situation?" I asked.
          "What?! No! Obviously not!" She squealed, "I just reserved for us to have lunch at this super cute little place I heard about the other day!" She laughed quietly with a shake of her head.
          "Oh, okay," I chuckled, "that makes way more sense than covering for murder. But, you know I'd be down with either, right?" I smiled and winked as I packed my books into my bag.
          She rolled her eyes and held her hand out, helping me up from my sitting position. Once I was steady on my feet, she let go and grabbed her phone, immediately clicking on what looked like an album of photos. I barely even got to guess what they were before her phone was shoved in my face. She was practically bouncing up and down as I peeled her phone away from so close to my eyes, and began scrolling through the photos. It was a bunch of pictures of what I'm guessing is the restaurant we're going to. It had sage green walls on the inside, decorated with shelves filled by books and plants. I took a brief look at the menu and saw that the dishes were mostly either sandwiches, or confections.
          I must've not had the desired look on my face, because she snatched her phone back and began her own explanation on why this place was "so amazing!". Apparently, it has a side room dedicated specifically to cats. Yes. Cats. The cats are all adoptable, and the funds from the food portion of the cafe is used to keep the cats happy. I had a slight feeling that Harper had unwittingly—or not so unwittingly—brought me into a position where I'm going to have to say 'no'. No cats.
          "Harp," I say slowly, adding a tone of preordained apology into my voice, "you know I love you, and would do anything for you…but, we can't. We can't get a cat. I mean, we live in a tiny dorm for god's sake. The poor thing would probably get cabin fever!" I spoke softly, hoping that'll make it easier.
          Her previously bright smile dimmed only slightly as she processed my words, "I wasn't pushing for us to get a cat! I mean, I love them! But we definitely don't have the space." She responded, her lips once again fully upturned.
          I blew out an exaggerated breath and pretended to wipe sweat from my brow. She noticed and smacked me playfully on the arm before nearly doubling over in laughter.