Eenie, meenie, minnie, mo. Catch Magenta by her toe. If she hollers, make her scream, and get her friends and family.
Spider disappeared so fast, that when Magenta ran in the direction he went she could not find a trace of his footsteps. Everyone crowded around someone lying across the ground.
Their teacher in charge was on the ground, with no sign of breathing. People allied together and helped carry their teacher into the ambulance outside.
Magenta realized there was nobody to tell and report to about Spider now that their teacher was going to the hospital. Trinity the teacher assistant only rolled her eyes when Rhea went to her for help. Trinity called the school to arrange transportation back to campus but after that she disappeared too, and none of the students could find the cover teacher assistant.
Magenta did not feel claustrophobic anymore, rather she felt mad. She was mad that Spider had taken advantage of her gullibility. She was mad at herself for being stupid, for trusting him. She was confused about how he could have escaped especially with those guards...unless they weren't guards?
Magenta tried to see if the guards were nearby but there was no sign of Spider's guards either. Giving up on this mystery episode, Magenta sank in her seat and dozed off, exhausted.
____
^trigger warning: violence^
In an alleyway, Spider was flat on the ground, with a person kneeling on his chest. The person was wearing a black hooded cloak like the Grim Reaper. A black mask covered their face, and their shoes a pair of vintage black boots.
The person paralyzed any movement from Spider, rendering him useless. They smiled as they pressed their knee harder against Spider.
"How did it feel to be king of Oakstone? For a short time?"
"You tell me," Spider tried to speak, coughing.
"You're nothing. Remember that."
The person suffocated Spider's yell as they stabbed him through the back from his shoulder.
"How about we leave you here?" The stabber asked, the knife glinting in the light.
"Please," Spider begged, muffled through his pain.
The two guards hauled Spider away at command. Spider's blood was still on the knife, and the person wiped the blood off their trousers before going to get changed again. Washing their hands in soap, the red blood dripped into the sink and disappeared. The hooded figure dusted themselves off and shook their head free from the hood.
Blond hair shone with the sun, reflecting light in their eyes before a cloud passed, casting shadows over everything under its sight.
--
"And then, the teacher passed out on the ground, and Spider was gone," Magenta retold the story to her friends and her boyfriend.
"You're telling me, this whole time Spider was just pretending to be a changed person?" Shelby said, hands on her hips.
"Yes," Magenta said, tearing up.
"I'm sorry, I thought he changed. I put people in danger because of me," Magenta apologized.
Blue wrapped an arm around Magenta and said, "Hey, it shows that you are a good person. Better than any of us."
Shelby and Jasper nodded in agreement.
"We'll figure this out together, okay?" Shelby comforted Magenta with a hug too.
"Can you show us the note?" Jasper asked.
Magenta unwrapped the note from her pocket and handed it to her friends.
"Oh, nursery rhymes huh...Spider never really seemed to be a book kind of guy before he came back the second time," Blue observed.
"That's true, how come suddenly he was so interested in English class too..." Shelby said.
"Interesting," all four of them mused.
"Well I hate to say this, but Mag if you do get more notes, maybe we can catch the person who is doing this," Shelby said.
"You're right. Just gotta be more careful," Magenta nodded.
"Yeah, but that means I'm gonna be with you at all times," Blue said.
"You better be," Magenta said, pretending to sock Blue in the face. He dodged and turned her punch into holding her hand and he kissed her on her wrist. Magenta retracted her hand slowly, looking at Blue from underneath her lashes.
Shelby and Jasper laughed, saying, "Ew, disgusting."
"You guys have done a lot worse," Blue said, wiggling his eyebrows.
"What, us? No," Jasper said.
"Denial." Magenta said.
She and Blue were first-hand witnesses to all the PDA shenanigans between Jasper and Shelby. Even then, Jasper pulled Shelby in for a kiss.
--
The second note came to Magenta's locker a few days later.
ring a ring a roses, a pocket full of magpies, aTISHOO ATISHOO we all fall down, we all fall down
Magenta tried to decipher the note but she could not get further than the fact that the rhyme was about the plague and death. She walked to her room, still looking at the note and wondering what to do. The note had those copy and paste type of murder note letters so there was no official handwriting to guess who wrote the note. Just that the person liked using red and blue may be to represent Magenta and Blue. It was perhaps someone who did not have the same classes as Magenta.
"No, it makes sense, cos' otherwise I'd be able to see if we were going to lockers at the same time," Magenta said.
"Yeah, but the person could have easily asked someone in another class to help them put a note in your locker," Shelby thought about the situation too.
"Ah you're right that's true," Magenta saw what Shelby meant.
"How about this? Let's leave a reply. And since we're all in different classes at times, we might be able to catch the person!" Shelby said.
"But how it's not like they can open my locker, they just slip the note in. If we put a note inside my locker they can't get it and if we put it on the outside then anyone could just take the note." Magenta posed the dilemma.
"Oh no, that's true," Shelby said.
It felt like they were going in circles with no clear answer to how they could catch this person and end everything. Time was short, and they didn't know how long they had before Spider's prior words would come true.
"All of you are dead."