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Allora Watson, that was my hand-picked name from my parents. They never told me why they chose this name but they said it was special so I guess that’s one thing I can run with. Funny enough I can safely say my names the only unique feature about me, I mean brown shoulder length hair, hazel eyes, “plump figure”, and 5’3. You could point out at least 10 people that look exactly like me if you stood in a store for 5 minutes. I never saw myself as a unique person, but Professor Trecksur did, he even made it apparent that I was his favorite student out of all his classes. He always accepted any late work from me and made it full credit, he’d even give me extra credits without having to do anything. He never explained why except for saying “It’s ok Allora, I know how parents can be,” and just motioned to my desk for me to sit.

Professor Trecksur was a well built 5’10 man, with curly light brown hair and deep brown eyes. I would be lying to you now if had told you he wasn’t kinda cute. Trecksur was an English teacher, but he never wanted to be called “Mr. Trecksur”. He would always say “That title makes me feel like I should be wearing a funky tie and making you read “The Great Gatsby””. I personally never understood that, I mean he was only in his late 20’s, early 30’s at the time so it wasn’t an age thing, and we were all seniors, so it wasn’t like we were gonna make fun of him if we just called him Mr. But he was serious about it, so we only called him Professor.

I always knew he favorited me, but it didn’t cross the line until the 3rd class after our midterms. Professor Trecksur had assigned us to write a personal essay about an event that challenged us but, he also added a challenge to the essay. We could not type the essay electronically, we had to use typewriters and unfortunately for me I didn’t finish mine in class. I walked to Trecksur’s desk after last period and pleaded if I could stay after and finish typing my essay. I don’t know why I didn’t find this unsettling at the time, but Trecksur started to laugh as if I told the best dad joke he ever heard. “Oh, Allora don’t worry, I have a typewriter at my house I can lend you, I’ll take you there and you can pick it up.”. I was so stupid for this, but I agreed. Trecksur had given me rides before, only to home when one of my parents couldn’t pick me up. His car wasn’t one that you would see down the street and get shivers but, one you would assume a teacher or just a standard adult had.

Trecksur’s car was a midnight black Honda, his car was simple like me. No extravagant rims or crazy bumper stickers that say wacky puns or had weird drawings on them. Stepping into his car all you could smell was his cologne and coffee. His cologne had an earthy smell mixed with the scent of walking out the door for the first time after a rainy night. I felt comfortable in the car as I skipped putting on my seatbelt and checked my lip gloss in the cars side mirror. At the time I didn’t know this, but Trecksur was watching me as I checked myself, he was eyeing my face and my curves in my uniform. I’ll be honest and say that my school uniform did look slightly promiscuous, but it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t button all the buttons on my top. I had it tailored twice but still the button could never reach the other side of the top. Trecksur eyed my chest and how my hair fell along it. If I had known at the time, I would have stopped him, but I was caught up over some stupid gloss. I finished and looked over at him to see him start the car and leave the school parking lot.

I didn't focus on the drive to his house too much, I knew he lived somewhere around the middle of the town as I had bumped into him many times at the store. That fact was though proven wrong as we passed town and ended up at a 2 floor house surrounded by trees and weeds. His house I did pay attention to as it was a well kept cottage, the roof had multiple shapes rather than one and the windows were clean but held an aged look to them. The house had an historic dark blue paint on it's walls and had a white arch a few feet before the vermillion door. The house reminded me of some stories he had told the class before, about cottages in the woods and somehow something happens to everyone when they live in a cottage in the woods.

Trecksur looked to be normal as we pulled up to the house. I did question him as to why he chose this house as it was a timely drive from the school to here he'd make every morning. He gave me a neutral look and said "Well you've read the stories I've shown during class, I thought this would make me a little interesting. Besides it was a good deal so why not take it?". He shrugged as he finished his sentence, I wish I knew what was planned at this point. I wish I could go back and warn myself and yell to call an Uber, or just get out of the car and run as fast as I could without looking back. Unfortunately for me I now know he can outrun me, and I now know that this was only the beginning.