Chapter Text
Another school day didn't stand out among the others. Morning, chaotic crowds of students, the creaking of lockers, the echo of laughs and the hum of conversations. Here a group of popular guys are discussing the latest gossip, there are a couple of students crashing into each other and dropping textbooks, and in a half-empty classroom someone is sitting with headphones on and prefers to ignore the world around them.
Anne Boonchuy nervously adjusted the straps of her backpack while standing in front of the main entrance. "St. James High School," the inscription greeted her. Taking a deep breath, she pulled the door handle and stepped into the unfamiliar territory of her new school. The lively atmosphere instantly enveloped the brown-haired girl from all sides. The air was buzzing with excited chatter, conversations here and there. The voices echoed through the corridors, reaching Anne's ears in fragments.
"Have you heard about Sasha Waybright?"
"I heard something happened to her."
"No one really knows what happened."
Anne raised an eyebrow, frowning slightly. It seemed that only this name was on everyone's lips, as if the local students didn't know any other topics for discussion. 'Who is this Sasha Waybright?' Anne wondered, grunting in her thoughts. Anyway, it's none of her business.
She continued to make her way through the many students, glancing at the classroom numbers with slight confusion. Anne's gaze involuntarily shifted to the fuss nearby and she paused. A blonde with piercing blue eyes attracted attention with loud behavior. She circled around the three girls, snapping her fingers in front of their faces.
"It's not funny, Millie," the blonde crossed her arms over her chest, frowning and tapping her foot when the other girls didn't seem to pay any attention to her.
As if sensing Anne's gaze on her, the blue-eyed student turned the head to her. Anne shivered as the icy eyes met her own. She immediately looked away and continued on her way, unlocking her phone and burying her face in the screen, pretending to be very passionate about something there.
There was a chuckle, causing Anne to lift and turn her head. The blonde's lips curled in a contemptuous smile, and she brazenly remarked: "Nice outfit, new. Have you been shopping at a thrift store?"
Rolling her eyes, Anne decided not to dignify this remark with an answer. She walked past and ignored the other girl. After walking away a little, she muttered, "Damn upstart."
Finally noticing the right classroom, Anne slowed down, rereading the number a couple of times. 104. This is it. The brown-haired girl went inside and quickly found an empty seat with her eyes. She flopped down on the chair and threw her backpack on the floor near her desk.
"Hey, are you new here?" the guy next to Anne leaned slightly towards her.
Anne nodded. She opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the bell, and then by the voice of the teacher who entered.
"Excuse me. I have to make an announcement," a middle-aged woman with glasses looked around the classroom. When silence fell, she continued. "It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that Sasha Waybright was in a terrible accident this morning on her way to school. She is currently in a coma, fighting for her life."
After these words, the usual disciplinary silence turned into a death silence for a couple of seconds, and then a lot of whispers filled the classroom.
"It really sounds terrible..."
"That's rough."
"I never liked her."
"I wonder what happened to the driver?"
The teacher lightly knocked the book on the table. "Silence in the classroom! Have a conscience, please."
It could be said that it became quieter, but the students didn't stop exchanging remarks among themselves.
"Listen, who is she?" Anne whispered to the guy who had spoken to her a minute earlier.
"Sasha Waybright?" he replied in the same whisper. "Well, she's a pretty popular girl here. Almost the whole school… No, everyone here knows her."
The guy took his phone from the desk and started looking for something there. Soon he turned the screen to Anne. Sasha's social network account was opened there, and the guy thumbed through a couple of her photos. She was a blonde with hair pulled back in a ponytail, fair skin and a beauty mark under her left eye. But most of all, her eyes stood out, blue and cold, like ice. When Anne caught sight of this detail, it was like an electric shock. She had seen those eyes only once, but she couldn't mistake them for anything else.
"Wait… Is this Sasha Waybright?" Anne shook her head and held out her hand, flipping through the photos again. "But it's impossible… I saw her at school about 15 minutes ago."
The guy frowned. "It's not funny, girl," his voice sounded cold.
"But I'm not kidding! I really saw her, I'm sure of it," Anne raised her voice slightly, waving her hands, so the teacher cleared her throat in displeasure. Then she bit her lip awkwardly and went back to whispering. "She made a dig about my clothes."
"It really looks like her," the guy softened slightly. "But you must have confused her with someone else. There are still a lot of blue-eyed blondes, you know," he shrugged.
Anne pursed her lips in displeasure. She was sure she couldn't have been mistaken. 'But if that girl really was Sasha'… Anne's breath caught in her throat. She definitely needed a minute.
She raised her hand. "May I go out?"
After receiving a nod from the teacher, the brown-haired girl hurried out of the classroom and went to the nearest toilet. She stood in front of a long mirror with washbasins.
"I think that guy is right," Anne took a deep breath. She turned on the cold water and took a little in her palm, then splashed all the water on her face. "This is nonsense. I just made a mistake. Yeah."
Anne looked at her reflection. Feeling calmer now, she turned to leave. "What the?!" she suddenly screamed and staggered back when in front of her was the same blonde she had seen in the hallway in the morning. The blonde who, Anne was now sure, was Sasha Waybright.
"What's your problem?!" the blue-eyed girl asked with the same volume, rolling her eyes irritably. However, then realization flashed across her face. "So you see me?"
Anne nodded silently, still too stunned to speak. After a couple of seconds, she held out her hand out of curiosity. The hand passed freely through the other girl's body. This feeling seemed strange to Anne. Judging by the way the blonde winced, it was also an unusual feeling for her.
"What..."
Anne repeated the hand movements a couple of times, her gaze darting between the hand-absorbing body, the reflection where she was the only one and the piercing blue eyes. Sasha's body was by no means transparent and didn't look amorphous, except that there was a slight chill from her and you could notice a faint strange aura if you looked closely. Finally, Anne pulled her hand away and took a step back. Meanwhile, Sasha was touching her own arms. Their eyes met, and the next moment the toilet was filled with shouts.
"Are you a ghost?!"
"Wait… Am I really a ghost?!"