“Why are we going to the back of the school?”

It was a bright spring Thursday late in the month of April. Standardized tests had been taken, sports were wrapping up, and everyone was preparing for summer. School was closed for the day, and most kids were finished with their afterschool stuff.

Natalie was following her best friend, Jamie, around the back of the big, square, beige building that was their high school. Both girls had made sure to tell their mothers that they would be home later than usual. Their excuse had been that they would be hanging out with some friends, which was technically true.

“Because,” Jamie said, smiling, “Patrick and his crew are hanging out back there. Don’t worry, I’ve been back here like, a hundred times. It’s totally safe.”

This of course made Natalie worry even more. She loved Jamie like a sister and would go through hell for her. She did not however like her boyfriend, Patrick. The two were just not a good match for each other.

For one thing, Jamie was just too good for him. Her auburn hair fell in silky smooth waves down to her shoulder blades. Sparkling green eyes and a spattering of freckles mixed in to make her look like an Irish fairy, especially when she was summersaulting through the air during cheerleading practice. Patrick meanwhile looked like he’d dragged himself out of a dump truck every morning.

He was greasy, sickly pale, and dressed like a wannabe goth kid. The crowd he hung out with wasn’t much better. Most of the people she saw him with looked and acted as pathetic as he did, but every so often…

Now, Natalie certainly didn’t mind a bad boy. She herself had crushed on many a leather-clad biker-to-be. But Patrick seemed…wrong. Why? She couldn’t say. He just did.

She and Jamie rounded the corner to find a good-sized group of people, about twenty in all, gathered together near the school wall. Most of them were high schoolers like she was, but Natalie saw a handful that looked college age. One of them couldn’t have been much older than twelve.

Her nose wrinkled in disgust as a cloud of noxious fumes slammed into her. She could now see that they were all smoking. The stinking fog grew thicker as she and Jamie approached.

“Oh Patrick!” Jamie called gleefully.

A boy with black cargo pants, black army boots, a black t-shirt depicting the gruesome cover of a heavy metal band, and more jewelry and make-up than what Natalie wore to homecoming looked up as his girlfriend trotted up to him. His hair had obviously been dyed black to match his everything.

“Hey, hot stuff,” he said, in a gravelly voice that wasn’t quite a whisper. “Where you been?”

Jamie flung her arms around him. Pulled the cigarette from between his teeth he kissed her full on the lips. Natalie nearly puked just imagining what tasting by that nicotine infested mouth was like.

Why did Jamie have to pick him?

“Heeeey,” drawled a guy with muscles too big for his shirt, “Who’s this fine piece o’ meat over here?”

Natalie realized to her horror that she knew this guy. In fact, she knew several of the students in this group. The creep who had basically just compared her to a steak was one of the star linebackers for her high school football team. If that wasn’t bad enough, he was staring directly at her chest like a starving wolf who’d just come across two prime cuts of ham.

“This is Natalie,” Jamie said as she finally stopped sucking face with Patrick. “I thought it’d be fun for her to hang out with us.”

Yeah…fun.

Natalie glanced around at the crowd in front of her more closely. She recognized a couple of fellow cheerleaders and two other football players. She shivered despite the spring heat.

At Jamie’s prompting she carefully stepped in to join the circle. It felt like being a square peg shoved into a round hole.

The linebacker who had called her a piece of meat held a lit cigarette in front of her face. She flinched back away from the burning stub.

“Wanna smoke?” the boy offered.

“No thanks,” Natalie said, politely as she could muster.

“Come on,” the boy pushed. “It ain’t as bad as those stupid videos say. I didn’t take a drag or anything. I just lit it for you.”

Natalie glanced between the boy and the smoldering roll of paper and chemicals several times. Looking over to Jamie, she saw that her friend was already puffing away at her own cancer stick. Then she noticed everyone else was looking at her.

Natalie didn’t get stage fright, but she imagined this is what it was like. She swore she could feel their combined gaze on her skin like static. They all suddenly seemed much taller.

Finally, she took the cigarette. She cautiously put the joint to her lips and breathed in.

Natalie nearly collapsed as she was caught in a fit of coughing unlike any she’d ever had before. Her lungs burned, her nose stung, her throat was on fire, and her eyes watered. She felt like she might hack up every single organ in her body.

The pain subsided quickly, but she was not eager to risk another puff of the thing that had nearly killed her. No one in the circle seemed the slightest bit phased by what had just happened.

“The first time’s always rough,” the creepy linebacker said. “You just gotta get used to it. Then it’s awesome.”

I don’t care if it feels like Utopia! I’m not taking another breath of this vile thing!

Ten minutes of relative silence passed as everyone stood around taking drags from their cigarettes and competing to make the best shapes with the smoke. True to her mental word, Natalie didn’t take another puff from her cigarette. Instead, she just made sure to press the nicotine stick to her lips every time someone looked her way and then quickly pulled it from her face once whoever it was looked away.

If she hadn’t been so nervous, this would qualify as the most boring thing she’d ever done.

After a while, the two boys from the football team who weren’t the meat remark creep looked up. Following their gaze, Natalie saw that the second floor window on this side of the school looked in on the science lab. Inside, she could see Daniel messing with something in his backpack, his messy brown hair getting messier every time his head ducked into the bag.

Natalie only knew Daniel because she’d been forced to work with him on a biology project. Until then he’d always just been “that nerd.” Sure, there were other nerds in high school, but Daniel always seemed to be at the top of every bully’s hit list and the bottom of every girl’s to-date list. Even the other nerds didn’t want to hang out with Daniel.

From what little of his personality she had gleaned from their time working on the project together, she had concluded that Daniel was just too normal for most nerds and too nerdy for most normal kids. It made him stick out like a sore thumb. He didn’t belong in any of the cliques, and thus every bully within a mile radius had swooped on him like hawks on a lone chicken.

She felt sorry for the skinny teenager. He really didn’t deserve all the grief he got. She’d enjoyed working with him, even if it had taken a while for her to get him to talk in complete sentences.

Weirdly, she was also a little jealous. He wasn’t in any cliques, so he could act however he wanted. Meanwhile Natalie was caught in the high school popularity limbo competition.

She heard the two football players snicker and watched as they stalked off toward the school entrance.

Averting her gaze, Natalie went back to pretending to smoke.

A stone seemed to have taken up residence in her gut. She knew she should try to stop them. But what could she do? They were two big, beefy linebackers. She was a cheerleader, and not even squad captain. Besides, she’d draw even more attention to herself when all she wanted to do was disappear.

The sound of glass shattering rang out overhead.

Natalie looked up just in time to see a basketball shaped object hurtle out one of the science lab windows. It crashed into the ground right at Natalie’s feet before she had a chance to react.

The thing shattered like pottery laced with TNT.

Shards of it exploded in every direction and kicked up a choking cloud of dust.

Everyone screamed and fled in fear.

Natalie’s own cry was cut short as a particularly large shard embedded itself in her chest.

She staggered back a step, then collapsed as a sudden fatigue washed over her. The last thing she saw was her own hand reaching out in a plea for help as everyone fled the scene of the crime. Then her body went limp and her vision faded to black.