Grecia's Grave Dilemma

by Maitreya Kelly 

As Grecia took her first step into the school building something felt wrong. While she walked unsteadily through the empty halls something nagged at the back of her mind. Once seated, awaiting the teacher’s arrival in first period, everything felt misplaced. And then, as if someone had slapped her across the face, it came to her. Weren’t there supposed to be other people? 

     It was the first day of school after a long and unfortunate summer break. She thought that coming here, back to where her friends are, back to the welcoming arms of conformity and forced citizenship, would stop the pain of the summer. She thought it could silence the waking nightmares of the car crash, of her eyes slowly closing as her mother sobbed above her. At this moment, though, Grecia doubted coming back to school would be nearly as rewarding as she once had. 

     Somehow Grecia had entered the school, walked around, and took a seat without even noticing that there was no one else here. Was it the wrong date? Was she far too early? But there was something else she hadn’t noticed earlier, or something that hadn’t been there before. Whispering. 

     The voices were as soft and light as down feathers; incoherent as printed words through ice. But she knew they weren’t her mind playing tricks on her just as she knew her glasses rested before her eyes. 

     Grecia pulled herself out of her seat. She followed the voices, ears twitching, catching the faintest sound. She traced the noise, quiet as falling snow, down the corridor into the main office where she could see two shadows. 

     They weren’t regular shadows on the wall or the floor, these shadows stood straight and tall in the center of the room with nothing casting them. Ghosts. 

     Grecia had been seeing ghosts since her accident. She didn’t remember details; the rest of the summer after her accident had been a vivid blur, but she knew ghosts when she saw them. She also knew that when one spotted a ghost, the best thing to do is to leave as quickly and quietly as possible. 

     She had just turned to run when another ghost shot across her vision. Then another, then another, until there was a whole swarm in the hallway. They didn’t seem to see Grecia, though. They were passing, all with an intended destination, all rushing into classrooms. A flock of whispers accompanied their glide-like movement.

     They must be students. Something horrible must have happened for the teachers and the students to have died. 

     Grecia slipped through the crowd unnoticed. She made her way quietly to wait in the classroom again for her teacher. 

*******************

Grecia’s mother, Matilda, held the flowers tightly in her hand, her knuckles white. The grave was new, though the weather had already taken upon itself to pound it down like the other lumps of rock around it. Though, still starkly visible on the cold surface lay carved a word, blurred to Matilda’s eyes by hot, blinding tears: Grecia.