I woke up, strangely not as excited as normal, this was definitely not the dream I  had about the perfect first day of school. I realized that I had barely slept in anticipation and had bags under my eyes, that’s okay though, nothing a little makeup can’t fix. I threw on my favorite dress, blue with a polka dot pattern, and combed through my hair, I put a headband on and smiled at the mirror. It was a little early to head to school so I had a quick breakfast that consisted of a pop tart, a tangerine, and a poorly cooked piece of toast. I then begrudgingly brushed my teeth and combed my hair again as I nervously put on lip gloss. I struggled not to bite my newly painted nails, each had a butterfly and simple background. I didn’t love the outfit, but it would do. By the time I had finished this routine it was 6:30 AM, I needed to be there by 7:30, which meant if I was biking I had maybe 5 minutes to grab my pre-packed backpack and hurry. My brother still hadn’t woken up as my parents were going to drive him, plus he had no fear of being late. He still probably would only reach school a few minutes after me. I would be there thirty minutes early however. When I got there the doors were locked, so bad for my exclusive tour. I chuckled at my own joke. The school was much larger than I expected for such a small town, it had three sections: early learning, daycare-5th grade, Middle learning, 6th grade through eighth grade, and finally High school, ninth grade through twelfth. I would be in the middle learning section, as an 8th grader, however my brother would be in the same section this year, at least that’s what we read in the info packet. He’s a stupid sixth grader, which meant I’d be seeing a lot of him this year. My brother sadly looked very different from me, he was very fat, and had short blonde hair, and he loved to wear small shirts, And pretend he was skinny and the shirt actually fit him. Of course he would hit it off with the straight boys in his classes like usual. Well that was until he started bullying them for fun. To my surprise when I was finally let in the school, my brother was alone, on his phone. He’s not normally the introvert type, so this surprised me immensely. I however was being given dirty looks left and right, but before I could rush away to class, I tripped and fell… onto Kai! I was sure my face was as bright red as a tomato, from embarrassment of course. “Oh, hey there Kai!” I said nervously, “Oh hey there bestie.” Kai replied, “Oh hey do you want to meet my friends?” Kai asked, “Oh yeah! I’d love to!” I replied, not knowing what else to say, Kai led me to a group of maybe 5, 7 teenagers. “Hey everyone, I’d like you to meet River, River, meet Sylvain, Karla, Conner, London, Fay, Lime , Sam, and finally Arrow.” I was gawking at them, the one they called Sylvian was a bit shorter by a not very noticeable amount than Kai, with short Brown hair that curled at the end, he wore a Beanie, an oversized hoodie and jeans. Arrow was taller by a large margin but quite clearly wearing platforms, they wore a white collared shirt, tights, a pronouns pin, they had longer hair that rolled down their back. Sam wore a pink checkered shirt with a shorter blue skirt, and blue platforms, and tannish leg warmers, they stood out the most with their dyed pastel purple hair.  Conner had short brown hair that wasn’t styled in any particular way, with a black hoodie with some sort of a horror reference I didn’t understand, jeans, and oversized glasses with a Lennon style frame although tinted green. London was very tall with blonde curly hair, an anime hoodie, black colored jeans, and a friendship bracelet that now that I focused on matched one on Arrow’s wrist. Fay, had a half his head shaved, what was left was dyed blue, and he wore a plain white collared s. Lime wore a flannel over a plain black shirt, their hair was shaved in the back and they wore a sock monkey’s hand turned fingerless glove. They all seemed very nice, although were quite clearly the ‘weird gay kids’ at this school, there always seemed to be one. Lime and Sylvain leaned over a phone looking through what looked like Lime’s camera roll. Conner seemed quite uncomfortable with my arrival, while Sam was online shopping, more adding things to their wishlist than anything. London and Arrow were laughing at some video with one earbud in, the only person however that noticed, or cared about my presence was Fay. Fay looked over at me and stared for a while until heading over to me in a higher pitched, and certainly more enthusiastic voice he said “Hi! I’m Fay!” I was quite frankly shocked at the kind reception of my appearance, although I could only assume that he hadn’t yet  been told about my family. Or rather my families ‘EviL PlOt’. I took a second to respond “River” “Huh?” Fay replied “River, my name's River” “I may have gotten that from the introduction Kai gave, but nice to meet you.” he replied “Oh, Sorry!” I replied, frazzled. “No need to apologize!” Fay said, smiling. He seemed like a really sunny, fun person. “Oh, It’s getting late if I want to get all the way to the PE court” He said. I turned to Kai who was talking to Lime and Sylvain. “Mind walking me to class” I replied, truly hoping for a yes. “Yeah, sure, you have your schedule, right?” Kai replied, I opened the email the school had sent me on my phone “Yeah, I have Science first” I replied “C’mon River! We have the same class.” Kai replied, Sylvain and Lime trailed behind. “I think all four of us have the same class” Kai remarked. I was glad that Kai was there but I wasn’t quite sure about her friends, they seemed nice, but they didn’t seem to quite like ME. They looked quite indifferent either way, still leaned over Lime’s phone. The two of them would laugh once in a while, but for the most part were quiet, I was staring again. “Oh them, they are best friends, I wouldn’t focus on them too much though, class will be starting in about five minutes, they are table partners, and now that I think about it we might too! I’m one of the only two students that doesn’t have a partner, we got separated due to fighting, we both ‘never got any work done” Kai said, I soon would find out why they fought, as we walked into class, Lime hurriedly put away their phone and Sylvain took out his earbud. They both sat down along with Kai as I awkwardly stood at the front of the class. The teacher who had left the door open was nowhere to be found, Kai kept sending me encouraging looks, while Lime and Sylvain, who apparently had suddenly noticed my presence, looked up at me, shaking their heads and making a throat cutting movement, I didn’t think much of it…

That was until I felt a looming presence over me….