Currently it's 9:07 am, October 31st.

Mrs. K is muttering something cryptic in the front of the room, hands waving in seemingly practiced swooshes and arches over painter’s taped runes on the carpet. After the second period bell had rung, she had told our class that she would be doing some sort of witch (Pagan?) good luck ritual to help us do well on our test. Of course the class just nodded along to Mrs. K’s rambling cause although she was a little strange, she clearly cared a lot about us. I mean who were we to say anything bad about someone who offered extra credit points for dressing up for Halloween and was going to perform a good luck ritual for our test. APUSH is hard, why would we deny any help we could get?

So five minutes ago we just started watching as the muttering and hand swooshing began. It’s honestly been kinda boring, and weird. 

Currently Me and CeCe are sharing that look across the classroom. You know the one you give other people in public when someone starts yelling at an employee in Starbucks or just has an incredibly rude and threatening aura?

It’s good that CeCe’s back to at least sharing looks again with me across the class. She’d been not speaking to me since I had decided I didn’t want to go as “really pretty fairies with, like, Euphoria makeup” for the extra credit dress up. Instead I opted for a witch with a sparkly purple spider web cape topped with a somewhat less sparkly black and purple hat. The whole witch aesthetic just fits me a bit more.

Her makeup looks really good though, matches her shimmery pink wings. “Hey, Ce! You’re eyeshadow look-".

CRacK. ZZztp.

That sounds…not good.

That lights go out and then my stomach is dropping, kinda like when you ride that Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Great America or when you eat too many Milk-Duds at a Spiderman movie. I think there’s screaming happening but I’m not sure. Everything is loud and my ears are ringing and it's just all so uncomfortable.

Then everything is quiet. And calm. And the lights come back on. 

And Cole, who had put in the minimal effort of wearing a shirt with the Superman emblem to get half the extra credit points, is floating.

In the back of the room, where yesterday Danielle, Mia, Lilah, and Reina had argued for 30 minutes about which character they should be, sit almost five foot ninja-like turtles in multi-colored face masks. 

I glance down horrified. My hands. My nails are no longer the neon pink they were minutes earlier, but long, sharp, and black decorated with patterns of what I think are tarot cards and constellations. Gray tints my fingertips and the feeling of a strange, heavy force winds its way around my fingers.

Oh my god. I realize. We’ve turned into our costumes.