Arching Story's
Engel
Days had long passed since the 'Training drill' and it was safe to say my confidence in its practice was both emboldened and broken.
There wasn't a single student in the school who hadn't seen the damage done, the windows all along the east wing had been completely splintered, boot prints claiming their seat in the concrete, and their memory embedded into the carpet.
Go further past that towards the exit and you'll find the prints paired with ten or so divots evenly spread out just ahead of each one without fail, cracks of many trailing just behind them, painting a pretty clear picture of the perpetrator's motives. But the real question is why? Why did the assailant leave such marks? Why did they need such speed?
Yet the damage doesn't end there, as just past the decimated exit doors is by far the worst of the damage, but many would argue against it, and they would be absolutely right, as it wasn't the worst of the financial damage; after all, a tree wasn't much to complain about when it came to such things.
No, its real damage was personal, it was like a direct blow to my gut, and if it wasn't for the damage to the school I'd have already put the suspicion and blame on Oliver, his constant efforts in demeaning and undermining me painting this as one of his works.
But alas, the tree under which my group was formed, was no more; its skyscraper size lying flat as heavy machinery dotted its form, the bulk of which was focused on the section blocking the road, its sheer size having been chiseled down to almost nothing.
Sighing, I turned from the window, its form proving to be too much for my mind to truly comprehend its inevitable disappearance, it was like grading day, except your friend was the one getting the F.
Shaking my head, I focused on the more pressing matters that I'd been thinking of these past days; I did some digging and hounding, and found out some info on the sudden quarantining of the East Wing.
Someone matching Claire's description entered one of the rooms over there; and that, for reasons beyond me, had almost every teacher on alert, but none more so than Principal Grace; who'd been monitoring the door at the time.
The quarantine of the wing had since been lifted, the reason for its initial existence being chalked up to black mold; most believed the reason and appreciated the staff's sudden actions, but anyone with half a brain could tell that their reason was half-assed and weak in many places.
For example, how would an almost brand-new section of the school get black mold in the first place? Rain wasn't frequent and only came once or twice a year and some groundskeepers kept the building pristine at almost every given moment, so that ruled out leaks; the pipes were pristine and last I checked were installed just last year so that mostly overrode a leaky pipe; put this all together and you get a near impossibility of its growth, especially if the size of the area quarantined dictated how bad the spread was.
It was so frustrating because I knew I was on the right path, the right direction, yet the only thing holding me back was something I lacked, something that I felt Oliver had, answers.
However, I knew he didn't have the vast connections I did, so he was also partially in the dark.
It was like a game of cat and mouse, except we were both the cat and mouse; we both had different insights, and we both held each other's final puzzle piece.
Whoever lost their piece first was the loser, and sure the prize for the winner was just information on what was really going on, but I knew if Oliver had his way, not a soul but himself would know the whole truth.
"I need to win. I must wi-"
"Engel, if you are having a mid-life crisis, I implore you to go somewhere else," was spoken just above me as I was ripped from my determination.
Looking up, I found Ms. Circle, staring down at me with her organic and inorganic arms crossed under her chest; did they get bigger?
Seemingly reading my mind she spoke again, "Say something and you'll have more to worry about than whatever the hell's going on in that head of yours, understood?"
I gulped at the underlined threat before speaking, "Yes Sensei, it won't happen again mam."
She gave me an appraising look before nodding and continuing to pace the classroom, our conversation having been ignored by the rest of the class who were still doing their tests, with myself, Oliver, Edward, and Zip being the sole exceptions.
But the other three were too preoccupied with whatever they were drawing to care about it either, so at least I didn't have to hear them repeating the fact that I stared at the teacher's chest for a solid five seconds before being called out.
Sighing again, I shifted my thoughts to something closer to my chest, the group, or the more aptly named 'Standard', a name unanimously agreed on by most.
Before, I mentioned what my group did, and what was going on with it, but as much as I'd like to say we did nothing but help people, that would be further from the truth; in reality, we were mercenaries, albeit cheap ones, but mercenaries none the less.
Now that may seem a bit stupid, considering we were still in school, but it was something we were proud of; some doubted a group of angsty teens and were right to do so, but with the mutations going around these days, there were people in the group who could chuck chunks of concrete like they were throwing a baseball.
For example, I could run at speeds that would make most cars jealous, and my jumps were on par with some of the highest buildings in town, you pair this with my razor-sharp talons for fingers and some of the best eyes in the world, and you got yourself an excellent scout, though sometimes I wish I didn't have to deal with the fragility that came with the perks.
My bones were hollow like that of many birds, so even the weakest of hits from the right people could shatter them like a KitKat; it was the main reason I didn't participate in many of Claire's classes.
Chuckling at a few memories, I shook my head and moved on.
Point was, my group wasn't something that sat in black or white, no, it rested on the fine gray line, its imposing seating testing loyalty and morals alike.
There had been times when the side of white and black had claimed our members, with either their morals or loyalty faltering under the stress that the group was constantly under, and I feared that the stress was starting to wear down the members.
It was almost every day now that someone had backed out, too overwhelmed by the responsibility they held, and now that I thought of it, just before Claire went missing she had that same look of being smothered like the ones stepping out.
So, maybe it was my fault she was missing, my fault she looked so fed up that day.
I couldn't help the saddened chuckle that left my vocals, "It's always your fault, eh, Engel."
With that, I put my head down and opted to sleep; the test was likely to be a few hours, and I was starting to lose sleep under the mountain of problems being thrown at my feet, so why not take advantage of my time now?
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Oliver
Watching his head fall, I sighed, my crimson gaze retreating as it refocused its attention on the paper lying in front of me, its contents depicting an unsettling visage of Alice, Claire's corpse resting in her maw.
One of the many plans that were supposed to help me break Engel, however with Claire still in the woodwork and scaffolding, it was almost impossible to set in motion.
Sure, there was probably a way to find her, but I wasn't willing to distract myself with a silly game of hide-and-seek, so I had to put this one back for now.
Reaching down, I grabbed my bag, its usually bleek space filled with a few folders and stray papers; rummaging through it for a second, I eventually caught sight of what I was looking for, a bright red notebook, its spine somewhat damaged while its hard cover was cracked down the middle as if it was forced to fold in half.
It was a cheap old thing, but something that held far too many secrets and plans, luckily all of it was encrypted in a language that Edward and I cooked up some time ago, so no one but us could truly understand the the gibberish written throughout the surplus of pages.
Flipping a few pages over, I stuck the drawing back into its place, the scribbles now hidden behind it depicting how the plan would've gone down if Clare hadn't ghosted.
But oh well, what could you do, right? Well, that's simple: just move on to the next one and hope for the best. Speaking of moving on to the next, I lazily glided through a few pages before stopping on a particularly interesting one.
Sure, it seemed a bit gross, but she was made out of bubbles and bubbles were made out of one of my most favored foods so it couldn't be that bad.
My stomach growled at the thought, but I staved off my hunger for now, as there was still a test going on, one that, of course, I had already completed, but that much couldn't be said for most of the class.
I grinned while shaking my head, we were going to be here for a while, and there was nothing that could be done about it, well, almost nothing.
However, I didn't want to pull that stunt just yet, so I kept my ideas in check while gliding through more pages, each one varying from the other, yet still embodying the same theme, the same target, Engel.
I for the life of me didn't understand why I was so fixated on him, but the bastard was like a parasite that lived rent-free in my head, and I was trying to exterminate it, to wash it out so I could just be me and not pretend or act like a fiveD chess player.
Hell, it was because of him that my stupid group was even a thing, I mean come on, if he'd stopped playing the hero type so much, my group wouldn't even exist, the idiocy of its members being its undoing.
It was all so stupid, and time-consuming, it was even starting to interrupt my beauty sleep, and that's not to mention the now stagnate friendship I had been building with Alice, my hopes in escalating the friendship to something more dashed because little bird brain thought I was being too noisy with my pranks.
However, I took solace in the fact that I could still talk to Alice without being skewered, which while kinda hot, probably wasn't a very pleasant experience, or at least I thought I could; the quarantine having done well in fucking that possibility up as well.
Nothing was going right anymore, and it was all because of him.
My crimson gaze shot up in hate, the accidental self-revving making it hard not to look at him with all the hate I could muster.
Luckily, I wasn't in a rage for long, as a ball of paper hit me in the eye, irritating it enough that I had to rub them shut.
After I was done dealing with the mild irritation, I looked over to my side, already guessing who'd thrown it.
My gaze was met with a whiteboard held by Edward, bold gold words written out.
'You good?'
Rolling my eyes, I pulled my own board out before writing in purple, 'Peachy.'
He snorted before shooting back, 'You sure? Because giving your totally not boyfriend that look usually means something happened.'
A vein bulged under my long white hair before I wrote back, 'You're lucky we are friends, or else I would've made sure your shot with Zip was shot down ages ago.'
Edward merely grinned before writing back, 'Right, so you'd burn my sails because yours couldn't catch up with his?'
Another five veins popped as I swiftly wrote back, 'I hate you so goddamn much you pathetic waste of space.'
He merely snickered before writing out something, 'And I love you too you closeted bastard, also, it's not nice to shoot my shot down with Zip because you haven't shot yours with him.'
I was done and extremely pissed off at this point, so it wasn't a surprise when my board went flying, nailing him in the head.
It also shouldn't have been a surprise when it did absolutely nothing to the dumbass, merely bouncing off his even longer white hair like it was a pillow of pure cotton.
Then the jackass had continued to write.
'Mood.' it said with a chibi version of his face next to it.
I was going to beat him senseless after class.
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Ms. Grace
Rising from my seat, I once again replayed the tape, watching as Ms. Circle escorted the Ancient Horror back to her confines, which, unfortunately, was located in my school.
I'd been doing this repeated action for hours now, pondering, wondering, theorizing, trying to understand why.
Why did she suddenly leave? Why did she step foot out of her room? And worst of all, why did she leave in the middle of the day?
Alice wasn't something that hunted in the light; she was a purely nocturnal hunter, using the cover of night to hunt for her prey, to string up and mutilate them with the giddiness of a curious child.
However, she was no child, and she wasn't giddy about anything but killing and eating; torture was her hobby, and anatomy was her instrument.
She knew everything there was to know about humanities biology, even the twisted version that it was today was nothing more than child's play for her, and yet, here she was in the video, brimming with joy and sadistic pleasure, her smile struggling to stay even lest it split into its sadistic reality, revealing its true nature to those watching.
But that was only part of what I was trying to discern, as aside from her un-natural enthusiasm, she was carrying something in one of her extensions, its taillike form firmly wrapped around a piece of meat; it didn't take much guessing to understand what kind of meat it was, especially if the recent, 'Terrorist' attack that had left over thirty people dead, ripped to pieces and thrown about was anything to go by.
What it was wasn't even up for debate, no, the real problem was why she had dragged it back.
Her bringing it back here could mean so many things, of which were too many for me to name, but the ones I was leaning toward didn't leave me with a pleasant feeling.
Was she storing it, hoping to use it for some kind of ritual? No, that wasn't how she operated; past interactions have shown her severe lack of interest in anything demonic, and last I checked churches didn't use flesh and blood to appease their beliefs, so that meant it was something else.
"Why...? Why are you suddenly changing so much? Why are you shaking the foundations like this? What are you after?"
Thinking back, looking, and observing everything that happened this month, I dug deeper, looked harder, and listened more intently, until eventually, something stuck, a conversation I had with Ms. Circle when I first enacted the quarantine around the East Wing.
'It's a miracle she wasn't instantly gored as soon as she turned the knob,' were her exact words.
Like the final piece of a puzzle, everything seemed to snap into place; the meat wasn't for her, it was for something else, someone else, it was for Claire.
My gut plummeted as the realization dawned; my knees grew weak and wobbly as shock sent me tumbling to the floor, my arms failing to catch me.
My horns itched and ached in distress as my thoughts tumbled over themselves, 'She was alive. But how? Why was she alive? Was this really Alice? How was she still breathing? But if she was alive, how did she not starve? Why now, after weeks of no activity, would she be getting food for a supposed corpse? What had she been doing to keep her alive all this time? Now that I think about it, Ms. Cicles's incident, the one that cost her an arm, the days she went missing, only to be found wandering the East wing with a stump that leaked blood as if the accident had just happened.
All at once, something clicked, an article written in the papers ages ago, 'Time fracture?"
I gritted my teeth in frustration, the monocle I wore having fallen away to reveal the empty socket behind it, 'What was going on behind that god damned door!?'
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Ms. Bloomie
Sighing, I tightened the strap over my bare shoulder, its sleek black leather pulling my prosthetic limb in place.
Staring down at the metal hand, I gave it a few twists and turns to make sure it was working properly before flicking the wrist with great force, a blade slipping out in response, the palm and fingers having split apart to let it free.
Grabbing a wipe and bottle of rubbing alcohol, I doused the cloth before running it over the blade, the blood from earlier's failure having coated the blade in red.
After I was done cleaning the blade I took the bottle and poured a good portion of it into the crevices that housed it before retracting the blade and letting the hand close, the hiss of air informing me that the seals were in place.
Giving the metal appendage a few good swings, I could feel the slight vibrations of liquid swimming inside; walking over to the sink, I flicked the wrist again, and the blade popped out, covered in alcohol just a bit redder than before it was poured in.
Carefully tilting the appendage, I watched as a slurry of deep red liquid was poured out, the alcohol doing well in removing or dislodging any gore that may have been stuck in the chamber.
After it drained, I made sure to rinse it a few more times until crystal-clear water was the only thing that returned.
Sighing, I retracted the blade one last time before throwing on my shirt, and black heels, my long skirt already in place.
Reaching over, I grabbed a ribbon off the room's dresser before tying most of my hair up into a bun, a gentle white bow keeping it in place.
Looking in the mirror, I made sure everything was in place before straightening out the pair of cat ears atop my head, their instinctual flick of annoyance giving way to my frustrations in doing so; I did it nonetheless.
With one last glance, I made my way out of the room and into the hall; I ignored the other faculty in favor of passing through the exit doors.
Upon leaving the building, I was immediately made privy to the swamp of cars taking up the road; sighing, I looked around before leaping up, my nimble form easily balancing on the lampost not two feet to my right.
Walking ahead until meeting the edge, I made another leap before landing on another lampost across the way, my form once again landing with nimble grace and impeccable balance.
Hoping down, I made sure to keep a hand tucked around my waste to preserve my dignity.
After landing, I continued forward, the sight of the school building poking into my peripheral; taking my time, I soaked in the serene beauty of the foliage before I had to go deal with even dumber students.
A game of straws dictating that I took the runts of this year, or in easier terms, the utter disappointments.
Half of them were already dead, and it was looking like only one or two would be left by the month's end, though I didn't mind too much, as less of them meant less of my time wasted in trying to teach them something they could even partially comprehend.
Scoffing in annoyance, I vetted the sudden disappearance of my favorite student, the bow I'd previously gifted her lying on my shelf up in my room, its owner having forgotten it in class the day of her disappearance.
I huffed, "Claire, I swear I'm going to wring your neck when I find you," I said with no real heat or intent.
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Ms. Circle
Sighing, I fell back into my chair, its form on wheels sinking ever so slightly in its vain attempts to hold my weight, though I had to give it some props, as it was the only chair that's lasted for more than a month without any major issues.
Kicking my feet up and over my desk, I made sure to do so with grace, as putting any amount of pressure that wasn't my worst was a surefire way to end up with a splintered remnant of what once was.
That, and there were mountains of paperwork, ungraded tests, and believe it or not; a fair number of job opportunities in the military.
Yet even with the possible increase in revenue, and the opportunity to actually put my monstrous abilities to the test, I let them be, as believe it or not, my dream was to be a teacher.
Yes, a teacher; just like my mother before me.
I scoffed at the sudden remnant of memory before swiftly discarding it, not wanting to reminisce and become sentimental of someone long since gone.
I stared at the ceiling for a while, just thinking about myself and life, before I was interrupted by a knock on my door.
My brow twitched but I spoke anyway, "Enter."
The frustrations soon gave way to calm happiness as I saw my claim walk in, "Abbie? What are you doing here?"
The skittish boy merely looked away with a blush before walking up to my desk, paper in hand.
Removing my feet from the wooden top, I leaned forward, looking at him through a gap in the paperwork eternal piling; a smile painted my lips when I noticed him trying to look anywhere but at me, the paper in his hands extended and slightly shakey, as if it weighed as much as the heavens Atlas was forced to hold up.
Giggling, I reached over to extract the seemingly impossible heavy paper from his hands, my prosthetic sneaking around faster than most could see to stop him from doing what he usually did.
Bringing up the paper to my obsidian gaze, I dragged the boy up and over my desk by the collar, his plan of bolting not working out so well, before popping him down on my lap, his short black hair making for a nice place to lay my chin while I observed the page.
Once I got a proper look at the thing, I couldn't help the long whistle that evaded my restraint; sitting there within the page, was a superb drawing of me, its details depicting me in one of the most sleek yet beautiful dresses I've ever laid my eyes upon.
The boy, seeming to accept his fate while leaning against my chest, spoke up with a slight stutter, "I-Its called the B-Black Mermaid, and I'd thought it looked nice on you, s-so I drew it... I'm sorry..."
I merely smiled brighter as I rubbed circles around his right palm.
I had to give the boy some credit, because if that dress was as he depicted, then I'd say I'd rock the shit; its form sported a slit down one of the legs that exposed my drawings thigh, only stopping just before it reached to high lest it expose part of my panties, which looking at a bit closer, did anyways.
Sporting a mischievous smile I teased, "Red eh? And is that lingerie?"
The boy jolted violently and I could feel his face trying to sink further into my breasts as it burned with embarrassment.
Chuckling, I continued observing the smooth drawing, its seamless strokes painting it in a realistic light.
The dress, despite my teasing, was probably forced to make the slit shorted due to the laws it would cross with if it didn't, so the peak at my unique underwear was probably something he added, but I was impressed non the less, especially since I knew how hard it was to draw with one hand.
I chuckled mischievously.
Anyway, the dress really wasn't that exposing, sure, the chest was split open to show off some cleavage, but other than that the only thing you had to worry about was the shoulders, their form void of any cover whatsoever, and the neck, which seemed to have been given the job of the shoulders, had multiple straps wrapped around it, their being coming as a tradeoff for the shoulders continued bare form.
Overall, it was beautiful, almost divine, and it really captured my overly pale form, giving me the look of an elegant yet steadfast lady from somewhere I knew wasn't my final destination, after all, I didn't think heaven ever accepted devils into their ranks.
Shaking my head, I sighed with contentment before laying the paper down; I'd frame it when I got home.
For now, I wrapped my arms around the boy, pulling him as close as the restrictions of my clothes would allow, his warmth doing well to tend to my aching stump hidden under my prosthetic.
The boy, having seen me put down his beautiful work, started to calm as well while basking in my warmth in equal length; words had no place here right now, or at least that was what it felt like.
Sadly, the brief respite didn't last long, as the bell rang, signaling to almost every student that classes would be starting up again in a moment.
I growled in irritation before reluctantly letting the boy free, his petite form lingering on my lap for a second longer before he also reluctantly got up.
Wanting to leave the situation out on a high note, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him into a light kiss, yet even with the action lasting barely half a second, his face had gone nuclear in less than so.
Letting him free again, I chirped, "The drawing was spectacular, and I'll be sure to consider the lingerie," I winked, "As red as it was drawn."
He couldn't handle my teasing anymore and bolted away, his incoherent screams lingering and reverberating down the halls just loud enough to bounce back into my office.
If he'd stayed just a bit longer he might've seen my own blush spreading.
With my mood renewed and refurbished, I turned back to my desk, ready to tackle the mounting paperwork, all the while sneaking glances at the drawing.
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Claire
Everything was warm; I could feel heat, almost searing, trailing down my cheek, yet I couldn't see where from, as my remaining eye all but refused to open its sore almost paper-thin form acting on instinct and fear of what was to come when my brain acknowledged my consciousness.
However, no matter what the instincts did, no matter how hard they pushed, consciousness would not fade, my body having had enough rest to make up for the multiple overnight study sessions I had to pull to pass my classes.
Now, here I was, lying in a void of nothing and trying to force myself and my body to face the remedy that agony had strung, it's musical waiting for the most opportune moment to retaliate for my constant disregard of its existence.
It was in all but words justified, and I was never truly someone who wouldn't face my problems head-on, especially if said problems had my contribution, no matter how small my part may have been.
My thoughts were halted as flickers of heat nibbled at my fingertips, the feeling rapidly ascending past the lukewarm heat it was seconds before, quickly moving past my hands and spreading through my body, making it feel like it was being scorched and burned from the inside out.
My instincts fell away in that moment as my eyelid forced itself open, my steal colored iris shrinking to but a dot; my screams echoed out, and I could feel bile rising in my throat.
I was kicking, and flailing, trying to find something in the void to grip onto, to bite, to help alleviate anything, my chest heaved as I turned onto my side, the bile spilling out like a flood; yet through my agony, through all of the movement and disorientation my body was going through, my last spec of cohesion recognized the bile, not as actual bile, but blood, gallons upon gallons of blood, my blood.
The last spec of cohesion vanished, fear consuming everything that was my being.
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Alice
I was frozen, shocked by the scene playing out in front of me; the girl, whose body I was just spooning, had broken free of my relatively light grasp and started flailing, kicking, and screaming before rolling onto her side, a copious amount of blood pouring from her throat and onto the voided floor, the action sending her into a roar of fear.
It was so much, so much fear that I should've been frothing at the mouth in hunger, yet it did no such thing, no it did the opposite.
My stomach had dropped to my loins and a fear like none I'd ever felt before consumed my being, but not for myself, no, for her, for my property, for my toy, my item, my claim.
My body morphed into and twisted into a mass of darkness, my nearly pure red eyes, I used to torment my prey now filled with something so incomprehensible, so unstable, and so very angry.
Reality seemed to shatter around me as tentacles roared with violent rage and indecipherable fear.
The void around the girl's flailing form disintegrated as I replaced it, her flailing form unable to continue as my strength halted her in place; but she didn't seem to care as her teeth, every so slightly sharper, buried themselves into one of my tentacles that got to close to her mouth.
I had to reinforce the thing lest she bite through it; I paid no heed to the sudden violence, as it seemed to douse the inferno that was her fear, with a comforting drop of water.
It may not have done much to quell the ocean that it was, but I took solace in the fact that her newly pointed nails were digging into my inky back with vigor, the action slowly poring a bucket into her ocean instead of the merger drop it was before.
Yet still, it wasn't enough for me.
My blood-red eyes grew bigger as the rings in their cinter grew smaller, an idea striking me like one of the Cat Ladies blows.
With my desperation and fear mounting, two tentacles ripped through my back, both packed and compressed with as many of my cells as I could fit inside, before they shot around, piercing the girl's back with a force that would turn most into a gored pile.
The girl immediately lost her breath, her back arching as the tentacles crawled and ripped their way inside her body, before exploding in bursts, my twisted and incomprehensible cells being forced through her body.
Almost instantly, her body began to morph and twist into something familiar to me, yet her muffled screams increased tenfold.
My blackened heart beat in fear and desperation as I pulled her closer; the teeth she was using to bite the tentacle having bitten through its form and finding its new perch in my shoulder.
Gritting my teeth in desperation, I yelled into the void behind her, "YOU ARE MY TOY! MY PROPERTY! MY CLAIM! YOU WILL NOT SUCCUMB!"
The girl only grappled harder in response.