"People who carelessly hurt someone else's feelings are like little children breaking precious vases."
- Author.

***

To her, he felt like one of the distant stars in the sky tonight; perfect to look at, and breathtaking to behold, but always impossible to hold.

Not that he actually was any of those. Everyday she'd tease him playfully about his weight, about how cute he looked, about how hot he would be if he wasn't so chubby...

She clamped a hand over her mouth, feeling intense self-disgust. Stupid of her to even think about saying those things to him, even if she knew he was denser than a rock.

She knew she would probably feel more confident if there wasn't someone else in the way. But there was. Gwen O'Brien stuck to Chris like a tick. Gwen was a good friend; she'd known her since elementary, but she wished she would stop being so clingy with Chris.

Then it hit her like a bullet.

Gwen was clingy, and high-school girls who were lovestruck usually expressed their feelings in not-so-subtle ways. Except that Gwen was so un-subtle that it was probably obvious to the whole class how much she liked her best friend.

It didn't please her one bit how slowly she'd come to the conclusion, though. Right now, Kristen O'Neil felt like a broken eggshell being squeezed by a hydraulic press.

And she realized that she was even denser than Christopher Morrison, and a rock.

***

Yassi was mad.

Sure, most around her muttered behind her back that she was a nut, a girl who was downright mad, and that sometimes made her mad. The latter, however, was the feeling she felt more strongly right now.

Despite the light of the stars, the clearing the forest felt pitch black. She'd been standing here, waiting for hours, enduring the cold, dank smell of damp earth and brushing off the creepy bugs that crawled on her legs - and Faith de Loughrey, that bitch, was still nowhere to be seen.

Calm down, Yassi, she told herself. You can wait for a little bit longer before you finally see Gwen's severed head.

She felt relieved at the thought of seeing Gwen's head on a sliver platter, but then she remembered what had happened earlier, and she grit her teeth in rage.

Infuriated now, she recalled the failed time jump. Or, at least as Faith put it, it had succeeded, though not in the way she had hoped it would. She fumed. Wherever that clone of hers was, she was probably in Chris's arms right now. It wasn't fair.

She heard a rustle in a nearby bush, and, though startled, leaned towards it, hoping to see Faith. Instead, a raccoon scampered out from under the leaves.

She stomped her foot in frustration as she eyed the fleeing raccoon. She'd love a calming session of animal throttling right now.

***

Ever since he'd been a child, the woods had always creeped Chris out at night.

He'd found a way out by simply opening the door silently and tiptoeing through the hallway before finally arriving at the exit. The teacher had forgotten to lock the door to the detention room, making his escape easy enough.

Before he opened the door to outside, he'd looked around too see if she'd come back from her bathroom break. The teacher was nowhere to be seen.

The first thing that struck him as he opened the door was the darkness. He looked up and saw stars. Shit, Dad's going to kill me.

He was also surprised at how he'd never noticed the time pass by. The detention room was kept from having windows so that students couldn't escape, (some particularly unruly ones had broken through the glass in the past when it was still allowed) but he should have noticed the hours come and go. There even was a clock in the room that was perfect for bored students to stare at.

Then he stopped in his tracks, right in front of the woods. But there wasn't one. There was nothing at all.

He'd wondered why he'd be so shocked at that, but then a scream in the woods had interrupted his thoughts.

He swallowed, then worked up his courage for a few moments. Then he entered, worried that the next time he saw Gwen, she'd be a dead body on the forest's floor.

***

Gwen was severely creeped out, given that she was in a creepy forest - and as if that wasn't creepy enough, a creepier teacher now sneered at her with a knife in her hands.

Faye cackled. "I should have known. You're as clueless as a sheep being led to the slaughterhouse, Gwen O'Brien."

As if on cue, Gwen's entire body shivered. Whether it was from the cold or from the fear she felt, she wasn't sure. Nor did she care. Right now she needed to get away from Faye, and her knife.

"Why are you doing this? I've done nothing wrong!" Gwen cried, taking another step back.

The teacher chuckled. "You haven't wronged me, but my client wants your head, for reasons unknown."

She raised her knife and assumed a deadly stance, and Gwen was sure she had been trained probably just like in the movies. "It's not like I care. We assassins don't ask questions; we're only in it for the money."

Her cold words made Gwen want to scream out for help, but Faye shifted the knife in her hands, removing her left and leaving the weapon in the other in a pose primed to throw the blade.

A rustle sounded in a nearby bush.

***

Chris cursed silently. He hadn't meant to make a sound, but his weight made it difficult to execute nimble movements.

Peeking through the leaves, he saw Faye, the crazy teacher, glaring with suspicion at his hiding place.

She hesitated, and Chris heard the sound of shoes crushing dead leaves. Gwen had chosen that time to escape. He glanced in the direction she went, and saw that she was gone. He sighed in relief.

When he turned back to Faye, however, he saw her throw back her right arm, then launch the knife.

All he could do was stare as the blade flew directly towards his eye.