In an ordinary high school on Earth, time seemed to be crawling as slowly as possible. Students idled in their desks, their attention on their lessons dwindling by the minute.

Like her fellow classmates, May was impatiently waiting for the final bell to ring. She tapped her foot on the floor and willed time to go by. She was currently sitting in World History - her last class for the day, but her attention was anywhere but on the lesson. Her mind was full of blooming wildflowers that had sprung in the local park.

By this point, it should have sprung a few more flowers in the bunch. Just thinking of them made her want to smile to herself. There was truly nothing more soothing to her soul than the beauty of flowers.

As soon as the bell rang, she made a beeline for the door, ignoring the grumbles of students she may have pushed aside. Within minutes, she was through the hall and out of the building. The wind rushed through short dark red stands of hair. The smile that she had been suppressing finally found its way onto her face.

To say she had a small obsession with flowers and gardening would be an understatement. Ever since she was young, she seemed to gravitate towards flowers more than people. From the bright colors to their delicate nature, there wasn’t much she could dislike about them. With time, she had developed quite the green thumb and could care for even more fickle specimen.

But it wasn’t like she absolutely hated people, nor that she was unfriendly when she needed to talk to them. She simply never found herself inclined to be in a group of people. And it seemed that the disinterest was mutual, as no one bothered to approach her either.

Furthermore, she had no classmates who shared her love of flowers and gardening. The Gardening Club in her school only consisted of two members; herself and the senior president. She couldn't count on club meetings to find like-minded friends since the president saw no need to hold them for two people. They just did whatever they felt like on their own time.

When she reached the park, she slowed her pace. A little ways away, there was the bunch of yellow and purple wildflowers that she was looking for by a bench. She made her way over but paused when she noticed someone sitting on the bench. While someone being around in general didn't usually phase her, the appearance of the person sitting on that bench was what made her stop. It appeared to be a girl close to her age, wearing a small leather jacket over a frilly black and red tank top. Bright lavender hair shined in the late afternoon sun, with the front fringes bunched together and tied at the bottom. Seeming to realize that she was being watched, the girl rose her red eyed gaze from the ground and faced the other girl.

May felt a violent shudder run down her spine. 'She's probably one of those weirdos that dresses up in costumes for no reason' She thought with a hint of disdain. With that, she ignored the girl and began to rummage through her backpack for her watering can.

The girl leaned over the arm rest of the bench. “Why are you bothering with those? They're just a bunch of weeds. They’ve got people for that.”

She pulled the can out and took the cap off the spout. Without looking up, she simply said, “Because I want to.”

“Huh. Alright then.” She kicked her legs. “Not gonna question some weirdo playing with weeds.”

May felt her temper flare at that statement. What she was doing certainly wasn’t as strange as just sitting around in a park and bothering other people. But she bit back the retort that threatened to spill out and continued her work silently. The girl watched her, looking as if she wanted to ask something, but kept dismissing it at the last second. It was just adding to May’s annoyance.

Finally, she finished with the patch of wildflowers and snapped her head to the side to glare at the stranger. “Can I help you? Your staring is starting to creep me out!”

The girl looked shocked for a moment, but her smirk quickly returned. “It's nothing. You're sure not shy about displaying your hatred. Even an idiot like me can tell I'm not wanted here!” She hopped off the bench and began to walk off. As she did, she stepped on another patch of flowers. Upon seeing May's expression turn from one of annoyance to pure shock and horror, she flashed a toothy grin.

“Why don't you look up once in a while? There are things far more pretty than some weeds on the sidewalk.” She skipped off before May could think of anything to say. She couldn't even figure out if that girl had been trying to be deep or was just saying that she was prettier than the wildflowers.

She let out a frustrated sigh. “It doesn't matter!” With that, she continued with her work of tending to the flowers in that section of the park. When she passed the ones that had been stomped on, it took every ounce of self-control to not start cursing out the girl. She tended to them the best that she could, but even she knew that there was little she could do to save them. She would have to remove them tomorrow.

Encountering that bratty girl had left a sour taste in her mouth and it didn't quite leave until she'd finally finished and went home. From the kitchen, she could smell lemon pepper chicken cooking. Her mom stuck her head out when she heard the front door open. “Oh, welcome home! I'm about ready with the food. Your dad's gotta work late tonight.”

“Alright!” May threw her bag onto the couch and flopped down right beside it. She glanced over at the calendar hanging on the wall. In a couple of days, her brother would be visiting from college. Knowing that made her happy, and she was almost able to forget about her encounter from earlier.

That was, until later that night. Just as she had finished changing into her pajamas, a large crashing from outside made her freeze up. She chalked it up to being some mischievous street cats, but then there was another crash. She grabbed the closest thing to her – her math textbook – and ran out of her room and outside. Her mother looked a little surprised as she passed, but she said nothing.

She poked her head out the front door. At first, she saw nothing but the empty street.

She let out a humorless laugh. She turned to go back inside, but her gaze fell to the trashcan next to her house, fallen over. Sticking out from under the trashcan were two tiny feet wearing flat heeled sandals.

'Is that... a body?'

A dam in her mind broke, and images of someone killing someone and dropping off the body flooded in. Shaking off those daydreams and steeling herself, she slowly made her way to the trashcan. The feet hadn't moved since she'd first laid eyes on them, making her theory seem more real by the moment. An eternity later, she'd finally reached it.

In the back of her mind, an alarm sounded off. It tried to warn her to turn herself right around and go inside. When the police started knocking on everyone's doors to ask questions, act dumb. Don't get involved. It wasn't any of her business.

But with the noise of thoughts in her head, those warnings were lost. She gripped the side of the trashcan and ripped it off. When her eyes adjusted, she saw the shine of purple hair. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing slow and relaxed. While she was relieved that it wasn't a dead body, she still wasn't happy to see that it was the girl from before.

It wasn't enough that she was trapped in May's thoughts. She had to show up like a stray cat.

Something brushed her ankle, so she looked down. What looked like a long thin snake with an arrow shaped head was trying to wrap itself around her leg. It seemed to be attempting to escape from the sleeping girl, who looked like she was sitting on it. But taking another look at her, May gasped and felt the blood in her face drain.

Protruding from her head were two tiny black horns. And the thing trying to attack her leg was a tail. While she stood there and contemplated on what to do, a pair of red eyes slowly opened.

A moment of silence passed between the two.

Then without a word, May dropped her textbook and walked back into her house. She made sure to lock the door behind her.