We sit silently as the principal and this parental individual speak. “I’m sorry for what my daughter did. She’s never done anything like this before.” The parental individual seems as though he’s speaking on our behalf. “And there’s nothing going on at home that might warrant this change in behavior?” The principal asks. We look to the parental individual, expecting them to answer. They seem clearly nervous. “No, no, no! This must just be some kinda outburst from school stress!” The parental individual looks to us. “Right?” Their expression changed. They show great fear and hostility in their eyes. However, we don’t know why.

“No. The two had bullied us and we defended. Nothing more.” We respond with a truthful answer based on what we can recall. The principle looks displeased with this answer. “Then my decision stands. You’re expelled. As well, due to the level of damages, we’ve also filed to have a police investigation. They’ll be paying you a visit later for questioning.” The principal is clearly taking this very seriously. Had we used too much force in our vengeance? It had felt so justified, we may have lost ourselves in the moment.

“Sorry to have bothered you while you were at work for this, and I apologize for the situation. Perhaps, if all goes well, your daughter could still be homeschooled.” “Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it from here.” Our parental individual responds rather peacefully, then takes our arm, pulling us from the chair, and leading us from the building. We will not be returning to this educational facility again. We just hope our friend can forgive us one day. We enter into a large, decaying domestic automobile, and proceed to exit the designated automobile storage area.

Even as we sit here, we understand this man cannot be trusted, no matter how much it appeared he had rescued us during that confrontation. We arrive at the home we had begun this life in. However, it now feels less desirable now that the parental individual is also here. We enter the household. The individual closes the door behind us. “Hey! Go to your room! We’ll have a… discussion… before the cops get here!” The moment he had uttered that line, our body had gone cold. We felt a heavy weight wash over us. Perhaps our fear to act out was not due to capital punishment, but the punishment this individual will provide afterwards. We sit on our bed awaiting the parental individual.

As we sit, we notice an electronic device on our bed. A… cellphone. We must have forgotten it. We raise it to our face and tap the front, causing it to light up. There appears to be small images signaling activity. We tap the one that appears to be a bubble with lines in it. A digital mailing system appears. It is from our friend. It says “Jessica, I’m glad you defended me, but you went WAY too far! I’m scared to be around you, so this is goodbye. I’m sorry.” It appears as though our friend is no longer our friend… This… hurts us deeply.

All we had done was protected our friend. What is the difference between how we solved the problem from simply arguing as they did? We did what was needed to halt the hostile mortals and we will stand by our decision! As we think this, we feel tears flowing from our eyes. Despite that we believe we were correct, the mind does not like that our friend has abandoned us. We are saddened by this betrayal. As we think on our actions, our parental individual enters the room. They have a bottle of some kind of liquid in their hand, taking a drink from it as they stagger into the room.

They had not changed their clothes since arriving to our residence. They must be waiting for the authorities to arrive before bathing. The very sight of them in this space sends a cold chill down our spine. “So you’re picking fights at school now? Think you’re tough?” They talk to us as though they understand the situation. We stand up to begin a counter argument, but the individual begins approaching quickly, stepping in large strides towards us. They grab us by the throat as they push us back down onto the bed.

“You think you can do anything?!” They question as they hold us on the bed. We struggle to break from the grid, but this body isn’t strong enough to overpower this individual. They lean forward, pressing their lips to ours. The repressed memory inside of this mind… it begins flooding back to us… it was a situation just like this… “You go out whoring for boys on the internet with your mothers face? You made me lose a good job because of that, right?” The individual says this as they begin unbuttoned their protective outerwear.

“You owe me this much since you’re just a worthless kid!” These words begin to weigh on our heart, causing the tears in our eyes to flow harder. We feel a sense of helplessness that we have never felt before. A darkness forms in our mind that’s much worse than the loneliness of the eternal void. Our body goes limp as we surrender to the individual. There is not fight that can be made against him…

As he begins removing our clothing, there is a relieving knock at the door downstairs. The authorities had arrived much quicker than we had expected. The man leans down to us as they whisper “Say anything and you’re dead, you got it?” These words… does he intend to enforce the rule… upon its ruler? This… is a deeper insult than any mortal would know. We feel a new rage building up inside of us. Not one that this body or mind understands, but one from us. This… is MY rage! We will not allow this to stand!

We reach into our decorations drawer, pulling a sharp nail file from it and proceed to quickly rush towards the individual before they open the door. We quickly rush behind them on the staircase, causing them to spin quickly. Before they can react, we plunge the nail file into their neck. We begin falling down the remaining steps together. We had hit the ground in an awkward angle, breaking our own arm. Though the pain had been devastatingly blunt, we continued our assault, stabbing the man multiple more times in the neck. Blood rushing across the floor from their wounds.

A loud banging sound is heard as the authorities burst through the entrance way. We turn towards them to see two individuals holding firearms. We pull the nail file from the lifeless being. Our body had been in such an adrenaline-fueled rush, we couldn’t release it. The authorities shout out “She’s got a weapon!” as the two begin firing their projectiles. We hardly felt anything, but we had lost control over our body. As we fall over, blood begins flowing from us and the pain rushes through our nerves. The remaining light from the outside disappears as our consciousness fades away. Once again…

We have died…