* BEEP *

* BEEP *

* BEEP *

“Ugghhhh, stop, for the love of god.” I reach over, grab my phone from my table, and do my best to press the stop button in my tired haze. I finally manage to stop the alarm and rub my face. “I guess it's time to get up now. What's today?” I glance at my phone. It’s Monday the twenty-second of August. Hmm, what's so important today that I set my alarm?

“SCHOOL!” Shit, I forgot it’s the first day of my senior year. I’ve got to get dressed, and quick. I hop out of bed and stretch my wings. I then walk over to my closet. “Now, what do I want to wear? Ooh, there’s Dad's old jacket.” I take his jacket and a gray shirt and put them on. I walk over to my dresser and grab a pair of jeans. With my clothes on, I grab my ribbon from my desk and head out of my room.

On cue, my dad heads out of his room dressed for work. “Good morning, Amber. How’d you sleep?”

“I slept fine, dad. Thanks for asking.” God, why is he standing under the light? My eyes are burning.

“Ready for your first day of senior year?”

I put on a fake smile. “Yes sir, I’m sooo ready, haha.” I didn’t even try to hide that.

“I know, I could tell.” He softly chuckles. God damn mumbling, why did that have to be passed to me? “You’re my child, so it had to happen. I remember the first time you mumbled.” Raptor Jesus, kill me.

“Thanks, Dad. Shouldn’t you be heading off to work now?”

He checks his watch and looks back up at me. “Nope, I got thirty more minutes to torture you.” Mom, please save me.

“Well, I'm going downstairs and making myself a poptart because I got school in...” I check my phone. “...An hour, so bye.” I walk downstairs, hearing him chuckling to himself. I arrive in the kitchen, open the pantry, and grab my favorite cherry Pop tart. I rip open its prison cell and quickly devour it in seconds. I turn around and get scared by my Mom. “Shit!” I immediately cover my beak with my hands and regret life.

“Amber, watch your language, missie.” She follows up with a smack to my snout.

“Ow, that hurt.” I rub where she slapped me.

“I know. I’ll smack the back of your head next time.”

‘Well, Mom. I gotta go now, or I’ll be late for the bus.” I grab my bag and head for the door. “Bye, Mom. Love you.”

“See you, honey. Have a good day at school.”

“I will.” And with that, I close the door and head to the bus stop. Thankfully, it's not a long journey, and I arrive in record time. As I'm waiting, I see a familiar purple triceratops charging over.

“AMBEY!!!” I barely have any time to react when a hug tackles me to the ground. Thank god for backpacks.

“Seerraaa…” Damn, she has too much strength. She knocked the wind out of me. “Please get off of me, Sera.”

“Oh, sorry, Amber, guess I can get carried away sometimes.” She gets off me, and I get up, dusting off my knees and backpack.

“Aw, you scuffed up some of my feathers.” I fix my feathers with a quick brush as I turn to Sera. “Well I’m glad to see you, Sera… but why act like you haven’t seen me in years? You were at my house two days ago.”

“Sorry, Amber, I’m just so excited about our senior year! It’ll be so fun!”

“Yeah, I wish I could share the same excitement as you but I can't.”

We talk until the bus arrives. We get in and find our seats. It's an uneventful ride to school, but I swear I saw my dad's car next to us at a stoplight. We eventually arrived at school for another year at Volcano High. Thank god it's my last.

“Amber, you’re mumbling, girl. You have a lot in common with your dad. The only thing is you’re not bald.” Why, Raptor Jesus do you have to torture me with this curse?

“So Sera, have you gotten your schedule yet because I don’t think they ever handed them out during open house.”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t even remember getting one. Strange, I think the schools are getting lazy.” And just in time, we get to our lockers. Somehow, Sera has always been getting the locker next to me. She has to be paying the principal or something.

I open my locker door, and there it is, my schedule. I grab it and show it to Sera. “Looks like they were in our lockers. Why did they decide to put them in here and not give them to us.”

‘I know it's strange bu-”

“AMBER!” A roar through the halls cuts off Sera mid sentence. All I see when I turn around is a Trex approaching us.

“Oh god, no.” Tommy, our big bumbling friend of a Trex, is charging down the hall. I should have written a will yesterday. It only takes what feels like hours for him to eventually arrive in front of me.

“Amber, how have you been! God, it’s been so long.”

“I’m good, Tommy.” The more time went on, the more I thought he was a long-lost grandchild of Moe. I asked him about that once, but he neither denied nor accepted it.

“OMG, Tommy how have you been?!” Sera runs up to him and gives him a hug.

“I’ve been good, Sera. My family recently opened a pizza shop downtown. I don't want to brag, but nothing beats it.” Okay, now he has to be related to Moe.

We all finish our conversions as the bell rings. The day goes smoothly. It is the typical first-day stuff, aimlessly running around remembering where your classes are, saying your name and what you did over the summer, all that boring crap.

It’s fifth period, and I hear screaming in the halls before I reach my class.

“FUCK YOU, YOU PINK POMPOUS BITCH YOU MADE ME SPILL MY COFFEE!”

I run over to see the commotion and witness a fight between a stego and a parasaur that doesn't know what personal space is. Damn, she looks like she fucked up badly. Wait is that Melissa?

“WELL, IF YOU WEREN’T SO FUCKING BIG AND WATCHED THAT TAIL OF YOURS, I WOULDN’T HAVE TRIPPED.”

I haven’t seen Melissa this pissed since ninth grade, when Tommy accidentally stepped on her tail. Looks like the stego bitch is going to say something, but right before she does speak, a roar fills the hallway.

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!”

Fucking hell, my hearing. Sadly, I couldn't hear anything because, wouldn’t you guess, Principal Spears was right next to me. How has this guy been a principal for this long? From what I see, he is now talking to the stego and Melissa. It looks like Miss Perfect Melissa is going to the office.

“That was strange. I’ve never seen Melissa that angry before.” I was startled by Sera, who came out of nowhere.

“Shit, Sera, you scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry, Amber, I was next to you the whole time. You didn’t see me?”

“Cleary not.”

I wave goodbye to Sera and turn to head to fifth period. Right as I step foot in the class, the lunch bell rings.

“It's been thirty minutes already? Geez.”

I head to the lunch room, meeting Sera in the line. She grabs an LTL sandwich while I grab some General Tso's chicken, and we go to find our table. I look over to our usual seating to see Tommy sitting there already. I'm surprised these seats can hold someone like him.

“Good afternoon, Tommy.” I set my lunch tray down and sit on the other side of the table.

“Afternoon, Amber, how have your classes been going? I hope they’ve been going great.”

“They’ve been going ok. I just hope this day gets better because it’s been shit.”

“I heard that stego girl over there does tarot cards.”

I look over where he was pointing and see a green stego who looks like they have never heard what grass is.

“Her?”

Tommy nods his head. “Yeah, I think Sera got one of her readings. Didn’t you, Sera”

“Huh, yeah. Yeah, I did. She fumbled hard and messed up halfway through, but some of it was true. Scarily true.”

I scratch my head. “Hm, I might do it. I don’t know.”

Tommy is about to say something but gets cut off by the bell signaling that lunch was over. He puts his head down in defeat, takes his tray, and throws his leftovers away, and so do I.

Sera runs up to me since we have the same class this period and makes some conversation on our way there.

“Amber, did you hear about the crash on the interstate?”

“No, I didn’t. Did anyone die?”

“No, they did say that someone was injured though.”

“How bad was it?”

“It says...” She looks at her phone. “Human, multiple broken bones and Dino, type stegosaurus, broken spines and bones. Sounds horrible.”

“Holy shit, that does sound really bad.”

We eventually arrive at our science class and take our seats. It's as boring as ever, but at least I can add a bit of spice by trying to make a miniature rail gun. Now, I just need to remember what Dad taught me.

“Successful! Sera, look at this. I built a mini rail gun.”

“Damn, Amber, who taught you to build that?”

“My Dad did. He taught me when I was four, and I was surprised that I even remembered to build one. Mom did not like that one bit.”

She gets those weird, dreamy eyes. She does this every time she talks about Dad.

“Ah, your dad is so smart when it comes to tech. He’s so big and muscular.”

I show visible disgust. My beak is all squinched up from cringe. “Can you not Sera.”

“I'm sorry, it's just so hard not to dream about him.”

I make an audible gagging noise in response to her.

The class goes on, and finally the bell rings. The rest of school goes smoothly; it is finally time to leave. I grab my backpack from my locker and head outside to wait for Sera. I manage to spot her coming out with the green stego girl that Tommy mentioned.

“Sera, over here!”

I yell out to her, waving. She looks around, finally spotting me. She waves back and pulls the stego along with her. Poor girl.

“Amber, this is Cynthia. Cynthia, this is Amber.”

Cynthia takes a while to respond. “Hi, Amber, it's nice to meet you, I guess.”

“The feelings are mutual, Cynthia.”

I hold my hand out. Cynthia does the same, and we shake hands, but as we do, her eyes pop open and shoot me a glare.

“NO NO NO NO NO, that's not right!”

She lets go and starts to run.

“OUR PATHS SHALL MEET AGAIN SOON, AMBER, JUST NOT NOW!” She says while running.

“The fuck was that?” I look to Sera for some sort of answer.

“What are you looking at me for? I didn’t know this would happen.”

“Whatever. Come on, Sera, let's get on the bus.”

We get on the bus, but I can’t shake what the girl said. I’ll see her at school, but soon, what does she mean about soon? Whatever. It’s probably nothing. You’re just going schizo, Amber.

“Amber, are you okay? You’ve been mumbling to yourself the whole ride. Also, come on, we need to get off.”

We get off at our stop and start to walk.

“Damn, I was mumbling the whole time.”

“Yeah, you were. Is something wrong?”

What do I tell her? I'm going crazy at a single interaction or feel something is off today.

“It’s nothing really, trust me.”

“Ok, I trust you, Amber. We're nearing my turn, so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you, Sera.”

She waves me goodbye and turns down her block. I am only 10 minutes away now when I get a call. It's Mom. What does she need?

“Mom, what is it?”

I hear sniffling through the other side.

“Mom, what's wrong?”

“It's your father. He's currently in the hospital. He got in a terrible accident.”

No, it can’t be…