Through the Glass Darkly A Bundle of Sadness The breakfast bell rung throughout through the halls of the Whispering Hills Eastern Dorm and hungry crowd of girls, many still clad in pyjamas and nightgowns, began to fill the halls. One girl among them walked against the flow of girls, her short, dark brown hair bouncing with each step, a pair of black plastic barrettes held the left side of her hair from falling into her eyes, as she ascended the dorm stairs, carefully weaving her way through the crowd. She watched each girl, in search of someone that she already knew would not be among them. It didn't take long for the halls to clear, leaving her standing alone. With a sigh of disappointment, she continued to climb the stairs to the third floor where she found the halls were quiet apart from the occasional straggler breaking the silence while chatting with a friend or two about the day's events. "Hey Cherilyn," A passer-by calls out to the girl, "Aren't you going to eat?" "I will," She replied apprehensively, "Have you seen Tanya around?" Cherilyn asked, gazing down the hall. She already knew what the answer would be, but she held a slight hope that she would be mistaken. Long faced, the group of girls glanced down the hall and one of them turned back to Cherilyn, "She still hasn't come out of her room." She replied with a note of concern in her voice. Tanya had not been out of her room in a long time, and everyone in the east wing was beginning to worry. "Thanks," Cherilyn said, trying to force herself to smile at the girls, but only managing to get the corner of her mouth to twitch slightly. The girls mirrored her uncomfortable smile before continuing along their way to the cafeteria. Cherilyn watched until the girls disappeared down the stairwell, only when they were gone did she scan up and down the hall to see if anyone else was still lingering. When she was certain that the floor was empty she march down the hall, this time with more urgency then before and stopped at the door marked E212 at the far end of the hall, where she proceeded to knock. At first there was no response and Cherilyn was about to knock again when she heard a tired voice speak, almost in a whisper, "I don't want to eat... thanks." Cherilyn felt her fists clench, just hearing the pain in her friend's voice was like knives in her heart. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before reaching out to open the door, "Tanya, it's me..." She said as she entered the room. A gloomy feeling permeated the room; the firmly drawn curtains didn't help matters. Two beds, each set against either wall, took up a large portion of the tiny room. A pair of desks faced the walls between the heads of each bed and the far wall, which comprised of one large window that started about waist height and reached to the ceiling, with a small nock for someone to sit upon when they wished. Two Wardrobes took up the ends of the beds and filled the last of the room, leaving only a small amount of space to move around. The left hand side of the room was neat and obviously had not been used in some time while the other bed's covers were rumpled into a tight ball, and a small bit of light brown hair could be seen poking out of the side. The blankets began to shift, and a teenaged girl in baggy blue pyjamas covered in cat paw prints emerged like a butterfly from a cocoon. Her shoulder length hair was a tangled mess, and there were dark circles under her bloodshot eyes, showing that she had been crying for days. She blinked several times and glanced around the room, wavering back and forth where she sat, almost as if she was unaware of her surroundings. "You weren't in class again yesterday." Cherilyn noted to the girl, while sitting down gently on the corner of the bed. "I was tired..." Tanya said softly, unable to look at her friend. "You look more like you're dead." Cherilyn stated. She tried hard to laugh, but the look of despair on Tanya's face made her laughter die before it escaped her lips, "Are you ever going to come back to school?" She asked while she leaned back to stare at the ceiling, planting her hands on either side to support herself. "What's the use?" Tanya flopped back down on the bed and closed her eyes. Cherilyn turned her head to glance at her friend, wishing there was something she could say, or do, to help relieve her of some of the sorrow she was feeling. She shifted her hand and felt something hard under the blankets. Reaching underneath the covers, Cherilyn found a small picture frame, which held a year old photo showing Jenn and Kris happily holding each other, smiling cheerfully at the camera. Cherilyn glanced up from the photo to gaze upon the empty bed across the room, where not long ago she used to see Jenn curled up asleep. 'How long had it been? Weeks? Months?' Cherilyn had lost track of the time, but ever since that day... 'Oh sweet Jennifer.' Cherilyn thought to herself while tracing a finger along the outline of the photo. Jenn was not like any of the other East Wingers. She always stood tall and proud, as if the fact that she lived in an orphanage of sorts didn't bother her nonetheless. She had a strength to her that was felt by all those around her. It was no wonder that so many secretly crushed for the girl. While May's passing only made a slight ripple among the school dwellers, Jenn's near death spread through out the school like a tidal wave. It was like a sullen shadow fell over the school, and one by one everyone was being affected by it. No one felt it more than Tanya, who was not only one of Jenn's closest friends, but Cherilyn was certain that at one time Tanya had feelings for Jennifer, just as Cherilyn was feeling for Tanya at that moment. No one really knew how much pain Jenn must have been hiding behind that warming smile of her's. Or how many sleepless nights the girl must have endured before running cold steel across her wrists. Cherilyn's eyes dropped to her own hands. Her parents had been swiftly taken from her whilst she was away at school. She had arrived at home only to discover their lifeless bodies lying on the living room floor. Her mind simply shut down at that time. Soon after she was sent to Whispering Hills and was told that many of the girls have also survived horrifying events. On more than one occasion had she considered dying, however, the close bonds she found to the many friends she made at the school kept her alive and, to some extent, even sane. She could not fathom what could have happened to Jenn. The girl was known to keep quiet on those details. Not really on purpose. It was like the girl could not remember and Cherilyn could understand that, however the death of May must have been too much for Jenn's mind to handle and finally pushed the girl over the edge. "It's not fair." Tanya said her voice muffled by the pillow she clenched close to her head, "We should all be eating together like always. It's just not fair." Tears soaked the pillowcase as she buried her face deeper into the pillow and let out an intense sob. Gingerly Cherilyn placed one of her arms over Tanya's legs and softly set her head on the girl's lap, "I know... I know..." She could not think of anything to say that would soothe her friend, and watching Tanya like this was squeezing on her heart more and more as the days passed by, "I wish I could take the pain away." She mumbled. "I just want everything to be the way it was." Tanya pulled the pillow off her head, leaving her eyes covered by her arm, "May, Jenn and Kris... " She sniffled. Cherilyn pulled herself closer to Tanya until she was looking down at the girl. She turned the girl over and pulled her arm away from her eyes so that she could look into them. For the first time Tanya truly noticed Cherilyn. A small tear welled up in the corner of Cherilyn's eye, "I hate seeing you like this." She set her head on Tanya's shoulder. Setting her hands on Cherilyn's cheek Tanya spoke in but a whisper, "I'm sorry..." Tanya didn't realize until now just how much her friend was hurting. Every day Cherilyn would visit her and watch over her while she slept, only leaving to go to classes or get something to eat. More than once Cherilyn had snuck a snack into Tanya's room, just to make sure the girl ate something, but until now Tanya was too blinded by her own misery to notice. The two girls lay listening to each other's breathing, neither knowing what to say to the other. Abruptly the intercom crackled to life, "Vitt... Tanya Vitt, telephone for you... Telephone for Tanya Vitt." The intercom shut off. Cherilyn sat up, "Do you want me to get that for you?" She asked. "No, that is alright." Tanya unravelled herself from the blankets and dropped her feet into her slippers before standing. She glanced over at her friend, "I'll be right back, alright?" She grabbed a robe off the desk chair and threw it over her shoulders. "Sure thing," Cherilyn rolled over on the bed and watched Tanya groggily shuffle out the door, leaving Cherilyn alone once again. After a few moments, Cherilyn got to her feet and pulled the curtains open, flooding the room with the new morning's light. She then opened the window to let in some fresh air. She took a deep breath, feeling the cool autumn air fill her lungs and let it out. Some birds chirped in a nearby tree that a few girls sat in the shade of while eating. Off to her left the school could be seen stretching into the distance. The academy itself is a monolithic structure. The central wing itself is something to behold. Stone steps lead up to a set of massive wooden doors that greet the students as they enter the school. A long row of windows, which belong to the head mistress' office, can be seen overlooking the front schoolyards, and above that sits the school's extensive library. The auditorium occupied the rest of the wing. While the east wing looked like any other modern day school with its clean grey brink walls and lines of steel framed windows running the entire length of all five floors, the west wing had a style that was almost Victorian. The walls were made of a red brick, which looked like they had seen one to many days in the sun. Long branches of ivy spread across much of that side of the building framing wooden windows with old shutters that lined the walls of each of the seven floors, giving the wing an eerie and haunted look to it. Both dorms reflected the uniqueness of their respective wing of the school. At the far end of the school grounds the Western Dorm could bee seen looming on the horizon. Even from this distance the wing held a creepy quality to it, and made Cherilyn shudder. No one knew, or even understood, why the school was divided in such a way. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to why some of the girls were chosen to live in such a desolate place as the West Wing. Many East Wingers protested when they got their move notice, however once they were settled they seemed quite happy with the idea. It sometimes made Cherilyn curious as to what exactly went on in that end of the school and yet no one would talk about it to the East Wingers. It was not like they were rude about it or anything. They just didn't seem like they wanted to talk much about why that wing existed. Cherilyn felt she grasped, to some extent, the reason for the West Wingers. There was something about those girls that was so much different then all the others. She was almost certain that it was something within their eyes, almost as if some kind of gloom was trying to eat at their very souls. As if their suffering was much more than anyone in the East Wing could ever comprehend. She was glad she didn't end up as one of the West Wingers, because she was not sure she would be able to live in that old building. Secretly Cherilyn feared the day she too would be called to that hideous wing. She dreaded that her mere feelings for Tanya would damn her to that decaying place. It was well known that many of the girls of the West Wing felt the pleasures of softer flesh. Yet of the East Wingers there were so very few that Cherilyn could count them on her hands and with Jenn and Kris's disappearance that number had greatly diminished. Her eyes drifted across the landscape to fall upon the black trees of the Western Woods that surrounded most of the west side of the grounds. It looked as if the woods would swallow the entire West Wing dorms in any given minute. Its dark, dense brush stifled all light that tried to enter its boundaries. On the brightest of days the forest only seemed to get that much more dismal. The students were warned of the woods the moment they set foot on the grounds. It was a forbidden place and Cherilyn didn't have to be told twice to stay clear of that area. To her, it felt like the woods itself were alive and she was almost certain that the forest had actually grown larger in the past few months, growing in strength. The longer she stared at it, the more she became convinced that the woods were pulsating and that the gnarled branches of the trees were reaching out towards her, wanting to pull her in and eat her alive. She quickly turning away so she didn't have to look at the thing any longer, only to find Tanya standing in the middle of the room, staring at the photo with tears in her eyes. She glanced up at Cherilyn while wiping at her eyes with the sleeve of her pyjamas. Cherilyn broke away from the window and pulled the girl into her arms, "Shhhh... It is all right... Just let it out." She whispered softly, while stroking the back of the girl's head. "I'm sorry." Tanya said between sobs, "I'm just so happy." "Happy?!?" Cherilyn stepped back so she could look the girl in the eyes, "Huh???" She was clearly confused. "They're back." Tanya said with a smile, holding the picture frame up, "Their finally back." There was a shimmer in the girl's eyes as if something breathed life back into them and she wrapped her arms around Cherilyn's neck. Cherilyn standing stiff as her mind pinwheeled around what she was hearing. Could it really be true? Jenn and Kris had returned? Her mind struggled with this thought as she stared down at Tanya’s head as she nuzzled into her shoulder. She had to force her arms to encircle the girl and return the hug for in her heart she felt something worrisome about their friends sudden return, but did not wish to ruin her friend’s new found will to live so kept her worries to herself and just enjoyed the hug. ***** To be Continued...
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