When the final bell rang at the end of the school day, the hallways of East Point High School flooded with students almost immediately. Like a stampede, they moved almost as a single mass towards the front entrance, where the parking lot and the bus pickup zone were located.

Ordinarily, this was not a problem for Alex. She just waded through the rush like it was a wave carrying her to shore. Unfortunately, she really needed to use the bathroom today, and there was no way she could wait the entire twenty minute bus ride. As a result, she found herself swimming against the tide of student bodies, trying to make her way back up the hallway in the opposite direction everyone else was going.

Unsurprisingly, the bathroom was completely empty when she finally got to it. "At least I can pee in peace for a change," she mumbled to no one in particular.

By the time she finished her business and washed her hands, there were very few students left milling about in the halls, just a few stragglers that probably had an after school club to go to. It was surprisingly quiet with most of the students gone. The only sounds were the occasional metal ka-chink of a locker door closing, or the gentle clack of footsteps on the tile floor.

As she made her way towards the front entrance, another sound caught her attention. Someone was crying. It wasn't the gentle, quiet weeping of someone who had just gotten dumped or maybe just had a bad day—no,this was the mournful, wailing sob of someone who had fallen into a deep despair.

Alex turned the corner to see a girl sitting on the bench just outside of the principal's office. Her face was in her hands, long brunette hair dangling down to conceal her features. She wore a black jacket over a red cardigan, and there was a little smiley face button pinned on the jacket, a stark contrast to her current demeanor. Her shoulders shook with each gasping sob.

Alex hesitated. She didn't like to get involved in other people's business, but it was hard to ignore someone in such obvious distress.

"Are you okay?" she asked, approaching cautiously. No answer. It was a stupid question, Alex realized. She tried something else. "Is...there anything I can do?"

The girl fell silent, unmoving. Then, slowly, she lifted her head to look at Alex. Her face was ghastly and pallid, more gray than tan. Tears streamed down her face, and her eyes glistened like crystal orbs in dark sockets.

"Are you... talking to me?" she asked, her voice a strained whisper.

Alex nodded, finding it hard to speak for some reason. The girl's tearful eyes lit up, and she grabbed Alex's hands. "Yes! Yes, please. I need a favor. You've got to help me."

She had to restrain herself from jerking her hands away. The other girl's hands were ice cold and clammy, and her grip was too tight. But Alex felt bad for her. "What do you need?"

The girl released one of her hands and retrieved something from her jacket pocket, handing it to Alex. It appeared to be a folded-up piece of notebook paper, the kind of note kids used to pass in class back before everyone had cell phones. "Give this to Rachael Allen for me."

Alex stared at the folded rectangle in her hand. "Um, okay. I'm sorry, why can't you just give it to her yourself?"

"Please," the girl pleaded. "Please, it will only take a moment. She's always in the library first thing in the morning. You can just give it to her and be on your way."

Alex hesitated, but finally nodded her head. "Okay, I'll do it."

There was something unsettling about the girl's desperate insistence, and Alex was getting a strange feeling about the whole situation. Suddenly, she wanted very badly to get away. She felt sorry for the poor girl, whatever was wrong with her, but she was seriously starting to get creeped out, and she didn't want to miss her bus.

"I'll do it," she repeated. "First thing tomorrow morning. I gotta go now." With that, she quickly turned and headed out the front doors at a brisk pace, not turning to look back until she was well past the front steps and in front of the water fountain. When she finally dared to glance back over her shoulder, the girl was gone.

*     *     *

Kevin Trotter awoke to the sound of a metal door creaking open and closed again from somewhere down the hall. He shook his head, but his shaggy blonde hair clung to his face, wet with sweat. He was still tied to a chair in what had once been a patient room of the long abandoned Sisters of St. Mercy Hospital. It had been five or six days now, he thought. It was hard to keep track of time, so he couldn't be sure. He'd been given water every few hours, but no food, and he was experiencing terrible hunger pains. He'd have probably started eating the cockroaches that crawled in the corners by now, had he been able to move. It seemed his captor intended to starve him to death.

He could hear the sound of footsteps now as the Tall Man walked down the labyrinthine halls towards his room.

"Asshole!" Kevin called out to him, his voice shaky and weak. "Why are you doing this?"

The footsteps grew closer, and Kevin's eyes settled on the door, waiting for it to open. The Tall Man had drawn something on it with chalk, a circle lined with some kind of strange symbols. He had no idea what it meant. Probably some kind of witchcraft, he thought, a sign that his captor intended to sacrifice him to some crazy pagan god, or something.

The door opened slowly, and the Tall Man peered in. His expression was neutral, his mouth a hard line and his eyes cast in shadow from the bill of his New York Yankees baseball cap. He wore a dingy, stained white T-shirt under a flannel jacket, and worn out jeans.

Something smelled delicious. Kevin's mouth started watering immediately as the Tall Man pulled a brown paper bag out from behind his back. He slowly removed the contents, a hamburger wrapped in greasy paper, and Kevin could feel tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.

"Why?"Kevin screamed, as the Tall Man unwrapped the burger and took a large bite, never breaking eye contact with his prisoner. He chewed slowly, staring at Kevin the whole time.

"Just kill me," Kevin pleaded. "Please."

There was a long silence in which the Tall Man said nothing, nor did he move. Then, to Kevin's horror, a wicked smile spread across his face. His lips curled back, exposing yellow teeth in a freakish grin that made Kevin's blood run cold. Instinctively, he looked down, breaking eye contact.

"Kill you?" the Tall Man repeated, and then he laughed. It was not the sinister laugh of someone who was trying to be intimidating; it was the hearty belly laugh of a person who had just heard something genuinely hilarious. Somehow, that made it all the more terrifying.

The hamburger and paper bag fell to the floor, and the Tall Man was suddenly upon him, hands grasping him by the side of the head and jerking his face up to meet his eyes. There was a glint of madness in those eyes, a depraved glee that Kevin thought no human being could be capable of.

"You think death will end your suffering?" The Tall Man crooned. "Death is only the beginning! Once you've drawn your last breath, once the last spark of life fades and body functions finally cease...that's when your torment will truly begin."

*     *     *

It was about ten minutes before the first bell rang when Alex entered the library the following morning. During finals week, the place would be packed, but it was the middle of the fall semester now and the place was practically empty. Aside from the librarian who was sitting at the checkout counter drinking her coffee as she read the newspaper, Alex and one tall girl with pink-framed glasses appeared to be the only occupants.

Alex approached the tall girl. "Um, sorry... are you Rebecca Allen?" she asked.

The girl with the glasses glanced up from the paperback novel she had been reading. "I'm Rachael Allen."

Alex pulled the folded note from her jacket pocket and thrust it towards the girl. "Sorry, Rachael. This is for you."

It occurred to her that most of her peers would have peeked at the note, but Alex had left it folded and unread. It wasn't that she wasn't a curious person--quite the opposite, in fact. But when it came to other people, Alex preferred to keep her distance. She didn't want to get involved in anyone else's personal business. She didn't like "drama," as her classmates would often say.

Rachael accepted the folded paper with a bemused expression, saying nothing as she unfolded and began to read the note. Alex left without another word, and was nearly back out the door when she heard the girl stand up suddenly and call after her.

"Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?" she demanded.

Alex spun around to face the girl reflectively, and saw her brandishing the unfolded paper in the air.

"I...what?" she stammered, holding her hands up as if to ward off an attack.

"You think this is funny?" The girl was approaching her now, holding the paper up like it was a murder weapon. Damn, what had the note said?

"I didn't write it!" Alex insisted. "Some girl gave it to me yesterday after school and asked me to give it to you."

"Who?" the tall girl demanded, hands on her hips in and indignant stance.

"I don't know, she didn't tell me her name. She was, um... she had really long brown hair, and dark eyes. She was wearing a red cardigan and a black jacket."

"Let me guess," the glasses girl leered. "The jacket had a button with a smiley face on it?"

Alex just nodded mutely. For some reason, that incited the girl, who crumpled the note in both hands and slammed it down into the wastepaper basket next to the checkout counter with unnecessary force.

"You're a freakin' psycho, you know that?" Her lips were curled into a hateful sneer, but there was a glistening at the corner of her eyes as though she were fighting back tears. She pushed past Alex suddenly, bursting through the library doors and out into the hallway. She moved quickly, almost stomping as she departed.

For a brief moment, Alex considered retrieving the note from the trash, just to see what the girl had gotten so upset about. Just then, she saw the librarian shooting her a puzzled look, and she decided to leave immediately, before she could ask Alex what the other girl's outburst had been about.

Whatever that was, it doesn't involve me, she told herself as she walked briskly in the direction opposite to where she had seen the other girl go. Somehow, she wasn't entirely convinced herself.

((Thank you for reading Eidolon! If you enjoyed it, please be sure to vote and leave a comment to let me know what you think.))