She was born with the gift of undeniable intelligence and virtue... or so they said. An unbeknownst aura enclosed her each passing day. Her breath was sucked out from her. The whispers fed on it; she had no knowledge on how to stop such power.

She was called coward. Insane. Deranged. Paranoid. Weak. They laughed at her.

Yet she was the most feared out of them all.

The answer was simple, they saw her crumble from their words of slander. They believed she was a mighty dragon, arisen from the core of the earth destined to destroy everything in sight, but there was a force stronger than all.

Pain.

They used that to their advantage and imprinted a four word message in her mind: I am a criminal.

“I heard she’s really bad” and “She is so twisted inside” were some of the rumors with an occasional “I guess looks aren’t everything” from the boys. The teachers were not afraid to post the rumors on those dingy little cellphones they had. Guidance counselors did not help. Nothing helped. Not even the typewriter. The typewriter was the last possession of her mother, and it always sparked hope in her heart by the clicks of the keys and how her mother used to do the same. For the past 15 years she held onto this typewriter; it was speaking to her before, why did she suddenly lose interest in the typewriter? Did one incident have such a powerful effect on her? If only her mother were here, she would have said something to prevent all of this.

“Raven?” she broke out of her thoughts. Someone had called her, probably the guidance counselor. It was only then that she focused on the current state of the room, only finding that there was no one else in the room but the guidance counselor. “You may leave.” Despite this polite dismissal, Raven could sense the intense disgust beneath the words. Every teacher happened to be dismayed on how the school could admit such a “shocking individual”. She packed her belongings and went out into the hallway, out the school, and walked to Albaneros.

She was met by the soft tinkle of bells and the rich smell of coffee. A small TV played in the far left of the wall, some floorboards creaked by the step of her boots, and some customers whispered silently as she walked by. There was a big bang in the kitchen. Everyone looked at the disturbance; a portly woman appeared at the bar. Her hair was tied messily in a bun, she wore a blue polka-dotted apron, and walked like she was constantly being nagged from behind. Her gaze shifted toward the customers in the booths and hastily said, “No worries! Nothing happened, just enjoy your scrumptious coffee!” and added, “oh, doodly-dadly. Whatta busy day.” She was walking back to the kitchen when she caught sight of Raven.

“Ah, Trouble! How was your day? Did you get in any detentions? Fail any tests?” the woman shot questions at her, but she kept her lively tone and pleasant sparkle in her eyes, “I am busy today, if you can see, so scram upstairs for now.”

She nodded and went up the stairs into a dusty room. There were boxes everywhere, spiderwebs in dark corners, but a small four poster bed and a desk managed to fit in the room. She laid her backpack on the desk, which was just cleaned of dust last night. There were still wafts of powder. She flopped on the bed.

She lay on the bed for a good ten minutes, constantly opening and closing her eyes as though expecting something or someone to appear in the room. When she saw no one, she pulled out a drawer from the desk. Her hands moved toward the plastic wrapped typewriter but stopped when there was a sharp glint of light from the very back of the drawer. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and the room started to get impressively colder. It felt as though the room was getting smaller, there were whispers in her head, something was behind her. She turned around. There was nothing there but stacks of boxes. She was hallucinating. She had to be. She rapidly closed the drawer, forgetting about the typewriter, and went to sleep without having dinner.

The glint of light haunted her.