I commend you, Reader, for your courage to continue. Many kin have failed to find the will to come this far. I suspect you’ll stay with me ‘til I complete this tale and satisfy your interest in insight into the strange.

We resume where I awoke: in the school’s front office. My ordeal had driven me into a troubled sleep. How I’d gone from bank to bed would prove a great surprise, but my rude awakening denied me time to muse.

It came with the sudden sting of metal in my arm, pushed in by a steady hand and held in place a tick. I yelped at the chilly prick. “Quiet down,” I heard. I opened my eyes and met the stare of Sister Wyx.

Sat upon a swivel chair and looking rather stressed, Sister Wyx pulled the spent injector from my arm. “That should keep the cold at bay,” she joylessly sighed. “The sweats should keep you warm. Sit up and sit tight.”

I obeyed her sluggishly, worn from my ordeal. It occurred to me to ask her how I’d gotten there. But I noticed then a wooden object on my wrist: a half-beaded bracelet I was sure I’d never worn. I went to remove it, but the act returned to mind the morbid memory of the broken boy I’d seen. Fondling the bracelet seemed to still my hastened heart. I decided then to keep the trinket for a while.

Sister Wyx rolled toward a cupboard by her desk. Reaching in, she retrieved a package tightly sealed. She delivered it to me. “Your clothes,” she said. “Keep the sweatsuit on for now so the meds can work.”

The Sister referred to the full-body jumpsuit I must have been equipped with while sleeping off my scare. Thick and slick, it would surely keep my body hot. Sister swiftly sensed my displeasure at the thought. She caressed the headdress of her habit carefully, wrinkles creasing as she flashed a face of wrath restrained. “No more mess from you, now. Ms. Bergr is mad. You can bet on sitting through detention for some time.”

I tensed upon picturing the principal enraged. Never had I been more grateful for my heavy sleep. But I wondered at the fate of those who’d seen me fall, and I longed to learn the state of him with half a face.

“The boy,” I mumbled.

Sister Wyx recoiled. “Boy?” she questioned. “There were boys with you?”

“Get to class,” she commanded, rolling to her desk. I sat tempted to attempt my question once again. Sister Wyx’s weary glare gutted my intrigue. I rose with my clothes in hand and hurried from the room.

Moving through the sterile central hallway of St. Circe, I considered what I’d learned and what knowledge I lacked. I guessed that a staffer must have brought me from the river; I alone seemed set to suffer for breaking the rules. I had also been alone in witnessing the boy, or my peers or our professors would have made a fuss. I was sure they’d not keep silent after such a sight. I was sure that only I was weak enough to try.

So, I’d viewed a grim visage the others must have missed. I was clueless as to how such horror went unseen. I pondered the puzzle as I pulled upon the heavy door guarding the chaotic class of Dr. Devadil.

I locked eyes with our instructor as I stepped inside. He scanned me intently through his silver spectacles. Chatter from the students stopped as all eyes fell on me. My eyes fell right to the floor. “’Scuse me,” I breathed.

“Welcome back,” spoke the doctor with polite affect. He raised a well-worn book about matters of faith. “Page one-ten. Get with your neighbor and catch up.” I nodded and made for my assigned seat near the back.

I had learned plenty from the postered walls by then; I eyed them persistently when I walked in ashamed. Only at my seat did I dare to look away from them, and I faced swift punishment by Rachel’s ready glare.

I was careful not to touch her as I took my seat. I felt my sweats swelter in suffering her spite. Shrinking at her side, I retrieved my textbook from the drawer in our double desk with abundant care.

“One-one-zero!” Rachel seethed.

Grateful for her subtlety, I quickly caught up. Dr. Devadil gestured toward a boy in blue: the same nervous nelly we’d been with in the woods. He observed me anxiously until he heard his name.

“Gordy?”

“Yep!” Gordy blurted at our teacher.

“Pick up, please.” Dr. Devadil tapped his book.

Gordy boredly mumbled through a passage on the origin of the weekly ritual we honored by the Bord. I will spare the Reader all the details of the dogma. Know the tale involves a river and a salty sword.

Know more keenly that I couldn’t focus on the lesson. Something other than the heat I needed sickened me: something strange and slimy all a-slither in my throat. I retched as it wriggled for the flavor of my tongue.

Rachel slid away from me, wrinkling her nose. “If you’re gonna puke again, turn the other way.” I obeyed her order with my hands over my mouth. I wished shortly that I’d shielded my eyes instead.

I beheld anew the broken boy of severed face: there beside me in the room, bursting blood again. I wailed into my wet palms, tortured by its taint. Rachel placed a hand on me. “What the mess?!” she blared.

My eyes bulging like the boy’s, I looked over Rachel, then at all the others mystified by my display. None of them appeared to see the broken boy beside me. None of them appeared to see my staining by his blood.

They saw only Piggy Prissy freaking out again. But I more than saw the horror squelching at my side. It took every bit of grit and tension I could muster to play off my menacing and make it through the class.

I sprang from my seat at the first sound of the bell, eager to escape the horror hidden in the room. I ignored leering peers and bolted for the door. I embodied boarishness in barreling right through.

I sprinted the sterile central hallway of St. Circe in haste to leave the school behind and hope to leave the scares. I prayed by my bed that night to be more like my peers. But my prayer fell defied. I endured the boy.

He appeared beneath me during push-ups in P.E. I abandoned my attempt at ten to flee the feel.

He appeared before me as we lifted hymns at bord. I could hear him tear his chest amid the morning mass.

He appeared behind me leaking liquid on my lunch. Sweet potatoes I had savored wasted in my wake.

I beheld the broken boy every day at school. My heart hammered harder every time I suffered him.

Troubles past pressed me into playing ignorant; I had felt the foolishness of speaking out of mind. I passed off the episodes as symptoms of my sickness. It was easy to believe that I was getting worse. But the stress of daily dread hardly helped my grades, and I had to keep my perfect present streak to pass. No keener to skip than suffer absence under ailment, I seized on a chance to trust a mentor I admired.