2 At School Once More

"BLEEP" screamed the alarm beside me. Blindly fumbling for the button, I hit snooze. Moaning I turned on to my side. No way was I getting up this early before school. Five more minutes please. Of course my mother popped her head into my room.

"Time to get up" she snapped, walking up to my brown nightstand. Once there, she turned on the radio. To keep me from sleeping of course.

"Well Jane, we now leave the weather for a more disturbing report. Another body was found this morning, by some high-school students. 16 year old Felina Gorted was reported dead on the scene, from a stab wound to the chest. This is the fifth murder in our city, and the thirty-eighth blonde female in our province. We are looking at an extreme case for the police, as there has been no leads up till now."

"That is horrible Phil. Have the police figured out what profile the victims have? To warn others to stay inside?"

" Yes Jane they have. There is a warning, for any, 16 year old girls who are around 5 and a half feet. Another common pattern is that most of these girls were white. But he has killed colored girls, so it would seem he doesn't have a preference. The only thing that all the victims have in common, is that they are 16 and around 5.5 feet. The recommendation is that anyone fitting this profile should not go outside alone at any time."

"Does the killer really have..."

Mother shut the radio off. It must of disturbed her, since I fit the profile almost perfectly. "Penelope Skriben, you will not be leaving this house without me or your father, understand?"

"Yes Mom, I understand," I answered her simply. Like the rules had changed at all. I was not in the mood to get slapped, or worse have my head slammed against the floor by my step-father, so I didn't add that comment. As my mother left the room I started to get dressed. Once I finished that, mother drove me to school. She stayed parked in front until I was in the school. Think she was concerned about me? Think again.

All she was doing was making sure I didn't run away at the entrance. She had the school 'suicide watching' me, so I wasn't allowed outdoors at break. It also meant I had no friends. No-one to talk to, and nobody to listen. Who would want to be friends with a suicidal maniac?

"Is that her?"

"Think so. I mean, she is near the crazy, why wouldn't it be her?"

"But she's new. If she talks to the crazy..."

"Shh. She can probably hear us!" They weren't wrong. I could hear them from 20 feet away. They were the school gossips, the 'popular kids'. They had no idea how bad the world could be. I pitied them for their naivety. They would find out the hard was to...

"Umm, excuse me. Can you show me the math classroom? I'm new here." A sudden voice by my ear jolted me out of my thoughts. I spun around, to face the source of my surprise. The owner of the voice was a dark-haired girl around my age and height. "Sorry, I forgot to get your attention first. But can you show me to the math classroom? I really am lost." she asked.

"Uh, sure. It's this way." Uncertain on how to act, I... I had no clue how to react to someone other than my parents talking to me. Of course I didn't remember that math was my first class this morning. And I didn't realize that this girl, this complete stranger, would change my life for the next millennium.