The bus ride to school was long and boring. Mornings weren’t too bad though since everyone was still mostly asleep so they didn’t talk very much. This meant that I didn’t have to listen to the constant inanity exiting their mouths. Except sitting for a long period of time sucked since I was still pretty sore from the other day. Usually, I don’t get that sore from rigorous sex, but it’s been a while and he was pretty amazing.

When we finally arrived at the school, all of the hicks unloaded and swarmed into the school. I followed along, much less enthusiastically. Something felt wrong today.

I went to class. I don’t remember what class it was or what was talked about of even the name of my disgustingly decrepit teacher. I just remember her looking at me. She kept staring and I had trouble determining if it was just my imagination or if she was actually staring at me.

My next class was some crazy guy, who obviously had some brain damage from whatever war he was in and kept raving about, but he stared at me too and I knew it wasn’t just my imagination. Something was going on and I didn’t know what it was. I was afraid.

Other classes went by and I kept getting a horrible feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. It was so terrible and foul that I can’t even describe the absolute feeling of… off-ness that I felt.

At lunch I went over to the pay phones and planned on calling Claire, but a lunch monitor glared at me then came over and snapped at me, telling me that the phones were not allowed to be used while school was in session unless it was an emergency.

The rest of that day was awful. I wanted to go to the nurse or something, but I just knew that it wouldn’t do any good. Whatever was going on, I believed that the entire faculty was in on it and even if that wasn’t true, what would I tell the nurse? I have a bad feeling, can I go home? Plus it was written in my transcript not to let me go home for anything unless I was bleeding everywhere or dying of a terminal illness. I’d used faking sick to get out of school a few too many times, even drinking a bottle of syrup of ipecac so that I would throw up and get to leave. They’d wizened up, sadly.

One very frustrating thing about this day was that as it went by, I was the only one that seemed to notice that anything was off with the teachers. All of the other students acted perfectly normally. They must not have been in on whatever was going down, which was a little comforting because that would be absolutely awful to have the whole school to go up against and not even know what it was. But you’d think they would notice something was off.

By the last period of the day, I was ready to bolt for it. The only reason I hadn’t already was because I was trying to get in good graces with my parents again and generally going to class regularly was a good way to do that.

Ten minutes before my final class was to be let out, the teacher gets a call to send me down to the principal’s office.

Nothing good can come from this and I know it as I walk down the empty halls, soon to be filled and quickly emptied again as all of the students leave to go home and whatever shit there is lying about will hit the fan.

I arrive at the office and go to the receptionist’s desk.

“So what’s going to happen?” I asked her. She blinked at me. “Something is going to go down and I know it’s not going to be good so just spit it out.”

“Mr. Gallagher, please stop harassing my secretary and get in my office.”

I turned to see the principal, a middle-aged man with jet black hair and an equally black MIB-esque suit, glaring at me and holding his large door open. I nodded and walked into his office.

The lights went out and something hit my head. After that, there was nothing.

I awoke in a haze. My wrists were bond in front of my chest, as were my ankles, and while there was a bandana over my eyes, I could tell that wherever I was had no lights on. I shuffled about a bit, but for the life of me I could not figure out where I was.

“You are awake, Sebastian Gallagher.”

This voice is dark and insidious and I have no idea where it came from because wherever I am, it’s large and empty and everything echoes just a little bit. The voice sounded oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Though my hands are tied, I am able to get the bandana off of my eyes. There is very feint light, enough to see a large crowd of people around me, only mere silhouettes. Some lights click on, just enough to dimly light the gym. Around me there is some kind of large red pentagram spanning the entire width of the basketball court painted on the ground around me. I look over at the crowd to see the owner of the voice.

Liam…

He’s surrounded by all of my teachers and the faculty of the school. How could all of them be in on this together?

I noticed a small pile of corpses formerly belonging to several of my classmates in the corner and realize that the symbol around my feet is painted in blood and some of it has splattered on my in random places. I had obviously been lying in the middle while they were creating it because it was on my shoes, my arm, and I could feel some along one side of my face, just tiny splatters. I feel like there’s something missing. Some part of me that should be there no longer is.

Then I see Liam dangling my tear-drop pendant and grinning a disturbingly sinister grin. The adults behind him just stand, slightly swaying, seeming to have the mental capacity of nothing more than a zombie.

“Liam, what the fuck-”

“Shush, shush, pretty little Catalyst,” he chuckles, “The time for this disgusting world to end is nigh.”

What. The. Fuck.

“Liam, are you fucking insane?? What are you trying to do?” I couldn’t move. I had managed to stand, but if I tried to move away, I just fell over.

“Destroy. Everyone,” he says with delight in his voice, “This sick little world of pettiness and greed will be no more and we may join Mo’Kurei and revel in her infinitely glorious presence.”

God, this guy was pissing me off! Why the hell hadn’t I taken the time to learn that stupid self-defense shit from Frankie?! I wanted to kill him, make him as dead as the pile of teenagers in the corner.

“If you do this, you get nothing, Liam!” I shouted, “You don’t get anything! The whole universe goes to shit and you’ll die along with it.”

He glared at me and walked closer, pulling out some kind of jewel-encrusted dagger from behind his back, “Then so be it. I would rather die and take the whole world with me than live in this horrific cesspool any longer.” He carefully stepped over the lines of the pentagram and grinned when he approached me, “This all ends now.”

The dagger sliced across my stomach and I gasped. I fell, right in the middle of the pentagram. At that moment, I saw them enter. Claire, Gladys, Frankie, Mink, Gavin, Riki, Tink, Daerin… They all came barging in and attacked the swarm of school faculty members. I always knew that all school systems were corrupt…

I watched as Liam stepped out of the pentagram and began chanting in some hideous language. I felt no pain. I felt the contents of my body spilling out onto the floor, I felt the beat of my heart slowing, slowing… I felt blood rise in my throat. I coughing and I felt the blood seep out of my mouth and down my face. I felt no pain, no emotion. I just watched.

I watched as Claire opened her hands at my nasty gym teacher and a fog encompassed him, making him fall to the ground. I saw Gladys flinging some kind of lightening from her fingers, felling several people at once. I saw the sprites and Gavin setting people on fire, making them slip on puddle, being enveloped by piles of rocks or vicious vines. I saw Frankie beating people with a baseball bat and it made me want to grin, but I was too disconnected from my body to do anything.

People were dying left and right, all at the hands of people I knew. I saw my math teacher hit the ground and her dead eyes connected to mine, unseeing. I felt nothing. My heart was too cold, both literally and figuratively. I had felt like I was dying inside my entire life. Now I was dying, and everything I had inside was pouring out.

The pentagram surrounding my body began glowing. Liam just kept chanting and chanting, his words harsh and loud. Gladys flung some spell at him, but it was reflected off by some kind of invisible barrier. I just watched as my blood spread and people that for some odd reason cared about me attacked people who wanted me dead.

I saw Daerin running over to me, shoving away anyone who tried to stop him.

I heard Liam’s chants come to some sort of conclusion.

Then everything went white.

To Be Continued ...

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