Wander with me to a point of pressure in my past. Hear as I did then the hollering of kids at play. Feel the weight of many eyes upon a fragile frame, all of them excited for the ending of a race.

There I ran: simply Persi, suffering thirteen. I remember all too well my weakness at that age. Yet I sprinted as madly as a mouse in flight. I felt just as desperate to evade a bitter end.

But my ruin rushed at me as quickly as the cat, carried on the shoulders of the swiftest in the school. Rachel reached the finish line without a hint of haste. She spun with a dancer’s grace to face me as I failed.

The onset of envy spiked the burning of my lungs as Rachel spawned the snooty smirk she loved to turn on me. “That’s another win for me,” my rival proclaimed. “Piggy Prissy lost again. Will she ever win?”

I defied her doubting with a devilish glare, snorting as I swallowed sickness threatening release. Our classmates heard my gagging as the groaning of a beast. “Piggy Prissy!” chanted some, copying their crush.

Rachel claimed her glasses from a handy hanger-on, daintily equipping them as she examined me. I am certain now that she could see how sick I felt, though the thinning of her stare seemed scornful at the time.

She could see as well a challenge desperate for response, signaled by the stubborn shimmer of my auburn eyes. I’m sure that’s what triggered her to snicker as she did. “Prissy want some more?” she cooed cruelly.

It is now worth noting that the playground at our school bordered a forest forbidden to students without staff. Rachel followed every rule when staff were there to see. Lacking as they were that day, she showed less restraint. She skipped quickly past the brush that marked the forest’s edge. Half a dozen sets of squishy footsteps followed suit. I caught up and caught my breath behind the bold who’d brave the woods moistened by the wetness of a winter fading fast.

Winter’s waning saw the forest blanketed in fog. Frigid droplets stung me as the mist mussed my hair. Creepy, creaking trees loomed over our advance, calling us to quiet as we walked the eerie trail.

“I can barely see in here!” whined a boy in blue, voice cracking as he broke the quiet to complain. He cleared his throat and dropped his tone. “What if something jumps us?”

“Everything but us is dead,” Rachel flatly said.

Rachel’s easy confidence hardly helped my nerves. Mounting terror tempted me to call the challenge off. But my breakfast bubbled up my gullet once again, urging me to seal my lips or else endure the spew.

I walked in sickly silence, bringing up the rear as my rival led our group of eight to a narrow ravine. She approached a fallen trunk bridging the ravine’s banks. Hopping on with perfect poise, she started across.

“Try this,” ordered Rachel. She walked the tree with ease, choosing halfway through to hopscotch her way to the end. Bouncing boldly through a pattern drawn from memory, Rachel reached the other side and spun to smirk at me.

“We’ll call it a win for you if you can make it here.” Rachel flashed a frown when she saw me shrink away. “The balance beam on Field Day won’t even be this wide. Give up on that seer stuff if you’re gonna run.”

I remain amazed at Rachel’s knowledge of my mind. She saw straightaway that I stood focused on defeat. Failure meant a frightful fall into the frigid flow, and I couldn’t see from there where the current led.

But the pressure of my present peers pushed me on, adding to the weight of Rachel’s promise of a win. Keen to prove that I could be as bold as seers must, I climbed the trunk on shaky legs and started down its length.

“Don’t look down,” Rachel warned. I obeyed at first. Slowly but securely, I crossed the tree’s first half. But a bit of bark splintered underneath my feet, and its cracking drew my gaze down into the drink. Gracelessness and gravity were quick to do their worst. Down I went, dropping like a stone into the gulch. I heard someone shout something that sounded like my name, but their voice was lost as I went flailing through the flow.

The current carried me into a musty, muddy pit. There, I sputtered weakly as my hand found something hard: something smooth and solid that conveyed a welcome warmth, followed far too quickly by a strong and sudden stink. My heart became a hammer banging fiercely in my chest, breaking my resistance as my stomach spilled at last. Hunched over and heaving, I was cursed to spot the source of the horrid stench that had me spewing in the mud.

I would spare the sensitive the terror I endured. Let the weak of will avert their eyes as I could not. Let these lines be the last you witness of my tale. Turn away or cross the line and brave the bane to come.

I beheld the body of a boy with half a face, stripped of all the meat and bone beneath his bulging eyes. Blood burst from the hollow as he squirmed amid the muck. I could feel the foul fluid stain me as I shrieked.