Pawn

The air had transformed into a thick, warm blanket that fought against the kids’ bodies and lungs. It was an oppressive, harsh smelling haze that ripped through their nostrils and seared mouths, eyes, and throats. Drea pushed through, clawing at the air with her fingers as her chest heaved and strained. Tears clouded her burning eyes. She didn’t know where to run. It was mid September, and the endless rows of corn stood taller than Drea. It made for a cruel maze as Drea tore through stalks of corn as heat and smoke gnashed at her senses.

She hunched over, gulping for fresh air. Her entire body had been basted in a generous film of sweat. Her left knee was bloody and both were filthy. She must have fallen at some point in her scramble to escape. One minute she was standing in a field, and the next, an inferno was tearing unforgivingly through the corn. Everything happened so fast. 

Drea woke up every morning feeling like she had just narrowly evaded that roaring fire. Her heart would be pounding in her chest like a drum, her skin clammy, and her hands would be trembling like a silk shirt on a clothing line. Her breathing was rapid. She knew her breaths were rushed and shallow, but she couldn’t control it. She would lay in bed in a fog for as long as an hour before getting out of bed. 

She got up today after wallowing in bed some twenty minutes. Sometimes, those dreams would wake her up in the middle of the night. Other times, it would be clear the dream had crept up a mere hour into sleep. Last night, it was still clear in her head when she awoke. It was vivid in her memory. The horrific sounds and smells of that day were lingering in the back of her mind like a drug that hadn’t worn off. Sometimes it felt like she wasn’t really awake anymore. She spent so much time feeling like she was in a nightmare. Feeling panicked and slightly nauseous became familiar, just a baseline for the girl. 

As she sat in the classroom that cold, grey morning, she wondered if any of her peers had noticed a change in her. She felt like she was merely portraying herself in a movie, and she was petrified of saying the wrong thing at any moment. There were a total of two hundred and forty-seven children in her grade at her school. In her class, she shared the room with thirty kids. Today, twenty-nine others shared the space with her. The other kids chatted while they waited for the bell to ring and the teacher to address them. Drea noticed Sasha wasn’t sitting in her usual spot, but across the room. Drea hadn’t spoken to any of the people that had been there since the night in question. She didn’t have the stomach for it. 

In fact, she had barely managed to pull herself together enough to be in the classroom that day. She toyed with the idea of convincing her parents to allow her to miss two days for hours on Sunday. She didn’t want her life to continue just yet. She needed more time to shake this dread. For fear of her parents ignoring her pleas and being let into the horror, she resumed her life normally. With her feet feeling particularly heavy and her stomach in knots, she occupied her desk. She sighed and fussed with her school supplies restlessly. She rearranged the purple notebook, pen, and pink eraser countless times. 

“Drea!” 

Drea looked up hopefully, anticipating that perhaps Sasha had returned to her rightful seat. She wanted to see her friend. She didn’t even need to speak to her, but just had to feel and know her familiar presence. It would be a grounding force amidst the whirlwind spiraling in her head. 

Instead, her eyes met the mocking face of Jason. Jason’s been seated in front of Drea since the beginning of the year. Drea wanted him to move by the third day. His close-set eyes were dark and beady, totally foreign and vacant like those of a shark. Jason bared his teeth and mocked her, flailing his hands as they hovered in faux rearrangement. He shook his head with a curled lip. “Retard.” 

Drea glared at him. Jason wasn’t there Friday night. He would never understand the turmoil Drea was going through, nor would he likely care. When she closed her eyes for a moment, she saw hands frantically clawing at fiery brush. She recalled the skin bubbling and dripping from her fingers like wax. Drea suppressed a gag, anxiety wrenching her stomach. She took a deep breath before vomiting on the floor beside her desk. 

She rushed to her feet before she could hear the reactions of her classmates and scurried to the nurse’s office. Her face was burning with embarrassment, yet she was happy to return home and prolong facing her accomplices. She moaned and wept and pleaded at the nurse, which wasn’t all that necessary, but something Drea subconsciously felt the need to express. By the time the nurse had left the room to call her parents, Drea was hoarse with a wad of wet tissues in her hand. 

“You shouldn’t have gone to school if you weren’t feeling well, honey,” Drea’s mother said. Her eyes darted over at the pale, slouched form of her daughter in the passenger seat before returning to the road. “I could’ve called off from work. I’m sorry but I’m afraid I have to take you home, get you settled, and then finish my shift. You know I would be home with you if I could.”

Drea feared the thought of being left home alone at this point. As difficult as the school day would have been, she really didn’t want to spend any more time alone than she already had. What she needed at this point was a distraction. She started to wish she had talked her way into staying at school, even if that meant sitting in the nurse’s office doing her work. She would be happy to sit on the stiff armchair, her mouth tinged with the remnant of bile as she mindlessly completed worksheets. The rest of the ride home, she wondered what she might do to occupy her time. 

Drea hadn’t been home for more than fifteen minutes when her phone buzzed. She had turned on cartoons at an obnoxious volume in a pathetic attempt to busy herself as soon as she got home. She was afraid her thoughts might stray towards Sophia. She would need to contend with the gravity of the situation at some time or another, but right now, Drea was too weak. 

Drea’s phone continued to vibrate. The longer the ringer went on, the higher the volume seemed to climb. Minutes passed, but the phone persisted, rumbling gravelly on her solid wood dresser. She didn’t want to speak to or think about any of her classmates until the next day.Yet, she was unable to resist leaping for her device. 

Admittedly, she was eager to know if Sasha had reached out to her. Really, she was hoping to hear from any one of the six children that were there in the field. She couldn’t have been the only one floundering in the wake of that fateful, chilly autumn night. Still, Sasha was the one she was closest to, and the whole reason that Drea had even ended up on the Kalsan’s property that terrible night. It would be good to know what Sasha was making of the mess we’d all made. 

Drea couldn’t contain her disappointment when she didn’t see Sasha’s name in her message inbox. She sighed and opened one of the many notifications that had accumulated on her screen. She was sent to social media, where she saw a post from her classmate, Kelby. It was a photo of her in their homeroom class from that morning. Kelby had an exaggerated expression, her eyes bugged and tongue sticking out. The caption read, “now the room stinks like puke bc dumb bitches can’t use their legs to go to the toilet.” 

Drea felt the back of her neck get warm. Her head ducked as she fearfully inspected the interactions. She noted twenty-four likes and a repost, which confirmed her fear that other people had felt the same way as Kelby. Kelby wasn’t even there. If Kelby had smelled the singed flesh or watched wads of flesh slough off at the mercy of gravity, she might’ve been ill too. Drea felt her breathing start to pick up. 

Drea clawed her way through her notifications. What else were people saying? Her throat clenched up at the thought, but she had to know what was out there. She saw a similar text post someone had made with a crude animation of a puppet projectile vomiting attached. Other kids were replying with varying animations depicting vomit. Her throat started to get that crowded feeling like a marble was resting there. She wasn’t even at school to defend herself. 

She received a new notification. She went to her messages to see that Brady had contacted her. Brady was a boy that lived in her neighborhood. They’ve rode the same bus together since they were five. Drea watched Brady go from a shy, waif of a boy to a tall teenager with broadened shoulders. He had just filled out this past summer, and had yet to gain the attention and potential arrogance that would come with his growth. Drea had never heard a girl talk about Brady being cute until this year. She knew that it wasn’t a coincidence. Drea could only hope that Brady would pursue their friendship, even if Drea never amounted to the wide hips and full bosom that she had come to expect with maturity. 

Brady sent her several screenshots along with the message, “I’m in this groupchat with Kelby, Addison, Jake, Ariana, and Sam. They’re talking about you and they’re being really mean :(. I’m going to leave the chat.” 

Drea couldn’t stand to read the dozen or so messages that had been at her expense. Glossing over that for now, she texted her friend back, “Thank u for telling me Brady. You the best.” 

Brady texted back, “You the best.”

Drea sighed and tossed her phone to the side of her bed. She threw herself back onto the mattress and stared up at her ceiling. She wanted to cry. Her chest burned and stung with hurt and shame. 

Tears bit at her face as she clung to her stuffed animal, a brown, fluffy dog. She refocused her eyes from the ceiling to the glare of the television in the midmorning sun. She sobbed and pressed her face to the soft fabric of her toy, her only comfort in the empty home. She didn’t know how long she lay there and absently gazed at the cartoons as she wailed and sobbed. She cried herself to sleep, the dog still clutched to her chest.