The steel of the door handle dug into her bloody palms. The dark grey walls on either side held hearts and initials inscribed in white chalk. A girl's blonde hair-strands floated like gossamer, caught in the sunbeams filtering through the glass louvers.

"—he next time you remember to bring your own tampon, and not embarrass yourself like this in front of Kanon Bitch Hamada."

Hera Anaikos had a facial symmetry that most people would assume to have been featured on magazine covers. Black mascara streaked down her freckled, defined cheeks and clumped at her chin. Kritika's shoes crushed a handcrafted, quartz mirror lying on the floor.

Neither of them addressed each other, caught in a stalemate of memories.

Hera silenced her coterie of ladies, all clad in identical purple scarves. They let Kritika pass them by, and remained still till she entered a stall.

"Why is she even here, Hera?"

"I don't know. She'll leave. Let her be."

"This is our little spot, our slice of heaven, Hera. Well, this and the Irushin grove. Did you try to contact those losers again, and trade them our secrets for their stale excuse of a friendship?"

"Gross," she said, the word slipping out after a pause. Kritika could almost see the scrunch of her brows and the pout of her lower lip in her mind's eye. She had a similar opinion of the frogs that lived to croak in the school's lily-pond. And Esther had loved chasing her around the primary school playground with a frog in her palms.

"Come on, girl, why would Hera wanna be a loser like them? She's aiming for the title of Lady Gladiola, not Lady Glad-I'm-alone."

"Think about it, would she rather be a prep like them, or be Lyonesse's It girl with her face on Kinesis and Etna? Ooh, maybe she could even get a date with Hayate Hamada!"

An acicular crystal bursting through the stall door interrupted her. Kritika pulled up her underwear and flushed. She yanked open the door and yelled, "Have you no honor, you spoilt witches?!"

Kritika blinked. She slammed the door shut and bolted it. Another needle pierced through the plywood, advancing a centimetre or two further than its predecessor. Kritika yelped as the pointed edge stopped before her chest.

She stepped on top of the toilet seat and peeped over the stall. The ceramic porcupine shuffled along the floors, erecting its pink, Swarovski quills while trying to rid itself of the toilet paper stuck to its face. She placed one careful foot on the steel bidet showers faucet and scrambled up the stall wall.

The porcupine failed to notice the human clinging to the divide like a squirrel.

I had roasted one of your kind with coriander and bell peppers during a camping trip. Tasted somewhere between pork and mutton.

Thanks, brain, now I'm freaking starving. And it's just the second period. Shite.

Where the frick did those four run off to?

The Poodle-sized porcupine had strutted all the way to the last stall to use it as a pincushion. Kritika lowered herself into the next stall and dropped the toilet's cover. She waited for the tingling of the crystals to stop.

They never did.

The china mammal scampered to the stall, slipping on the smooth tiles. A quill's edge caught the girl's shin as it was thrown. She pulled it up slowly, while the wound bled against the wall. The height and stench were making her nauseous.

Too tired. Damned tired.

She willed herself to climb onto the toilet lid when the beast had left. Unlike the Happy, the crystal porcupine felt more like a terrakinectic teacher's DIY project. That made her wonder why the porcupine had attacked a student. Teachers generally destroyed sparring monsters as soon as they were done with them. The three spare Irushin orbs she had nicked off the tree were a luxury she couldn't afford to misuse. 

A speaker placed outside woke up with a static buzz.

"Hello, zzz this thing zzz hello? zzz Yeah, it's clear, thanks. Hey y'all, Lenore Harlow here. I kinda heard a rumor that the teachers had disappeared from the school. We zzz heard that this meeting thing, I'm air-quoting meeting here since you guys can't see me, is a sham. Like, if y'all were to peep into the meeting room near the Audio-visual zzz department, then you'd go 'Yeet! This empty'. Who do you think zzz fooling, Council members, huh? Fuck you and your unnecessary secrecy. The primary fucking duty of the student council is to act as a bridge between the staff and the students. Yet, you deny them basic and crucial informa— "

The porcupine clattered its teeth at the speaker, and stood at the door, listening patiently to Harlow. Her molars bit down her inner cheek, as she pulled out the stray quill on the door.

She waited, and waited, and waited for the stone porcupine to stop its chatter. Her fingers rolled the body of the quill on her thumb till both the speaker and the porcupine finally went silent. The crystal was tossed to the furthest stall, and the sound of it shattering incited the beast to move towards it.

Now!

The human put on a burst of speed and threw open the airy, wooden stall door. Her calf muscles stretched and strained against the skin surrounding them. The balls of her feet took the weight of her body, shooting strings of pain up her heels. Slamming the thicker main door shut, she pulled loose her nylon tie and used it to wrap the latch down.

Kritika could hear a voice within her head chanting no on loop. Her eyes were jittery, too scared to stay focused on one face lest the next one faded before she could see it. They jumped from face to face, to the whitewashed school walls, to the LED lights that flickered, and returned to repeat the cycle. Her tongue was a beached fish in her mouth, trying to flop its way back into the water. Featureless faces hustled her into a whitewashed room.

She found the butterflies in the curtains above her face beautiful, free, and gay as they fluttered through the blue sky of the fabric. Her lips were pried open and cool, sweet water flowed in from a transparent bottle.

Such beautiful lilies, she thought, as the pair of hands twisted the cap back on with a squeak.

How dainty of the artist.

⑅ ♾️ ⑅

Author's Note

Heyo folks! Welcome back! Here are the shout-outs for today.

All of these awesome folks are members of the Amazon Islands book club. If you're a beginner wanting to get reviews and criticism for your undiscovered book, then look no further. We at the WonderWritersTeam have one of the best communities on Wattpad that nurture young authors.

While you're waiting for the next update, check out these works!

If you'd like to cuddle up with a heartwarming romance between a werewolf and a human, do check out Indulgentreader 's Part of Me. The main characters are sure to stay with you long after the last page.

If you're into YA urban fantasies with dark twists, a fearsome heroine and interesting political stands on either side of the fight, do check out elizabethtrupiano 's Heart of Glass.

If a gorgeous vampire thriller is more to your taste, sink your teeth into the traci_edmunds 's The Red Guard: Vampire Hunters of Vatican City. Watch as a brave woman takes a stand against the beasts of darkness and tries to unravel a global conspiracy.

If you're interested in following the journey of a Dreamseer as she tries to solve the mysteries of her hometown, do check out Ambia_Khatun 's Starrstruck.

⭐ Don't forget to vote and comment if you liked this chapter!