ORDER

Dylan woke up to the all-too familiar beeps of his alarm clock beside his bed. Almost immediately, a wave of fatigue weighed down on his body and he regretted staying up till 4:00am the night before. The only thing in the world he wanted to do right now was to sleep the day away, but it was a school day. His mom would flay him if he missed school without a solid reason. Sighing, he reached over and groped for the button that would silence the annoying wake up call.

Taking a few seconds to enjoy the silence, he tossed the blanket aside and dragged himself out of bed, and over to his window. He threw open the curtains and had to shield his eyes from the blinding sunlight that flooded his room. Looking outside, he saw the same thing he saw everyday; Joggers jogging, a cop patrolling across the street, office workers claiming their respective cars from the parking lot behind his house.

Dylan knew how the whole scene would play out. He knew the exact number of vehicles down there. He knew the owner of the blue sedan always spoke to the cop. He could tell what time the joggers would take to complete the block and back; give or take 7:45. It was always unerringly the same everyday. And now that he paid mind to it, something felt off about the whole thing in his mind. 'Oh well,' he shrugged it off as just that, 'no need to concern myself with such triviality this early', and went to take a shower.

The warm water, as always, was very soothing and helped to clear his mind of any lingering fog. It was certainly his favorite part of the morning. It took a lot of will power just for him to withdraw from the shower. Back in his room, he dried off and got dressed. His outfit today consisted of blue jeans, white shirt, black jacket — casual wear. It wasn't something he wore very often; he was just feeling somewhat informal.

Sparing a glance out his window again, he saw the empty parking lot and the troop of returning joggers. He checked his wristwatch, 7:45 it indicated. Just like he predicted. He suddenly felt his stomach churn and his heart skipped a beat. Something wasn't feeling right. However, his reflections were shattered, he heard the familiar, “Dylan, time for breakfast!”

He hurried downstairs and saw his mom standing there, a huge smile on her face. Her good mood was infectious, banishing the strange thoughts from his mind. His mom had that effect. She was the nicest lady ever. She has always been this happy, even though his dad passed away when he was only 3. She'd never shown sadness though. He couldn't imagine how hard it was to have a tragedy so great shake up your life, and not let it change you. Responding with a grin in earnest, he greeted, "morning mom!”

“Eggs and toast?” She asked.

Dylan hesitated. If he remembered correctly, his breakfast had always been eggs and toast every day for who knows how long. That was probably unhealthy. How had he not realize this before. "Nah. I think I’ll switch it up today,” he replied, “How about I just have cereal?” He smiled and looked out the window, at a neighbor mowing his lawn. Then, he returned his attention and almost wished he hadn't. His mother was staring at him with an absolutely dead serious look on her face. It was a look so alien to her sunny face; like she was assessing him. “Mom…?” he said, feeling a little creeped out. She kept her cold stare trained on him for the next ten seconds, and then, as if switching a lightbulb, her sunny countenance was back. “Ok!” she said, “Cereal it is then!” She got him milk and a box of cereal. He made himself a bowl and began to eat, while his mind went whirling. He could sense a phantom of it in the air; something was definitely wrong.

He had never been more eager to leave the house as he dumped his now empty bowl in the sink. “Thanks mom,” he said to her back and proceeded to walk out the door. He was almost out when I heard her call to him. “Dylan, aren’t you forgetting something?" Her tone was warped; cold and clipped. She might as well have growled her words at him. I turned around to see her holding my backpack up. He took it with a curt thank you and left. She shouted out after him, “have a great day, hunny,” in her usual happy-go-lucky tone. That confused him, 'was she having mood swings?'

The sun was high up at this time, pleasantly warming the air. Dylan enjoyed the crispy atmosphere and crunch of leaves under his boot. Wanting to admire nature even more, he went off his normal route to school and took the long way round. It was a strange route, very different, but quite simple enough, with more leaves to crush. And yet, he couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling that something was watching him. He passed by a building with a surveillance camera and could have sworn it tilted in his direction. It got quite literal when every person he walked by stopped and gave him an unnerving stare, until he was a considerable distance away from them. He walked faster. 'Was this some sort of joke? Why him? Why am I the victim of this grand prank?'

He arrived at his bustling school and sighed with relief. Hopefully, the weirdness was all done and over with. With minutes to spare before the bell, he decided to catch up with his friends for a bit. He was disappointed when he didn’t see his closest friend, Owen, among them. Was he sick? “Hey Dylan,” one of his friends said, “I didn’t see you on the walk to school today, where were you?” He usually walk with his friends to school, and since he picked a different route today, they must have been wondering what happened. “Oh yeah, I decided to take another route today, sorry we couldn’t walk together.”

As soon as he said this, the entire area went silent. He turned around and his breath went still. Everyone was unmoving like a mannequin, staring directly at him, with that same creepy-serious look. Not a sound was heard. He looked back at his friends. They were silent too, just staring. A beat passed. Then the noise resumed, and everyone went back to what they were doing. Dylan looked at his friends' faces and laughed. It was a nervous laugh, obviously fake, but he tried to make it sound like this was funny. “Uh, well I have to go to class now, I’ll see you guys later,” he said, turned and briskly walked towards his classroom. 'Seriously, what the hell is going on…?' He thought.

Most of his classmates had already arrived, taking most of the middle seats. Absentmindedly, he sat down on a chair at the back of the room. He usually sat near the front, but his mind was too muddled to make proper judgement. He quietly took out his books and set them on his desk. The last of the students finally filed into the room, and the latecomers shortly after that. Once everyone was inside and seated, his teacher, Ms. Randal, closed the door. She started writing notes on the board for them to take down, so Dylan took out a paper and started busily writing. The room was filled with the sound of pencil against paper. He was only halfway finished when the class went silent. 'Is everyone done already?' He thought to himself as he kept writing. The teacher wasn’t talking. 'Perhaps she's waiting for me. I wish she wouldn't.'

He finally finished and looked up to see everyone – including the Ms. Randal, turned around, and staring at him with that look. They were all dead silent. He remained still in his seat as he tried to avoid eye contact with any of them. After about 20 very painful seconds, Dylan snapped. This wasn’t a joke, it couldn’t be. He shot out of his seat, brushing past his teacher. "Dylan, where are you going?" Her tone made him speed up his pace. It was the clipped, almost robotic tone that his mother had used this morning. Everyone in the halls stared at him as he passed. He broke into a run, then a sprint. He had to get out of here. He had to go to somewhere safe, to someone he trusted. 'Owen,' he thought, 'he'd be able to make sense of this.' He was after all a science whiz.

He ran down the streets, ignoring the stares. The sight of Owen's house was like stumbling upon an oasis in the desert. He knocked on the door. Owen's mother was the one that answered. She beamed at him. “Hi Dylan, why aren’t you in school?” As much as he wanted to tell her about all the situation, his guts kicked against it. He ignored her question and asked, “Is Owen here? I didn’t see him at school, I presumed he was sick.” “Owen is sleeping right now. He’s very tired. He needs his rest,” She replied. The way she said it was… unnatural, like she was lying… “I need to see him,” Dylan said, inching towards the stairs. He stopped when he heard, “Don’t do that. Why aren’t you in school today?” she said this with a disturbingly sinister tone. “I had to leave to come see Owen,” he said as he ran upstairs.

He got to Owen's door and tried to open it, only to find that it was locked. He knocked on the door and whipped around to see the woman standing at the end of the hallway, staring at him, with a needle in her hand. She started to approach him. He frantically banged on the door and shouted, “Owen! OWEN!!!” No reply. “You've disrupted the order,” he heard from behind him, “never, ever, disrupt the order.” He felt a sharp pain in his neck as something sunk into it. He collapsed to the ground, extremely dizzy. His vision started fading and he slowly slipped out of consciousness.

~~~~~~~~

Dylan woke to the all-too familiar beeps of his alarm clock beside his bed. He felt well rested and ready to go to school. Hopefully, his mom would whip up some eggs and toast for breakfast. Looking out his window, he could see the cars, joggers and the lone cop. It was the same as always and that was good.