I wanted to escape from my old life, so I decided to start anew. You can call it soul searching or whatever clichés that exist to describe it. Words even I never though I would use to portray myself as. I was cowardly enough to escape, but was also brave enough to start a new life...I just wanted some peace, for once in my life. But peace had other plans. Maybe peace went on a vacation far-away. Because that sense of tranquility never came to me.

I looked out of the stained glass window of my room into the deserted streets and wondered, what possessed me to choose Verona High to enroll into. The rules were ridiculous and people here were weirder than weird. All week long, all they could do was gawk at me wherever I went. As if I were an extinct breed of species. Stare at me with aloof judgement with no strings. From afar they had made some opinion of me and I could tell they were keen on sticking to it.

“Don’t worry too much. I’m sure things will slowly come around as time passes by.” Lena tried to encourage me.

“Thanks. I’m fine.” I smiled at her, trying to be grateful for her niceness. I was used to things being like this, people’s judgemental eyes and being alone. At first it hurt. When they looked at me in contempt, when they called me names behind my back just because I didn’t share their interest, as they turned their backs on me; I realized there will be no one to fend for you but yourself in the end. Once upon a time I thought, how long I could keep up the act of being tough and hiding the pain, but then one day, the pain just became numbness and I stopped feeling anything. I developed a thick skin unable to be pierced by their words; I became immune and I stopped careing about happiness, I just wanted to be okay again. Yes, okay was all I needed at this point.

The classroom was salvation for me. At least part of it was. I mean, people still did not stop their enquiry of me but at worst, there were only thirty something eyes ogling at me, not the whole school.

The walls of the classroom were a daffy color of tedious taste. Whoever painted the walls in here must have had an imagination bypass, but then isn’t that the education system all over? Fill our minds with facts we can google instead of teaching us how to think, question facts, experiment and explore.

I got comfortable into my seat, my mind finally knowing some peace.

“Hey Sara, what’s up!” Or not. I heard the annoying voice of Dilyla Adwell drill into my ears.

“Hey.” I muttered under my breath and sighed in bitterness. Honestly, I had nothing against the girl. But was it that hard for people to leave me alone to obtain just a little peace of mind!

“So how are you today? I didn’t know you were in AP biology.” She grinned.

“Neither did I.” I retorted. As if to save me from this conspiring world, the classroom door flung open and in walked a tall lanky teacher.

Mr. Miers, our AP biology teacher wasn’t tweedy or one of the trendy ones in jeans and t-shirts. He had none of the middle-aged spread that he could have had at his age. He was dressed in a classic neatly pressed grey suit with a black tie over a pressed white shirt. His face was clean shaven and angular. He was not drop dead gorgeous but he was not plain bland either.

He took in the room in a single sweep, his stormy eyes settling on nothing but everything.

“Good morning class.” His rasping voice reverberated throughout the room and a weak ‘good morning’ could be heard as a response.

“I’m hoping all of you submitted the reports on cell biology I asked of you last week!” Another weak ‘Yes’ echoed throughout the room and the teacher smiled the sweetest smile I’d ever seen one wear, for a man. He bend his lips into a toothy smile. The smile never left his face as he went through his lesson plan for the day. Perfect straight lips over perfect white teeth. He was like the kindest soul in the school, so humble, so polite.

And then suddenly, the classroom door slammed open as a strange-looking guy barged into the room with a cracking boom. All heads in the room snapped to his direction including Mr. Miers. And I could hear loud gasps and whispering as the whole class fell into a wave of chaos.

“Oh Mr. Warnard, how nice of you to grace us with your presence today. Oh please do come in.” Mr. Miers used a honey-toned voice, his lips still contorting in that sweet smile. But his eyes twitched, as if in irritation but there was also a kooky flicker in them. And now I could see all the small details I missed out before. I saw the reluctance of his lips to be moulded widely. His cheeks were not compromising with his smile and his eyes, his eyes were such a mystery. The way he looked at this guy with blank eyes. I could tell he did not like this guy very much.

The guy on the other hand, well I could feel a murderous aura oozing out of him as he stood by the door glaring at the teacher. It was the same green-eyed monster who had a beef with me for following him earlier that week. God damn it! Peace really must’ve gone on a vacation this time. He huffed in irritation and stormed into the room. His eyes roamed about the room to search for an empty seat when they unwittingly met mine, and in an instant they recoiled with hateful disdain. I, in turn was left dumbfounded, my stomach twisting every bit as badly as meeting a stranger after dark. What was wrong with this guy? He walked towards me, taking long fast strides yet fluid in their movement. I held his gaze as my heart picked up speed, beating faster than a rabbit’s in fear. I didn’t want to chew on my nails or lips, so I found myself gnawing on the inside of my cheek. His face became more imminent and impassive as he got closer, but it was tilted back a little so he was literally looking down on me. After what seemed like a lifetime to me, he finally passed by me and took a seat at the far end corner of the class. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding in.

“And the lead protagonist just makes a thriving entry,” Dilyla Adwell whispered in my ears in a commentary manner.

I flicked my head to the right to look straight at her and frowned, “What do you mean?”

She eyed me with a shocked expression and said, “Don’t tell me you don’t know about him. Sara do you even remember what I told you the last time we met?” I let out an awkward smile because honestly, I didn’t know what else to do. I mean forget about remembering, I didn’t even know what she was talking about since I didn’t bother paying attention to her the last time we met.

She sighed and shook her head from side to side as if to mean I was a lost cause and said, “Don’t you think Eric Warnard should be rotting in detention by now with the stunt he pulled just then, considering the strict regulations of our school? Why do you think he was so easily let off the hook?”

Now that I thought about it, her words really did make sense. All the students of Verona were strictly supervised and they were more so very obedient from my recent observation. “Erm...leniency of Mr. Miers!” I shrugged.

“Humph! Hardly. Mr. Miers is a great teacher and all, but even he has his limits. It’s because that Eric Warnard is very special.”

“What do you mean?” I scowled at her in curiosity.

“I’ll tell you after class.” She whispered back.

Mr. Miers was one teacher the kids could never get the better of. Whatever witty retort they had, he had one better. He took their disobedience and turned into an advantage for himself, but not through belittling them or stamping authority. He took in their behaviour and resorted to any counter measures needed to keep them in line. He was an interesting piece of work and I unexpectedly so, really enjoyed his class.

When the second bell to conclude Mr. Miers’ class finally rang, I got off my seat with my bag pack over my shoulders and was about to make a run to the washroom when Dilyla Adwell grabbed my hand and dragged me off to God knew where.

Before I knew it, we stood in front of an old painting hung on the whitewashed wall of the hall of honour in the second floor. The four grand walls of the hall, were painted with the kind of brilliant white that would even make new snow look grey, they were adorned with beautiful carvings of flowers and fat children with wings looking down upon us from every angle; but the painting within dominated the entire panorama. Each stroke had a smudging quality that rendered the image watery, like a reflection in a rippled puddle. Every colour so bright and bold and painted with such precise lines that it almost looked like a mosaic. It was golden framed and it seemed to have survived for thousands of years. It was the painting of a beautiful green-eyed boy in his late teens, so beautiful it almost scared me as if it could come to life at any given moment now. A boy I was very well familiar with.

Eric Warnard.

I had my mouth hung open in the air, my brain desperately scrambling to make sense of it all as I stared at the painting, unable to even blink.

“Surprised?” Dilyla nudged me with her elbow to break me off my trance.

“What is this?” That was all I could say. Really! What the hell was going on here?

“I’m pretty sure you’ve seen this face just a while back in the classroom. Did you forget already? You seem to have a pretty weak memory.” She looked at my with sympathies and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

“I do remember him but I don’t understand why his photo is framed to the school’s hall of honour.”

“Oh but this is not Eric Warnard,” she shook her head in denial and I couldn’t help but look at her like she had gone mental.

“What are you saying!” I frowned, confusion clouding my mind.

“Didn’t you hear me the first time? I’m saying that this guy in the pic is not Eric Warnard.” She repeated.

“No I heard you alright the first time, but I don’t get what you’re trying to say here. No matter how you look at it, this guy is definitely Eric Warnard. Maybe the hairstyle is a bit over the top but that face, those eyes definitely belongs to Eric Warnard,” I argued.

“I get what you’re trying to say but that’s not possible. This painting was painted about three hundred years ago. And I don’t think Eric is that old,” she shrugged playfully.

“Then what are you getting at?”

“What I’m saying is that this is not Eric Warnard in the painting but his great great grandfather, Ian Benjamin Warnard. The founder and chief sponsor of Verona High,” She said and I was left gaping at her like a fish out of water.

“How’s that possible? He looks exactly like Eric Warnard.”

“I know right. That is one of the greatest mysteries of Verona High. Do you know that Eric’s father, grandfather and great grandfather also obtained their education from Verona High? And let me tell you this, all of them, looked exactly like Eric. The same shiny green eyes and pale skin. People say that the Warnards have a very strong paternal gene, but I beg to differ. It seems so unlikely that all the heirs of the Warnards looks almost identical and there were only boys born to the family since the last four generations. Don’t you think it’s weird? Not to mention Eric Warnard’s weird behaviour. He hardly talks to anyone and glares at anyone who dares approach him; people just can’t get close to him since he belongs to a completely different world. I wonder what his deal is!” She mostly mused to herself.

“I-l guess he is...strange.” It definitely was weird that Eric Warnard looked so similar to his great great grandfather, but it was weirder that he didn’t have a death date. Everyone else did. ‘Is he immortal or something!’ I shook my head as if to mock my own stupid thoughts. No one lives forever in this world.

“Hey! Hey Sara, you there with me?” I heard Dilyla as she waved her hands frantically in front of my eyes to gain my attention.

“Yeah! Yeah I’m here, listen I gotta go. I have history class right now and I don’t wanna end up in the detention room again,” I rambled and hastened off to my next class before she got a chance to stop me.

Being curious had never done me any good. As the saying goes, curiosity kills the cat.

TO BE CONTINUED...