The Fall.

Stefan has always been peculiar. He’s different from the rest of the kids, often scribbling in his sketchbook, eating raw carrots, and dressed in that one jacket he always has on.  The jacket looks much older than he is, and it seems to carry more weight and history than anything I have ever seen before—even more than the artefacts from the countless museums I’ve been to. There’s something about it that I can’t quite put my finger on. I’ve never had a close look at his drawings before, either. Once, I caught a glimpse of something he was working on—a door of sorts—and when he found me sneaking a peek, he slammed the book shut immediately. I suppose he’s just a very secretive and introverted child. Maybe he lost a loved one when he was much younger, and the jacket belonged to that person. It still doesn’t explain why the piece of garment looks like it’s from the Middle Ages, though.

I don’t usually pay extra attention on my students like this, but Stefan’s quite hard to miss. He has this unique aura unlike other children, and I wonder why the other teachers don’t seem to agree with me. “Stefan? He’s just always kind of there, isn’t he? Which class is he in again?” I tell Ms. Chan the class that he’s in, but she can’t even recall what he looks like. I ask the other teachers in the office, yet nobody hardly remembers the boy’s last name. Only his existence is sure to everyone; everything else seems like it’s been wiped out of their memories.

The school bell rings, signalling the end of classes for today. As I exit the teachers’ office, I find Stefan standing outside the door, waiting, the old sketchbook in his hand, his jacket still on his shoulders, covering almost all of his small frame. “Hi, Ms. Heather. I’ve been waiting for you,” he says. He doesn’t smile, but continues: “I have something to show you. Do you have time?” I look at my watch. I’m not going to get anywhere with the peak traffic hours anyways. I nod, and trailed behind him as he quietly leads me to a secluded corner of the school field. The grass on this side of the field is beginning to yellow due to the season, welcoming the season of perpetual death, slowly but surely. He opens his sketchbook to the page I had previously caught a glimpse of, places it on the ground, and a door appears in the grass. A door that looks exactly like the one in his sketchbook. Except, the page now has a door-shaped hole in it.

“I’m so sorry, but you’ve run out of time, Ms. Heather.” His jacket transforms into a hound. Black as night, it consumes me. Stefan’s last name is Todd. Tod. Death, in German. Of course.