The rest of the day went by perfectly normal. At least, normal for a freak like Eithne. 

In science, half the test tubes spontaneously exploded and turned the teacher's hair a spotted purple. Mr. Damocles did not appreciate her joke about chemical changes. Instead, he thought it'd be funny to send her straight to the counselor's office. 

There, Ms. Rodriguez lectured her until the coffee maker overfilled into the sink and flooded the carpeted floor. It left a sticky trail down the counters and cabinets. Really, all Eithne was trying to do was stop the machine's damn beeping that the old bat was too deaf to hear, but things could never be that simple. 

She waited in the hallway, tennis shoes soaked in coffee, and ignored the snickering as best she could. Lunch came and went. Janie snuck her some Chinese food she stole from the staff lounge. Fifth period Eithne skipped out on because honestly, she'd already missed two classes. What was one more? 

But sixth was art and, if Eithne missed that, her day really would be shit. It was the one class she enjoyed because you could do whatever you wanted. She didn't want to use her brain today, so Eithne practiced sketching with colored pencils. Her hands moved on their own, making up the image along the way.

At first, it looked like the egg roll she ate. A really tall, lumpy egg roll with shriveled up skin. But as time went on, it became a gruesome face with chipped teeth and millions of eyes. They all looked in different directions, a swirling pattern of crazy. Some eyes wallowed in despair, others narrowed in anger, but most of them showed ravenous hunger. A large snout poked through the mess, leading down to a jaw only half hanging on. The shredded muscle was rough and dark black, as if the injury happened centuries ago. This then led into a toned torso with six beefy arms. Veins popped out, thick and bulging, as it prepared to strike. A clawed finger jutted out of its stomach, green ooze dripping from the end. Huge feet planted themselves on the bottom of the page. This beast was death and destruction. It dominated the paper and threatened to come to life, to rip you limb from limb just because it could. 

And it could. 

Frozen in place, Eithne didn't notice her art teacher peering over her shoulder until she spoke.

"What's this, Eithne?"

She jumped in her seat, heart pounding against her ribcage. Her tongue felt heavy as she struggled to catch the pencils rolling off her desk.

"I..uh..."

Mysti, as she insisted her students called her, picked up the drawing with careful awe. She drank in all the details, hands shaking ever so slightly. Eithne could feel the other students trying to catch a peek. It felt worse than the millions of eyes she'd drawn.

"He's one of the Gegeines," Eithne finally whispered, "an Earthborn monster."

To her credit, Mysti didn't try sending Eithne off to the loony bin or even the drunk tank. She just nodded along, as if the whole thing made sense. Hell, Eithne prayed she'd say something if it did. She definitely had no idea where the drawing came from or how she even knew what it was. 

What the hell was an Earthborn? Where did the inspiration come from? Why did everything feel fuzzy and muddled like waking from a dream?  

"What grades did you use, dear?"

"Huh? I just...I just did it."

Mysti nodded along and handed the drawing back, ignoring the students trying to cram around Eithne's desk.

"Well," the teacher sighed, "right here by the eyes? Try smudging a little more. It'll add bags."

"That wouldn't be too much?"

"Oh, no, because there you have..."

Eithne lost herself in the monotony of the little details, gut no longer twisting at her nervous thoughts. This was just art. She created the beast. She did. Who cared about the crazed eyes or the menacing claws? What difference did it make if this was planned or in the moment? It wasn't real. There was nothing to fear.

The lie was easy enough to believe, of course. Mysti made this seem so normal and expected that Eithne began to think questioning herself was the weird thing. She was certain, too, that Janie would beg for hours to keep the drawing. This kind of thing was right up her alley. 

But Eithne should have paid better attention. If she had, she would've known this was different and wouldn't shrug off the anxiety she felt every time she looked at her drawing. 

She wouldn't ignore her gut, thirty minutes later, when it told her to accept Janie's ride and just drive until they couldn't see town anymore.

She wouldn't force herself to go inside her too quiet house. 

She wouldn't walk down the hallway, looking for her foster family.

She wouldn't be staring at their dead bodies.