CHAPTER 3

ACADIA HIGH

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Margo Fawn's PoV

Fawn Residence

Brookhedge street, Ostonn Newvale town

August, 2040

The pit in my stomach got deeper with the rising darkness of the clouds. I saw through my window that the clouds moved and overlapped over the sky, covering what was left of the orange and yellow rays and the sun stopped fighting too and gave in. The pit in my stomach, though deep, felt freshly dug. It all started when my sick dog, Damon, ran away from home. Though there was no proof that CONMISDUM can happen to animals and that there was hardly any proof that animals made humans contagious, too -my mother's yapping didn't get any better. She kept yelling that the officers were going to come and take us to the CONMISDUM protection facility in Fayhedge town and that they would lock us up like prisoners in separate rooms with nothing but a small window and an opening in the door to give us food. Every time I yelled at her that it was a protection facility and not a mental Asylum, she said I am angry all the time because my dog gave me CONMISDUM. She was scared that one of our neighbors was going to call the CONMISDUM protection center or the cops. Well, no one did. Either everyone was aware and very sure that animals didn't get infected by CONMISDUM or no one made the call because my neighbors were nice enough not to.

As I finished drying my hair, I contemplated on every possible way to avoid the fight with my mother -my house was getting grayer by the minute. It looked like the sky and the air knew something was coming. I, being the one who hated rain, felt very depressed that I needed to talk to someone.

I had my phone propped on the computer table, watching a guy online speculate that CONMISDUM was a grand scheme of the government to hide alien invasion. He explained that saying out loud that aliens are invading our planet could cause a frenzy and that was why the government invented CONMISDUM. He had his own theories that he matched with people gone missing in bunches without a trace of where they had gone.

He hypothesized that the aliens wanted human blood to create cloned aliens who looked just like us. He concluded that sooner or later, we would all be wiped off the face of the earth. It was the wildest of the theories that I had heard about CONMISDUM. CONMISDUM was short for CONtagious MISsing DELirium. The only answer the government could give us was that somehow a mental disease had gotten contagious. I believed what the government said, it wasn't wild. It was plain and straight. I needed that. Plain and straight was what I wanted with everything that was going on around me. I watched these videos just to numb the eerie silence that gluttoned over my thin peace.

I was about to turn off that guy's video with almost a million views, just then, my phone rang.

I picked it up, it was another pervert again. I blocked the number, on the verge of tears. I was scared that Electra would have heard my phone ringing for the tenth time in an hour. I looked out the window. There was no sign of her. If I went downstairs now, I'd have to hear my mother yapping and lamenting. If I didn't go downstairs, I'd die of starvation. I dressed up in a black fleece tights and a cobalt blue plaid top. I tied my hair in a ponytail, applied a hint of lip stain, took my tortoise-printed turquoise raincoat, and my bag. As I descended the stairs, I already felt my mother's stares. Just when the tip of my right big toe touched the floor and before I even planted both my heels firm on the floor, she started.

"Are you going to tell me where you were last night?"

I ignored her, taking the roti she had prepared. Actually, I was at Irsia's home finishing math homework and returned home half-past six, which, by the way, was late, according to my mom.

"I am talking to you," she yelled.

I placed the roti on the plate and went to the refrigerator to take a slice of cheese. I couldn't find the cheese. I kept quiet. I didn't want to ask her.

"So I am that trivial and mundane for you to not answer me".

I ignored her again and took the plate to the sit on the porch. I stuffed the raw roti inside my mouth. Taste was the last thing on my mind now. Heavens, nothing was on my mind now. Except eat and leave the house before it poured. She followed me outside and stood behind me.

"How dare you ignore me? How dare you sit outside and eat?"

I gnashed to keep the words at bay and my eyes fell on the newspaper lying nearby. The headlines read that a teacher from a neighboring town, Hamilton Isle, had gone missing and the school he worked for had declared a holiday for the next three days, just in case he had infected someone else, too. CONMISDUM was out of control.

"If it were your dog barking now, you would have paid attention," was the next sentence she threw at me. I clenched my jaws, swallowing the rawness of the roti and her words. "If someone calls the protection center, trust me, I'd kill myself. I can't go around living in a facility like that because of the dog you brought home. I hope that dog never returns home."

I was fresh out of patience. I threw the now-empty plate against the fence. "Your wish came true, right? You wanted Damon gone from the moment I brought him home. That is why you always left the gate open when you knew he was sick, hoping he would run away. It is you who made this happen. I hope someone calls the protection center. Let the officers take me there and shut me in a separate room. That way I can be away from you."

She seared in a low volume, "don't make a scene standing outside. The neighbors could hear you."

"Do you think I give a damn about that? Even now, all you care is about what the neighbors would think. I will yell and shout with all my might every time you irritate me. Let someone call and inform that -"

A hand sealed my mouth from behind. "I'll take it from here, Mrs. Fawn." It was Electra. I already heard her car and her heels that plonked the floor. I would never understand why tall girls wear heels. When she removed her hand from my mouth, I turned to her. "What do you think you are doing?" She whispered with her eyes filled with annoyance. "Do you have a death wish, Walker?" She had a black-and-white tiny checked plaid skirt and a white shirt with a really high pony tail of her dark auburn hair. No one could pull that look better than her. Her spotless beige skin could blind someone on a sunny day.

"She kept yelling, Elec." Shit, the traitor tears. "I can't take it anymore. I am even ready to stay at the protection center. I can't... I just can't with this family."

I grabbed my raincoat and my bag. As we got into her car, it started pouring. My mother stood by the door, staring.

"Are you okay, Walker?" Elec asked.

"Yeah, I will be." If Elec and I had one thing in common with our appearance, it's the hair. Wavy and unruly. Except, mine was black.

"And stop yelling at your mom. You should have seen the way Mrs. Gannon was looking at you through the fence."

"That woman! I wonder what she gets from looking and eavesdropping at other people's homes. I bet she'd love to have a spy camera in my home." I sighed. "We should name her Jane Bond."

"Ooooh... that's a nice name, but it doesn't beat the name Walker."

By the way, Walker is not my name. My name is Margo Fawn, 16 years old. I earned that name when I was in third grade because Electra thought I always walked too fast. Electra Withers and I had been friends for 10 years now. Neighbors/best friends. Our houses were at the 6th block of Brookhedge. We both could literally see each other through our room windows. Her house was situated right next to mine. That's how we became friends, talking through the window, smiling when we saw each other at school.

As we stopped for the stop light at Brightmaple, I saw the white van with blue-painted words CONMISDUM protection facility. So someone from my neighborhood was infected with CONMISDUM? What the damn heaven was happening?

"You know, Irsia swears that Declan is infected. When she drove home Saturday from school, she had seen him walking down the road amid the heavy pour and apparently, he was performing a soliloquy on the road. When she asked him if he needed a ride home, he had started running." Elec paused and looked at me. "Irsia claims his running was very inhuman."

"Why was Irsia offering him a ride? She should stop being nice. Especially to strangers," I blurted at the thought of what could have happened if Irsia had let Declan in her car. Everyone was afraid to befriend any new person. People were even scared to go near people they didn't know. Some wore masks and some became OCD and germophobic. CONMISDUM was to be blamed for this. Well, Declan wasn't a stranger. I used to tutor his sister up until last year. Desiree was a sophomore and I was a junior.

Amen." Elec sighed and drove away as the green lights came up.

I let out a sigh and I confessed, "I saw him too. Talking alone."

"What?" Her voice was a really low-pitched, surprised tone.

"Umm... I went looking for Damon. I went to the Crossburn lake and I saw him talking, alone, wandering at the edges of the woods."

"Wait. What? You went there alone. You could have called me. I thought you were sick that day."

"I was sick...," I pressed. "I just wanted to see if Damon was there. Other than my home and your home, he knows only Irsia's and Aiden's and Aiden had taken him for swimming at the Crossburn lake. So I just thought it was worth the shot of looking for him there.... and..." I paused.

Elec turned toward me for a second and glared. "What else did you do?" Her tone was laced with concern.

"Uhh... I took a boat...," I mumbled.

"Umm... I think I heard you say that you took a boat..." She sniggered for a split second. "I am sorry. That was insensitive. Look, I too love Damon. If you think that there is a chance for him to be lurking near the lake or the woods or..."

I knew why she stopped mid-sentence. Because it was ridiculous. Damon was sick. He did what all sick dogs did. He left home. That's what people say when sick dogs left home, that they know they are dying. I feared that I wouldn't be there to comfort him in his last moments and that was why I always kept the gates shut. My mother, being my mother, as always left the gates open and he left home. The thought that he could be somewhere at this horrible weather made me shiver. I didn't even give him a goodbye hug and neither did he lift his paw to wave me bye when I saw him last.

As we neared our school, it was unusually crowded and the gates were shut. So Declan was infected with CONMISDUM and that was why the CONMISDUM protection facility van was at the Brightmaple. I just wished my guess wasn't right, because if it was right, then Desiree and her parents would be taken to the CONMISUM protection center. I stepped out and spotted Irsia. Irsia Bookman. Another best friend of mine. I had been friends with both Elec and Irsia for 10 years now. Irsia had her hair flowing free. Irsia had straight hair. Silky and smooth. Irsia and Aiden walked up to us.

Aiden Wilder and Irsia were neighbors. He was a new friend of us. Not so new. He transferred here last year. He had to redo sophomore year with us because he lost a year as his family had been moving a lot. He was the son of Dr. Wilder -chief doctor of the CONMISDUM protection center. He's been friends with us for a year now. With us meaning -Irsia and I. Elec hated him. Irsia and Aiden's house was at the last block of Rosegrass street. Their homes faced each other's homes. The last house on the Rosegrass street was Auroville Villa. Mm... it's not exactly a house. The biggest house in whole of our town, Ostonn Newvale. Nobody had lived there since a murder. After a few minutes of walking from Auroville Villa was the Crossburn lake, which extended to the edge of the woods. And oh, we went to Acadia High.

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