The next day came and the atmosphere was so tense and heavy, you could cut it with a knife.
Every class participated in a rally the school organized on such a short notice and no one dared whispered to another while they listened to a farewell speech by the vice-principal.
All the faces of the students were grim with a sense of guilt.
Sure, they weren't a fan of getting trips to the principal's office when they get caught doing something they weren't supposed to, but they never wished for him to die like this...
A picture of a smiling middle-aged man was in the center of the stage. After the speech, every person present placed a white flower around it.
There was no other way around it.
The principal was dead and this statement couldn't escape the front covers of every news headline.
"The Principal Of The Prestigious Menorenti Private School Was Found Dead At Around Four In The Morning Last Night"
He fell victim to the infamous serial killer and left behind a family. Many testimonies about of the kindness of the principal was shared with the news reporters and of course, for their privacy, their identities weren't disclosed.
That was the third victim this week and it seems the serial killer was going on a random murder-streak.
With each recent murder, the police become more and more baffled. They couldn't find any ties or any connections with the victims and overall pinpointed locations just seemed completely random.
Some assumed revenge, but they could all agree that this was the work of a sick lunatic with a strong sense of bloodlust…
･~.♤.~･
A couple days later, school felt somewhat ordinary again. Nothing was amiss and everything seemed… Fine.
As if the principal was still here.
Eliana placed her English textbooks into her locker and exchanged them with her science ones. Afterwards, she shut the locker with a sigh. She slowly looked around her, trying to take in every detail as possible.
The hallway was annoyingly noisy as usual, being filled with teenagers and all. The dark golden yellow and white checkered floors were squeaky clean to the point where they were almost blinding. Gray painted walls with inspirational quotes here and there while the school's motto was hung over the entrance.
'Every Child Is Special In Their Own Way. Our Differences Is What Makes Us Special.'
'It's funny,' Eliana thought as she continued to stare at the banner. 'How some people don't understand that 'being different' is not a hot topic for bullying…'
'I guess I should be thankful no one really bothers me about my hair though…' She stroked a strand of her lustrous hair between her fingers.
Eliana packed her books under her arm and headed to class.
Everything was fine while she was listening to an informative passage about the brain by her teacher. It interesting to hear so Eliana decided to actually listen.
But for some reason, she just couldn't seem to focus no matter how hard she tried.
'What was it again..? Something about how certain words could trigger psychological traumas or kill switches. Or at least that was what I think it was about…?' Eliana shook her head, trying to pay attention.
What in the world was going on?
All the white letters of the sentence, "Brain Connections and Molecule Reactions", the teacher wrote on the blackboard seemed to swirl off the dull green background.
Her notes of formulas from the past chemistry lesson and diagrams of the brain in her textbook would mix together, making colorful blobs or irregular shapes on her table top.
She rubbed her eyes numerous times, but to no avail. Thank goodness she studied this ahead to prepare for it.
The teacher's voice would sound muffled at certain times, then be clear again. The same thing happened with her vision.
The screeching of the chalk was painful to listen to as if she was listening to nails against the blackboard instead.
To make things worse, her hands felt clammy and they trembled to the point where it was getting increasingly difficult to hold her pencil.
Eliana glanced at the clock. Only five minutes and thirty seconds left.
She could hold on, can she?
Well… Eliana tried to, but she couldn't hold on.
Her hands were trembling more rigorously now and she jumped when she heard her mechanical pencil clatter on the desktop.
It seemed that the noise startled her to reality since all the vision and hearing was back to normal.
"I heard something clatter. Is everything alright back there?" The teacher halted and turned to face the class.
"I, umm… Yes… May I please use the bathroom?" She quickly replied.
"There's only five minutes left of class, can you hold it?"
"I don't think so…" Eliana tried to hold down her hands.
The teacher scanned her to see whether she was just making an excuse to leave her classroom. Many students have done so and it was pretty disrespectful. The teacher had better things to do than waste time trying to teach students who aren't willing to learn.
Nonetheless, seeing how Eliana slightly bounced up and down, it looked like she definitely couldn't hold it.
･~.♤.~･
As soon as Eliana turned on the bathroom faucet, clear lukewarm water came gushing out.
She could hear struggle-sounding noises from outside the door and some girl walked in the bathroom dragging another girl by her long black hair.
After turning the faucet off, Eliana pumped some soap onto her palm and rubbed her hands together.
"Where's my essay for the English class?" She threw the girl with black hair against the wall.
Eliana continued rubbing her hands with the soap lather.
"Please Christine! I couldn't finish it! I just couldn't! My family needs me more than ever! Please!" Eliana heard one of the girls wail followed by some whacking and punching sounds.
Eliana turned the faucet again, then proceeded to wash off the soap suds.
"I told you, Nadia, you useless b*tch! Give me the paper before September 26st, was that really so hard? Now, because you couldn't finish the d*mn paper…. I'LL ONLY GET HALF THE CREDIT." The other girl, called Christine, yelled with a high-pitched voice accompanied with more whacking and punching sounds.
(* Whack! Punch! Whack! *)
'Tsk… Can't this happen somewhere else?' Eliana rolled her eyes.
"Ah… Sh*t…" Eliana sighed heavily. The cuff of her yellow varsity jacket had slipped into the water flow and now she had to suffer the cold, wet, slimy feeling of fabric on her wrist.
"God… Please, oh, please grant me the sweet release of death…' Eliana internally weeped while slightly having a mental breakdown.
The girl continued to yell from the other side of the bathroom and Eliana was starting to get irritated. She was suffering because of her carelessness and she couldn't even have two minutes to cry over her cuff?
"Why do you look so sad, huh? You prioritized your mom over me, huh?" Christine's annoyingly high-pitched voice spoke.
Eliana turned around with the intention of telling this punchable-sounding little miscreant off.
"Why… Aren't you mommy's precious little girl?"
Eliana widened her eyes. It felt like something in her awakened. A memory flashed through her mind and her hands quaked violently.
The words echoed throughout her head
"You really don't know how to shut up, don't you… Christine?" Eliana rotated her neck to the left.
"What?" Christine turned around and glowered at her. Eliana just chuckled.
"You call her a useless b*tch, but really you're an asinine laughing stock who beats up others because you can't accept the fact that you can't achieve anything with a diminutive atom particle for a brain-
Oh, I'm sorry… I think that may be a bit too much of a high-vocab for you… In your vulgar terms, a f*cking d*mbass that better start studying so society can finally stop regarding you as an insignificant waste of space. There… Is that better?"
Christine gave her a murderous look.
Eliana ignored this and continued to rotate her neck. She leaned it to the right and heard it pop. For some strange reason, she felt some sort of pleasure every time she heard cracking or popping sound come from her neck.
"Still don't understand? Hmmm… What should I do..?" Eliana tapped her chin.
"Oh! I know! Let's try something even better!" Eliana clapped her hands together brightly. "Hmmm… How I wonder what this whole school would think if their smartest student was really a… How should I describe this? Postiche? Counterfeit hypocrite? Fraud-
"What the h*ll? What the h*ll are you talking about?" Christine spat.
"Don't interrupt me…" Eliana held up her hand. "That's very, very rude." She frowned, then smiled again. "But don't worry. I got more, sweetie. But for the lack of time, I won't continue."
"Just mind your own f*cking business, new girl, unless you want to end up like the useless weasel here-
Eliana ignored her once again and crossed her arms while raising her eyebrows.
"Really though, going through such dirty lengths just to get that A+? Gee, I really wonder how you're able to present such flawless report cards each time?"
She shook her head.
"Honestly, what's so important about grades that you would go sooooo far, hmm? It's just a letter with a positive or negative sign next to it…" She said in a disappointed tone.
"You're not just cheating the school, you're also cheating yourself, you know-
"SHUT THE F*CK UP! JUST SHUT UP! Stop spouting such f*cking bullsh*t and acting all smart like you know sh*t!" Christine screamed.
Eliana wasn't really paying attention to her vulgar whining, but she was wondering how people didn't hear this.
Soundproof walls, maybe? That's probably why most bullying goes on in the bathrooms.
"Hold on… You were talking the entire time? I'm sorry, I don't speak fluent nonsense as well as you do," Eliana said in a disinterested sort of voice while examining her hands. They stopped shaking now and she just noticed how slender her fingers looked. Not to mention, her dainty fingernails.
"If you're going to try to argue with me, use proper English words."
She continued.
"Swearing is not a valid argument. In fact, it makes you seem like you're just saying something just to say something or to put it bluntly, it makes you seem quite uneducated. So calm down and think through your words. " Eliana finished, looking up at Christine with a disdainful expression.
"B-B-Bullsh*t! My father is a lawyer! I'll tell him about this and about you, you'll get sued for this, just you wait!" Christine stuttered as she grew redder than a vibrant tomato.
"Sure, why not? Let's take this to court." Eliana said.
Then she stepped closer.
She gingerly rubbed a strand of hair from the strawberry blonde-headed girl and whispered,
"Just make sure you don't exclude the little details about how you get good grades and what type of messages you like to send in personal chats with other students when you complain to daddy, kay'?"
Embarrassed that she had lost, Christine gritted her teeth. Her mouth opened as if she was about to spit out some more 'invalid arguments', but then she closed it again when Eliana abruptly turned her chin towards her.
Their eyes met and Eliana purred,
"Maybe you can teach him how to blackmail and harass others too. I'm sure you're quite more than qualified enough to teach." An icy cold smile forming on her lips while her eyes glinted dangerously.
"You're… You're crazy!" Christine blurted, sending some spit on Eliana's face.
"You're a monster! You're-
Christine immediately stopped as she watched Eliana's expression swiftly darken.
"What... Did you... Just call me?" Eliana asked, her voice even colder and more terrifying than her smile.
Eliana's grip tightened and Christine's body started to tremble under Eliana's fingertips.
All of the sudden, the shadows in the bathroom seemed to grow alarmingly larger.
The temperature in the room dropped and even the once warm light from the top windows became colder.
Eliana's amber eyes seemed to glow with a horribly beautiful shade of gold like a snake luring an unfortunate rat to its death.
Christine wanted to look away from these piercing eyes, but she couldn't.
Something about them paralyzed her and it felt like those eyes knew every sin she had committed. Every single terrible thing she had done to those students for perfect grades.
She felt ashamed and remorseful.
Why had she done those terrible things?
She could've just asked if they wanted to tutor her? Who would reject her? She was one of the prettiest girls in the whole school.
Then Eliana swiftly retrieved her hands and proceeded to wash them again.
The strawberry blonde collapsed to the floor, gasping and breathing heavily as if all the air in the room had forsaken her.
She clumsily stood up again and took one look at the wincing black-haired girl in the corner.
Then, with terror and guilt written all over her face, Christine looked at the girl with the contemptful amber eyes.
Out of the blue, tears suddenly formed on the rim of her eyelids and then Christine ran straight out of the bathroom. Shielding her face as if she was hiding her shame for something or someone.