Vasily Heller

Vasily flung his scarf back over his shoulder. It fell off every ten seconds, but he just kept putting the scarf back in place autonomously. Instead he tried to keep his mind off the cold. December seemed to have taken over the weather. Vasily tensed the muscles in his neck and shoulders, it kept him warmer that way. Students walked by, making their way towards school. Most of the passed by, talking enthusiastically. They were probably loud, but the only thing Vasily could hear was his own jaws softly chattering against each other uncontrollably. You would say that he should have gotten used to it by now – raised in the town – sadly, this isn’t the case.

“Vay!“Vay! Master of bananas, I’ve been calling you for the past ten minutes,” cried a boy with brown curly hair. He kept his balance by holding onto Vasily’s arm.

“I’m sorry Max, I didn’t hear you,” said Vasily while waiting for the boy to catch his breath. “You must’ve ran a long way to catch up with me.”

Max is Vasiliy’s overenthusiastic best friend. He loves adventure, sadly for him, adventure is rare in the town they live in. He did his best to hide his passion, but failed miserably.

Vasily is an overall calm boy, so the chaotic Max could be hard to deal with sometimes. Even so Max was irreplaceable to Vasily.

Max straightened his back and inhaled deeply, matching Vasily’s height. “I have something to tell you… certainly not good news.” They walked together through the garden of the school. “Do you remember the boy in our year who got hospitalized?” He asked urgently.

Vasily rolled his eyes. There max goes again, a few months back a boy in their year got hospitalized with an unknown illness. Max fantasized it to be something unnatural. He came up with a few unusual theories which Vasily had forgotten. Max didn’t want to give up on the subject however.

“Yes,” Vasily answered. Trying to hide his annoyance in his voice.

“Yes? Yes of course. You see his name is Boris and - ” Max said, as Vasily’s attention got caught by something else.

He saw gold long hair in the corner of his eye. He turned to see it belonged to a girl in his year.

Vasily didn’t remember names very well. But there wasn’t a single person in school who didn’t know the name of the girl with the golden hair, including him. It could be because the school was small, or maybe it was because of her natural kindness and beauty.

The girl caught Vasily’s eyes. She looked away almost instantly and blushed.

“Aaaaand you haven’t heard a word I said,” Said Max. He followed Vasily’s eyes, only to find himself disappointed. “You fancy Nina? I didn’t mean to ask that because I know you fancy her. I meant: can you stop fancying her for a few seconds? I just need five minutes of your fancying-time.”

Vasily was caught off guard: “Wha – I don’t… What are you saying?” He mumbled, in a loss for words.

Max pointed at himself, “best friend,” then he pointed towards Nina, “girl you barely talk to, can I have your attention now please.”

Vasily cleared his throat to shake the awkwardness. He looked back at Max, “you were saying?”

“Listen I will tell you after chemistry class, this is urgent. I’m not kidding.” Max parted his way from Vasily and made his way towards the classroom, into his chair.

This made Vasily curious. He wanted to follow him and hear him out after all, but the teacher arrived and called everyone to take a seat.

Vasily sat next to his lab partner and dreamed away the most of the class.

While his partner was doing all the work Vasily’s eyes fell on a classmate. There was a girl in the very front of the classroom. She had her thick brown hair tied in a ponytail. Vasily tried to remember her name, but it wouldn’t come to him. She acted a bit out of the ordinary. She sat stiff on her chair not moving an inch. Her eyes were opened wide and focused. Vasily thought he could see fear expressed in her eyes. He followed her gaze what led to a spot on the ground next to the teacher. He felt confused, there was nothing unusual there. He turned back to the girl. She hadn’t changed her position or the way she was staring at the spot on the ground.

It could be that she was dazing off just like him.

As Vasily was about to turn back, the girl’s eyes started moving from left to right, with the speed increasing every second. Vasily felt something heavy in his stomach. That was an odd way to daze off. He pulled his eyes away from her and turned back deciding to help his partner out, trying to forget the odd girl and shake the uneasy feeling.

Before he could ask his partner anything, the lights in the classroom started to flicker. No one paid attention to the flickering lights. That changed with time as the flickering wouldn’t stop. The class became restless.

The teacher looked irritated. “Okay class, you continue your work, I will check this out,” he sighed, walking out of the classroom.

After their teacher was out of sight, the lamps ceased to work completely. The class erupted in chatter. Some scared, while others started telling how their weekend went.

Vasily turned to the girl who had acted weird before the lamps did, but he couldn’t see her clearly in de dark. The uneasy feeling in his stomach returned.

“Yo,” Max tapped Vasily’s shoulder, giving him a scare. “Calm it’s just me.”

“Why are you so silent, you scared me.”

“Or why is the class suddenly so chatty.”

The light went on again. Max gave Vasily a puzzled look. But Vasily wasn’t able to answer. He knew as much as Max.

Vasily’s eyes searched for the girl with the ponytail in class.

Her face was still facing the ground, only this time on another spot. She slowly turned her head and her eyes followed. It was almost as if she was following something moving on the marble ground. Her head shot towards a boy in the classroom – who was very comfortably chatting up his friends.

Nothing about this situation felt right. Vasily noticed he was softly shaking. “Max… ?” Vasily started.

“Hm?” Max didn’t notice the weird behavior of his female classmate.

The girl stood up abruptly, while the boy who was talking freely froze and lost all coordination of his body. He fell flat on the ground.

A few girls screamed and the audience of the boy took a few steps back, as foam came out of the boy’s mouth.

Max sprinted to the door of the classroom, “I’m going to get help,” he yelled and disappeared into the corridors.

The rest of the day was blurred for Vasily. He didn’t understand what had happened the first period.

The boy was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Class was dismissed. And the parents of the boy had been called and arrived minutes later.

Max was the hero that day.

“What do you think that happened?” Max whispered in history class.

“I- I have no idea,” Vasily wasn’t sure what he saw. Something had happened in that classroom. Vasily shrugged, what is he supposed to say?

“Something must have gotten to him. He fell so suddenly.” Max expressed that sentence more interested than worried.

“Something must have gotten to him? Do you hear yourself Max?”

“Gentleman in the back, got anything more interesting than my class to share with the rest?”

“Sir!” Max stood up. “Did you hear about Albert's incident this morning?”

“Yes Max.” The teacher looked at Max with a tired expression. Vasily wasn’t the only one who suffered under Max’s character. “Your classmate is in safe hands Max. No need to worry about it.”

“Safe hands doesn’t mean anything sir. Can’t you be more specific about the state he’s in?”

“I am not a journalist Max, I am a teacher so if you will allow, I would like to continue my class.”

Max sat down. “Well, what about the flickering light? You can’t tell me that that wasn’t creepy al.”

Vasily shook his head. If only Max knew what he observed.

“Anyway, what I meant to tell you, Boris.” Max continued in whisper.

Boris, yes Vasily forgot about the subject they were talking before entering chemistry. Even so, he wasn’t very interested in Boris. Not as much as the incident of today.

“He died yesterday night.”

Vasilys heart started to beat faster. “What exactly is happening in this town?”

“My question exactly.” Max’s his eyes lightened up.

Suddenly the door of the classroom opened and a man in a dark blue suit showed.

“Maximilian Blanter?”

Max, once again stood up.

“Follow me,” he ordered.

Vasily gave Max a questioning look. Max shrugged as if he meant to say: “don’t look at me like that, I’ve never seen this man in my life either okay?”

This raised more questions with Vasily. This morning he was complaining about the cold, but right now, he had the feeling he was getting dragged in something he wasn’t prepared or willing to be dragged into.

The roles seemed to have reversed the next day. It was Vasily’s turn to ask the questions. “Wat happened yesterday? Why did some guy snatch you from class?”

Max looked around to make sure no one was listening. “It was the local police, they think there is some kind of serial killer around town.” He whispered.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL – ”

“Keep it down, will you?” Max interrupted.

“I mean, how did this get from an epileptic attack to mass murdering?”

Max narrowed his eyes, “mass murdering? Aren’t you exaggerating?”

“Oh I am exaggerating now?” Vasily pointed to himself, “Are you sure you are not making this up Max?”

“Listen,” Max gestured with his hand to keep it down. “The illness Boris had and the epileptic attack of Albert in our class yesterday seem to match. That’s why they called me in for questioning.”

“Wait, the police thinks you are a suspect?”

“No, but they do think the incidents of the two boys are connected.”

“Connected? What do you mean connected, connected by having the same disease?” It just sounded ridiculous to Vasily.

“Who said it was a disease,” Max pointed out. “How about, poisoning, bewitching, and so on?”

That would indeed make much more sense. The poisoning part at least.