Shia and Faith

Warning: Bullying and abuse

Shia was making her way to Faith's school trying to reach as fast as she could. The bullying on her was getting worse as the days passed by on both Faith. She said that it was also so bad on Kaia but they didn't meet her again until the night before she was to transfer and she didn't say a word about it so they didn't ask.

Shia had a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach the entire day. So she told Faith that she was coming to pick her up.

Something told her to run and run she did but she couldn't find her at her gate.

Panicking, Shia searched the whole school but still didn't find her, asking other students and teachers but they were useless. When she was still looking, she heard shouting and followed those sounds to the back of the school to find a crowd of students gathered.

She made her way through those kids and stared at the scene in front of her in shock.

"Look at this freak."

Everyone laughed as a girl, who held scissors, pulled at Faith's blond hair, holding her up as struggled from the pain. The other students were busy taking pictures and videos.

"P-please-"

"P-please what? Look at you. Do you think you'll look good with that hair colour? What a joke." She shoved her back to the ground.

"Joke? I like jokes. Aliya makes good jokes and even Caitlyn. But this? This is not a joke." Shia felt the heat burning her from the inside as she saw what they did to Faith.

"S-Shia?" Faith looked up at her, with her dishevelled appearance.

She walked to her and covered her with her blazer.

"Are you ok? Did they hurt you?" She asked gently.

"Aren't you ashamed of her? She should be able to embrace her heritage and be proud of it but look at what she did instead. Her community will really hate her now. She just wants to be like us."

The students all around them laughed, making Faith look to the ground, unable to make eye contact with Shia.

"Ok." Shia stood back up, irritation in her voice, "All she did is changed her hair colour, what makes you think she's trying to be like you? And do you really have the right to say that?"

"What?"

"There are so many beautiful light-skinned people around us, especially those at the very top. Yet, here you are. Changing your eye colours, your hair, your lips, and even body shape. Why? Look around you." Shia tried to keep her voice steady as she crossed her arms.

"You know that even if you have the skin tone, you still don't reach the standard. You still aren't happy with yourself so you keep changing. Nothing wrong with that but you dare to shame someone for doing the same thing you do, just because no one shames you for it, but honey," she walked to the girl that grabbed Faith's hair and casually fixed her tie while looking at her with bloodlust in her eyes, "most of the 'standards' around us? My people already have attained that naturally, along with many others not yet acknowledged by this society. That's also why we live longer."

The girl trembled and clutched her scissors as she patted her cheeks and grabbed them, pulling her in as she continued, a cold smile on her face, "Now I know that jealousy is a dangerous thing, but try not to let it consume you too much. It's a very ugly look on you."

They could hear laughter and murmurs from the students as Shia made her way back to Faith.

Embarrassed and angry, the girl shouted and threw the scissors at Shia who caught them effortlessly. She looked at the scissors and then at a missing spot in Faith's hair. Putting two and two together, she finally lost it.

Shia marched to the girl as she cowered back in fear, and grabbed her by her hair, pulling her to the centre of the circle while the girl kicked and screamed.

She held the ends of her hair up and placed the scissor on them, just past the mid-length.

"No! Not my hair! Please, not my hair!" The girl begged and cried, trying to struggle out but Shia was too strong.

"Really? Not your hair? But you didn't stop when Faith begged you right? When she begged and cried, you didn't stop. Did you?" She was shouting now, too angry to see anything else.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry. Please, I'm sorry!" The girl kept crying, her eyes and face red while Shia closed the scissors on her hair.

"Don't! Please don't do it!" Faith grabbed Shia's hands. Tears streaming down her face as they made eye contact. "Y-you are starting to look just like them. Please don't become like them."

Shia looked at Faith then at the sobbing girl furiously nodding her head at her. She just sighed and dropped the girl and her scissors.

"Every one of you." She looked at the crowd that gathered with fire in her eyes. "Scram!"

They were gone in a second, leaving the road empty.

Trying to calm herself down, Shia turned to Faith and let out a deep sigh, crouching to the ground.

"I'm so sorry, Shia. I-"

"What are you sorry for?" She looked straight at her, a hard expression on her face. "Why are you the one that has to apologise?"

Faith pursed her lips, unable to answer.

"They should be the ones to apologise, Faith. Not you, ok?"

"But they'll come after you now."

"Let them. This isn't the first time and it won't be the last." Shia spat out.

"You're so strong, Shia. I really wish I could be exactly like you." Faith sniffled, sitting down beside her.

Shia shook her head, smiling sadly, "I'd rather you don't become like me. Sure, it seems cool to see me now but to get like this, you have to go through much more than you do now. I wouldn't wish what I went through to anyone else."

"Was it really that bad?" Faith asked.

"You have no idea. I became nothing but a hollow, empty body. Living was painful, so incredibly painful and empty. That is until I met Kaia. You know how she was like, right?"

Faith nodded her head.

"She never let that bother her, you know? No matter how badly she would get bullied for it. She even talked about it like it was the most beautiful thing about her. Because of that, I started to see myself as unique and beautiful." She smiled at that thought.

"That is . . . until I saw her change her face. I was so shocked I couldn't process it. What made her so unique is now gone and, honestly, I kind of felt betrayed. But she is still my very close friend so I didn't say anything. The others just accepted it in the end, even Max. But I felt irritated."

"Then when I saw how terrified she was with just cookies, so much that she started to throw up. Never in my six years of being her friend did I see her make that face. After that, you told us that she was being bullied, but she brushed it off like it was nothing. It must have been something if she needed to shift schools after that happened. When I heard that, I realised that I don't really know much about her."

"So I made a promise to myself, that I would remain how I am without changing and rise up in society. I won't let anyone feel what Kaia felt; like it is necessary to change just to be accepted."

She patted Faith's head. "We are part of the minority group, Faith. Will you help me show everyone else will see just how beautiful we can be too?"

Faith nodded.

She looked at her now blond hair and cried again. "I didn't mean to do this. They just kept sticking things into my hair and I had to keep cutting it. I wanted my hair to grow as long as yours then braid it. They forced me to do it today. They said that if I didn't then they would cut all my hair off, so I did it. I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's ok. I didn't mean to sound like I'm accusin-" She paused, that's not what Faith needs right now. But she knows what could help. "I'm sorry too. But hey, I got an idea."

"What?" Faith sniffled.

Shia jumped up from the ground and pulled Faith with her.

"Come on. My mother must be home by now."

♣

Kaia had been admitted to the hospital for a couple of days with Max and Aliya as her regular visitors. Aliya said nothing when she first saw her bruises.

"Kaia! Max told me you were here so I wanted to visit. What are you doing here? Did you slip and hit your head in the bathroom again?" She joked.

"The one that slipped and hit their head in the bathroom sink was Max, remember?" Kaia wrote out.

"Oh yeah. He was screaming in pain but I just looked at him and laughed."

"I think he had a bump the size of his hand on his head for weeks, right?"

"Yup. I kept teasing him over and over again, but I felt bad when he would try so hard not to cry in pain." Aliya looked at Kaia's face and felt something prick at her heart.

Why is she this hurt? Max told me not to ask anything but . . . For now, I'll just be here for her

She would sit with Kaia and they reminiscing about their past, which wasn't too long ago.

By the evening of her third day there, Aliya left with her aunt and uncle; they had just gotten discharged with hardly a scratch on them. Max stayed behind to talk with her.

Max kept glancing at Kaia, she still looked so tired, though she appeared a little brighter after Aliya visited.

There was a spare bed in the room where her father slept on.

"He's coming here often isn't he?" He remarked, looking at her father's bed.

"Yeah. Ever since he heard that I was admitted to the hospital, he's been coming as much as he can." She smiled a little. "It almost feels like he's actually trying for me, these days."

"Yeah. I heard that he even got a job in the bank, a woman helped him get the job there. Is she a good friend of his?"

Kaia scoffed, "She likes him. So I'm guessing she's trying to get on his good side."

Though Kaia still doesn't trust her father fully, she still appreciates his efforts the past couple of days. He rushed to the hospital with tears in his eyes the moment he got a call from the doctors.

He almost looked normal to Kaia at that time, almost.

"How's she? What happened to her?" He asked the doctors but they didn't know either, the only thing they knew about is that she got hurt. Dorran did a good job of covering up that man's death, she didn't even see it in the news.

Her father took her into his arms and sobbed.

That was the first time he held her so gently but she still felt so suffocated when he hugged her. Her mind told her to run away but her body would cooperate. She just froze in his arms, scared to move.

"Don't die, Kaia. Don't die. I can't lose you like I lost your mother. Not you too."

Kaia felt her body relax just a little bit. He's still working through his grief like she was. That doesn't excuse how he acted to her, but, she couldn't remain too mad at him. He is the only family she had left.

She still kept her distance but he's been different the past three days since she's been admitted. For one, he hasn't smelt like he's been drinking and he looks her in the face when he talks to her though she wished he would stop that. Whenever he comes to the hospital he makes sure to bring something for Kaia.

Just for this moment, even if he goes back to ignoring her existence and acting however he wants, once she's out of the hospital, she just wants to soak up whatever affection and attention he gave her.

"Oh." Max cleared his throat. "How are you feeling?"

"My wounds are almost healed too. What about Aliya and you?"

"We're fine. Sir and ma'am are probably at home now." He tapped the table nervously and finally spoke, "Kaia, why did you do that? You could have been killed."

Kaia looked at him, she knew this was coming sooner or later, "Tell me, if you had the chance I did, would you just let it be?"

Max sighed and sat down on the chair. "No."

He laughed a little. "You've been through a lot, haven't you? And to have to go through all this again."

"I don't mind if I can be of some help to you guys."

"How far are you willing to go? You do know that you can't save everyone, Kaia. You're still just human."

"But I'm trying what I can. If I plan everything properly then it'll be fine."

"Kaia. You have a lot more to lose than you think."

Something in Kaia snapped when he said that and she couldn't hold back the anger and frustrations that's been piling up anymore.

"I've changed some of my destinies. Even my father is showing some affection to me, something I couldn't do in my old life. I saved Aliya's aunt and uncle with Dorran's help."

"At what cost? Look at you. You may actually be nineteen but your body is still a twelve-year-old's one. You broke several ribs and have destroyed some of your nerves. Those will have painful consequences later on in life to your body."

"It doesn't matter. For once in my life, I'm able to do something for someone. For once in my life, people are actually appreciating me. ME. I was a nobody that kept getting used over and over again, till the time I died.

"Do you have ANY idea how difficult it was to see bad things happen to the people around me and not be able to do anything? No one listened to me as I tried to call for help for Aliya's aunt and uncle. I noticed the moment their heartbeat slowed down and went to call for help but no one paid attention to the mute, deformed girl."

"I had to watch you and Aliya drift apart so much that neither of you could look at each other in the eyes anymore. Aliya never smiled anymore after that day."

Kaia felt her hands ache with how fast she was signing but she didn't care. She was so angry at Max, at everything and everyone.

"I had to watch Shia die very slowly and painfully in the hospital. I couldn't even recognise her by the time she died. I had to watch Faith change her appearance every day for people that never cared for her. She died at an alleyway, among the filth.

"Kaia. Enough."

He turned to leave but she got off her bed and walked to him. Grabbing his face, she turned him to face her.

"No. I'm not done. Aside from all those that happened to you guys, other things happened to me too. I watched my father drink himself to death. I watched a man take advantage of me. I watched EVERYONE desert me.

"In the end, it was only Caitlyn who remained. And-" hot, angry tears of regret spilt out of her eyes as she fell to the floor, "- I watched her burn to death. I have to do something, I can't just-"

"Enough, Kaia. That's enough." He bent down to her and hugged her. "I'm sorry."

"How can you ask me to stop when you weren't even there? You disappeared with Caitlyn and I hated you for that. You said that you would be with me and you left. Who can I even trust anymore?"

"I know that I killed someone. I know that. No matter how bad he is, he's blood is still in my hands. I know that. The voices tell me every night."

He kept repeating those words as Kaia wailed, hating her life and everything she has to go through all the time.