A Haunted School Story

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Summer Reigns was a fascinating character at a Chul Middle School.

Yes, parents with the last name Reigns actually named their daughter Summer.

From 6th to 7th grade,

she was a blonde hair, blue-eyed,

bespectacled, band-cade,

and somewhat of a wall-flower.

She mostly went unnoticed.

I don't know if it was puberty or what,

but Summer Reigns changed during a break between 7th and 8th grade.

She showed up on day one of class

with contacts in Jet Black Hair,

wearing an earthy green shirt on top

of which dangled an necklace of colorful stones.

The gossip train moved quickly.

We all learned Summer was now all about crystals

and auras, unhealing energy.

She acted cool about it though.

Soon other girls around the school started dressing

in earthy tones and wearing crystals around their necks.

A few boys did too.

Summer eventually convinced a bunch of athletes

that Tiger's eye and Jade would help them

perform better in the field.

Once this started wearing stolen bearing necklaces and bracelets,

the trend was set.

Summer had prime most of the 8th grade class

of 2017 to believe anything.

Summer and I were not friends at the beginning of the story.

We weren't anything yet.

I'm not sure if we had exchanged a single word

before a random Monday in April.

On my way to the restroom after lunch,

I passed the history room where my next class would be.

I heard Summer whisper, boop and stopped.

Mostly hidden behind a door,

Summer beckoned me into the classroom

with a secret of gesture.

To beastly provoked, I slipped inside.

Ridey Pyrus somehow slipped

and immediately behind me.

Riley and Summer lived next door to each other,

so were natural best friends.

Riley fit with the original version of Summer better

but post-transformation Summer never asked

or pressured Riley to change.

In fact, Riley was openly skeptical of Summer's claims

yet her contradicting views did not harm their friendship.

That's what I mean about Summer being cool

about all the woo-woo stuff.

She genuinely didn't care if anyone else accepted her beliefs,

but she shared them anyway in hopes that they might.

Close the door, Summer said to Riley.

You'd better hope he's quick.

Riley growled back through clenched teeth.

She closed the door.

I act quick at what?

What is this?

This is justice Summer announced Chin turned upward.

Her eyes were half closed as this grunting at a brighter future.

I had a massive crush on Summer,

though I was still too sheepish to admit it even to myself.

Summer pointed at the chalkboard behind her and asked,

do you see a face?

Besides a few razor smears, the bulb looked empty.

Riley said, you're really going to have to try at Marcus.

It's a stretch.

Summer rolled her eyes and circle three dark stains

near the middle of the board with her finger.

The natural oil of her skin left to ring around two stains

that look like eyes, and a third that could have been an open mouth.

I could actually see all the potential details in the stains, too.

Winkles and that sort of thing.

I'd been drawing since forever and learned through the years

how to utilize unique features of the canvas at hand,

be it pavement, rock, or an old beat-up chalkboard.

My talents were known by if you select individuals in the school,

namely kids from the literature club

who I thought might want to ride a graphic novel

and need cover art for a book someday.

Summer said, I want you to turn those dains into a face.

Draw something really creepy.

Why?

Is this some new, like, ritual you're drawing?

I asked, stupid as the adding.

I don't want to do anything. I don't know, evil.

Summer rolled her eyes.

No, like I said, it's justice.

Mrs. Mastin failed me on my history paper

because she says I didn't cite credible sources.

Well, sorry that your so-called credible sources

convenient to ignore all the evidence that the CIA killed Martin

through the King Jr. Mrs. Mastin.

Anyway, I'm going to make a question everything she knows next period.

I just need you to turn those dains into a face

and make it as creepy as you possibly can.

Sure, but I still don't get why I admit it.

Riley said, don't think about it too hard.

Personally, I don't really get it either,

but the next period starts in three minutes

so you better get started.

I had nothing to gain by helping them

and nothing to lose by just walking away.

But when Summer turned and looked at me like some kind of hero,

when she barely orderly whispered, please, I caved.

I imploded.

I was crushed, you might say.

I drew the face in two minutes and 32 seconds,

and it looked like it.

I turned those stains into a gone visage of desperate fright.

I aimed for scary and landed on scared.

About halfway through, I'd realized my face gave off the wrong vibe

and blowed the edges of the mouth to give the impression

of limitless expansion, like it might keep growing large enough to swallow you.

I decided to apply this effect to the eyes as well,

except for their tiny pupils.

I never envisioned a nose so to not include one.

At the very last second, I added a detail

which seemed totally opposed to Summer's original vision

but seemed to fit perfectly with my accidental creation.

Tears.

A chalk long tear is running down from the terror stricken eyes.

Then, worried I ruined the whole thing, I turned to Summer.

She looked confused at first,

but then a hint of a smile twitched in the corner of her mouth.

She clapped her hands together and said,

not what I was picturing,

but you just gave me a way better idea.

It's perfect, Marcus.

Thank the rest of the class started filing in.

Mrs. Massen walked in after most of the students

sucking on a smoothie straw.

She held her cup in one hand and her phone in the other,

on which she texted furiously with one thumb.

This distracted, she did not notice my drawing on the chalkboard.

The class body found this quite funny

and whispered amongst themselves,

stifing giggles until the bell rang for the start of the period.

Summer, Riley, and I abstained from the chatter.

After the bell, Mrs. Massen put her phone in a desk drawer.

She opened a binder on her desk,

studded it a moment,

then picked up a piece of chalk and turned to the board.

She stopped.

She locked eyes with the face

and put her empty hand on her hip,

then turned back to the glass.

Anyone want to claim this?

She asked her tone applying,

it might not be a wise idea.

The class stared back at her.

No one?

Well, just as a reminder,

school policy considers

obscene drawings on chalkboards as vandalism.

So even though maybe this isn't technically

obscene as she trailed off,

questioning whether it actually might be,

before continuing,

let's all just agree that drawings

like this belong in your notebooks, okay?

Turning back to the board,

Mrs. Massen erased my rushed work.

Over Mrs. Massen's shoulder,

everyone watched as the ghostly remnants

of the haunting face,

the stains which had inspired Summer's idea

to fight the eraser.

One student at the front shushed her giggling neighbor

and pointed at the board.

Summer uttered a small gasp and pointed as well.

She nudged Riley,

who refused to participate.

It's still there,

Mrs. Massen,

Summer said after the teacher

commenced writing her lesson on the board.

What?

Mrs. Massen asked to turn in to look at her.

Noticing dumpstruck as looking past her,

she turned back to the chalkboard,

stayed, then taped her head back slightly,

nonverbal exclaiming.

She tried to scrub at the stains,

found they were permanent,

and gave up.

She shrugged at the class

and dropped the eraser on her desk.

I don't remember those being there before,

Summer said.

She stood.

She actually stood like we were in a movie

and turned to address the class.

Do any of you remember seeing them?

I feel like we would have noticed.

I mean, don't this still look exactly like a face?

This was an obvious stretch,

but nods of agreement still rippled away from her.

That's how much influence the new Summer Reigns had gained at year.

Modders of, I don't remember,

did you notice them?

And I never saw them before,

repeated throughout the room.

Mrs. Massen looked to Riley for help.

Riley slouched back with her arm's cost,

shrugged apathetically.

Well, was it sympathetically?

You could never tell with Riley.

The only thing anyone knew for sure

is that she would back up Summer to the end.

Summer asked, Mrs. Massen,

do you keep any Smoky Courts

or Black Termaline around?

Actually, I might have a Smoky Courts.

That's all right, Summer.

I'm sure.

Summer interrupted her back.

Sorry, but I wanted to say,

I actually felt something really negative

when I came in here today.

And that face, just looking at it,

it felt like a warning.

Like an omen, you know?

Summer?

Mrs. Massen warned.

A omen of what?

A boy near me asked.

He could have been serious,

or not, I couldn't tell.

Did you see how it was crying?

It looked scared, right?

Mrs. Massen said, please sit Summer.

Summer sat, but she kept talking.

I think there might be something bad in here,

and maybe that face, how it was crying,

it was trying to warn us.

She pointed again to the dark stains.

Even I, knowing the true origin of the face,

now thought the stains created a sinister illusion

of egg insinuation of malevolence.

Summer rains, that is enough, the teacher scolded.

Summer stopped putting her hand to her lips and chalk,

but this person only cast favor on summer

amongst the student audience.

Suddenly, those who could not remember

whether the stains had been present or earlier

remember quite clearly there had been no stains.

When the bell rang at the end of class,

Summer rose to her feet before anyone else.

Lovely, she said.

Sorry, Mrs. Massen, about earlier,

but watch out for more omen's, okay?

I think something might have attached to you.

Many of us slowed our exodus to listen

to the inserting interaction, but Mrs. Massen waved us out.

To Summer, she said, come here, please.

I waited by the door, but didn't hear much.

Summer had to fill me in later.

Summer told me she approached the teacher's desk,

I soft with concern.

Mrs. Massen said, summer, please be honest.

What are you doing?

Because I appreciate you have some unique beliefs,

but I think you're taking this too far.

I'm not doing anything, summer-lied, fanning shock.

She said, Mrs. Massen rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

Okay, well, no offense, but I think I'm safe from any bad omen's.

Look at these stains up close, will you?

She ushered somewhere to the chalkboard.

See, I'm pretty sure they're just oil stains.

Then how'd they get way up there?

Summer asked.

Mrs. Massen softened and asked,

who knows how anything around here happens.

Do you know who really drew that face?

I'm not trying to get them in trouble,

but I would like to know.

Summer said, Mrs. Massen, if you're worried about I'm not worried.

Summer, I just want to know in case other students ask me about it.

There are some sensitive kids in your class who might,

you know, kids your age are impressionable,

and, well, anyway, you really don't know.

Summer pulled a piece of smokey quartz out of her pocket

and dropped it on the edge of Mrs. Massen's desk, then stepped back.

As mysteriously as an eighth grader can be,

she backed toward the door, saying,

stay safe, Mrs. Massen.

I honestly hope you're right.

Well, that didn't work as well as I'd hoped.

Summer admitted to Riley, and I am the whole way afterward.

Such an admission was far out of character for the new summer rains.

I probably should have distanced myself from her for a while,

but I saw my participation in her and knock his crime as an in.

I wanted to be close to her, and this was my chance.

She didn't buy the omen thing?

I asked.

Summer said, she thinks they are oil stains.

Aren't they?

Ask rightly.

Summer sighed.

I don't know, but the whole point was to make her doubt and wonder and get scared.

I just wanted to show her she doesn't know everything, you know?

I think it worked better on the class, said Riley.

Everybody was watching those stains on their way out of the room.

I said I heard some other kids talking about them too, like they were scared.

This was true.

These were naturally anxious kids that I overheard,

but still, they sounded genuinely nervous.

Summer said, PSSH, big deal.

I'll figure out some other way to get back at Mrs. Massen.

Constant questions and mentions of the stains caused Mrs. Massen to cover them with a world map post of the next day.

If anyone tried to bring them up anyway,

she immediately shut down the conversation, saying,

this is Hotel Middle School, not Hogwarts.

There are no magical spirits running around here.

Magical spirits.

Do you hear or teach your mentioned spirits of any sort

keyed spirit to discussion amongst the student body

and many of the conversations made their way to summer?

Kids approached her and the whole is asking for confirmation of their theory

trying to win one over on a classmate or friend

with a contradicting hypothesis about the stains.

Summer told them all she didn't know what was going on affecting a term

which had affected she very much knew exactly what was going on.

I asked her why she insisted on leading these prosstudents along,

creating chaos which did not seem to be reaching or hurting Mrs. Massen,

and she said one of the most honest things she ever told me

and not sure what I'm doing with this hit.

And it's too bad she didn't figure it up more quickly

because in that strange way a mob can come to an anonymous consensus

when the logical people standing apart failed to.

Their dual student bodies soon worked out their own theory

behind the stains and the mysterious face which had left them behind.

The main story that sparked the student's hypothesis came

from a classmate of mine named Garrett Laffady.

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I sought him out personally in order to listen to his story first hint.

It went like this.

Garrett arrived early to track practice after finishing a six-period exam early.

He collected his uniform from his locker and went to the locker room to change,

planning to hit the track and do some extra warm-ups.

As a side note, Garrett obsessed over his sport.

He could run an 800 meter and 213, but the skull record at the time was 211.

As an eighth grader, it was going to be his final season,

his final chance to shave off those three seconds and snag the new record.

But Garrett would not run a single meter that day.

When he entered the locker room, he found a cloudy with steam.

Someone was in the showers and apparently had been for quite a while.

Garrett said he didn't even know the showers could get hot enough to create so much steam.

He said, I suppose if you let it run long enough to end all the way up,

it could get there, but usually we're in an out-so-fast waters barely room temperature.

He changed his clothes and tied his shoes, then went to the mirror to check his hair.

The hot cloud stuck to the mirror, making it impossible for him to see more than a blur of himself.

He stepped closer to wipe a clean and his shoe made his sucking swatching the tiles.

Looking down, he saw a water trickling between the tiles running streams along the grout.

He had never seen the showers overflow before.

Yo, are you good in there?

He called out to whoever must have been boiling themselves alive.

Nura applied came to him.

Shrugging, he reached over the sinks and wiped a window in the moisture with the side of his hand.

I had to take Garrett at his word about what happened next.

In his defense, I'd never known him to lie before.

According to him, when he wiped away the stream, the face had drew on the chalkboard, the gaunt,

gaping, terrified expression appeared, outlined in water droplets.

A few droplets ran down from the eyes, recreating and bringing life to the tears he had added at the last second on the chalkboard.

Garrett said the tiny pupils in the middle of the face's enormous eyes were trained directly at him.

He squeezed his own eyes shut to clear them and wiped the mirror again.

When he opened his eyes, the face was gone.

But as the steam clouded the mirror once more, the outline of the face emerged again.

Only this time, the pupils seemed to be stirring past him right over his shoulder at the showers.

Kout said he reacted to this the same way he would have if a real person had been standing in front of him and looking behind him.

That's how life like the visage appeared in him.

When he turned, all he saw behind him was the brick wall separating the showers from the rest of the locker room.

Feeling tricked, he quickly turned back to the mirror.

The watery eyes remained trained on the showers, and the dripping tears had become streams running down the mirror,

pulling at the bottom and dripping on the counter below.

Assaulted by feelings of fear and dread, Garrett called out again.

Hey, who's in there?

Again, he received no answer banned by a mysterious conviction.

He walked through the cloud to investigate when he rounded the corner to the showers.

The steam was so dense, he almost couldn't see the shellpuss but there,

laying across the drain in the middle of the floor,

was the body of a teenage boy in a swimsuit hot water sprayed down upon him from one of the nozzles,

splashing off of his reddened skin.

He wasn't moving.

Garrett yelled for help and rushed in to help the unconscious boy.

After shutting off the water, he grabbed him by the shoulders,

and with great effort rolled him onto his side.

The wringer called as it sucked the hot puddle down.

Wiping sweat from his eyes, Garrett let the boy fall upon to his back.

He leaned in to see if he was awake or at least breathing.

The boy's face made him scream.

Puffy and purple, the boy's face had not been recognisable at first,

but when he got close, Garrett recognized himself.

The unconscious know the dead boy as he was in.

He looked slightly larger and mildly older, though it was hard to tell through the swelling.

And when Garrett, the living Garrett, fell back against the shower wall,

he noticed an anomaly on the wall across from him.

Three massive dry spots defied the shower spray and steam,

remaining impossibly dry.

He told me, those three spots, I don't know how they were there,

but they looked exactly like the stains on Mrs. Mastin's chalkboard.

Like exactly, Marcus.

I've been back in her room and looked under the poster to check.

Garrett said he ran out of the locker room for help.

He bumped into the track coach and the way,

and brought him into the showers to show him the body.

Already, he was doubting what he had seen.

How could he have found his own drunk corpse?

It must have been another boy who just looked a little bit like him, he thought.

The cloud of steam remained.

The tiles and croutes were still soaking wet,

but the body and the giant dry spots in the wall were all gone.

Concerned, the track coach called Garrett to take him home.

She chalked the whole thing up to stress.

Garrett did not tell the coach or his mother he thought the dead kid was himself,

or about the dry spots either.

He didn't shed his details with any adults, only other students,

and he told a lot of students.

Everyone who had been fearfully speculating about the stains on Mrs.

Mastin's chalkboard now had a solid reason to believe

our school was haunted by something,

something that maybe wanted to hurt us.

Two days after Garrett's locker room incident,

the buzzer round his story had drawn out everything else.

Riley almost literally dragged me away from my friends

at lunch to go sit with her in summer

at the end of the table closest to the back of the cafeteria.

Riley cheered away three students who had tried to sit next summer

and her brief absence to ask about the chalkboard omen

and what happened to Garrett.

Everyone wanted to talk to Summer about it,

and she was more than willing to share her dramatized thoughts.

Keeping other kids away from Summer during passing periods

and lunch became Riley's full-time job.

It's time guys, Riley said.

We need to come clean.

We can't Summer replied to a mouthful of ham sandwich.

I said, why not? I think Riley's right.

It was just supposed to be a stupid prank, right?

Principal Gear might be mad, but maybe he'll get it

if we just tell him what happened.

Summer Swallow looked at me and asked what did happen, Marcus.

Surrey, what happened that is our fault.

Riley inserted, well, I didn't really do anything,

but you were there, Summer pointed out.

Okay, yeah, I was there, but that's it.

That doesn't matter.

This whole thing was your idea.

He made Marcus do the drawing, then you got the class all freaked out

about the stains, and um, I don't think I freaked out the class.

That was Mrs. S. Mastin, Summer and dropped it again.

I appreciated that Riley said Summer made me do the drawing.

I felt like she would back me up if we did end up in trouble,

but it still wasn't ready to betray Summer.

I would have been willing to come clean to the teachers and Principal Gear,

but only when Summer felt ready.

I felt foolishly on her band to protect her secret, the secret we shared.

Riley got more animated as she grew flustered.

You think Mrs. Mastin?

Summer, you stood up in front of everyone and told them she was cursed.

You told them all to go find some black marble or black tomb line, summer corrected.

Okay, whatever.

It doesn't matter what kind of Oswoki quarts, summer added.

Riley gridded her teeth.

I decided to cut in before the two of them fell out.

We needed to be a united front or else we would all go down.

I said, hey, it's not like anybody's gotten hurt, right?

Yeah, it's all freaked out, but it's that really our fault.

What are they going to punish us for drawing on the chalkboard?

It is considered vandalism by school policy, Summer reminded us taking another bite of her sandwich.

Riley and I were not eating her too angry and me too nervous.

All the talk of getting in trouble tied my inners in knots.

I had a question burning and I got too, further dampening my appetite.

Hey, Summer, I asked.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but did you?

I mean, he didn't.

What I'm wondering is, do you think Garrett actually saw what he says he saw?

He made it up, Summer answered flatly.

Really?

He doesn't seem like the kind of kid who he's suddenly Mr. Popular, isn't he?

Look at all those girls sitting with him right now.

You'd think he has brain cancer or something.

Summer had a point.

His classmates, particularly the girls, had been showing Garrett with constant attention since his return.

Any time I passed him, I heard him relaying his story to someone.

I suppose I was one of those summons.

But it's not like Garrett had been in nobody like me before his purported encounter.

He was no summer reins, but he was a star athlete with lots of friends and a new girlfriend every couple of months.

I wouldn't think he needed to.

His parents split up, Riley said.

Ah, I asked, thinking she meant this split up over his story.

So, Summer asked.

Then I figured out what Riley actually meant.

The target audience for Garrett's act-out wasn't anyone at school.

But Summer, I said when Riley didn't answer her.

I've heard other kids talk about seeing the face I drew to Garrett's story as the most dramatic,

but he's not the only kid who says he's seen it.

Drooping sarcasm, Riley said.

Yeah, and I ran into Zendaya at the Mall of America.

However, if you trust Garrett, but would you really believe every one of these losers?

She asked, gesturing around the cafeteria.

I said, no, but why are so many kids talking about it?

If you make sense, but it's like everyone.

It's a creepypast, Summer said.

She took another bite.

What?

I asked.

Riley said.

I thought that was like an internet thing.

I should chewed, some are not a thoughtfully.

She swallowed, then said, yeah, normally, but why can't it happen in real life too?

I still don't know what creepypast is, I said.

Summer said, not creepypast is a creepypasta.

It's basically a scary story, somebody puts online that goes viral and makes a lot of people believe in it.

Ever heard of Slenderman?

Or Smiledog?

Slenderman sounded familiar and I said as much.

Well, that's a creepypasta.

Somebody made it up and it got so big a girl actually stabbed her friend because she believed Slenderman wanted her to.

Seriously?

Riley asked.

Someone nodded.

I think we accidentally created a creepypasta here and I mean as long as nobody gets hurt.

It's kind of fun, right?

I don't know, I said.

A lot of kids are really scared.

And didn't you just say some girl stabbed her friend over one of these stories?

Riley added.

Summer said, yeah, in a country full of millions of kids, one girl went crazy.

Big deal.

All I'm saying is that we can either rat her ourselves out and get in trouble over nothing or we can just have fun with it.

I doubt it'll last long anyway.

Something else will come along and make everybody forget.

The conversation more or less ended there.

I wanted more comfort, I think from summer, but the bell was going to ring soon.

We all had class with Mrs. Masked and after a lunch again so we walked there together but did not talk.

Instead, we listened to the voices of Rondas.

As we knew the history classroom, I looked at summer.

Her porcelain face had a blue sheer and expressed wordless discomfort.

The summer of rain's walking beside me was not the girl who beckoned me into the history room days before.

She had lost herself a sure certainty.

Our eyes met and she quickly looked away at suddenly restoring her stoke facade.

But I could tell it was only an act.

We settled into our desks.

Riley and someone next to each other mislightly behind them to their rainport outside hard enough to hear through the thick windows.

It trickled down the glass and distracting streams, the salt that can hypnotize young students.

Before the official start of class, the student walked up to Mrs. Masked and's deskum was put something to her.

I watched Mrs. Masked in plans over her shoulder at a well-matched poster covering the stains on her chalkboard.

She quietly dismissed the student with an expression somewhere between sympathy and frustration.

When the bell rang, she stood to address us all.

Okay, class we need to have a chat about these.

She ripped the poster off the chalkboard, exposing the infamous stains to us all.

She said, I gather these stains have been causing some rumors to go around about some kind of haunting.

Well, I think it's time to put those rumors to bed, don't you?

I actually found out where these stains came from.

Yes, we teachers talked to.

Mr. Gans knew exactly how the chalkboard got stained.

It's been a couple of years, so maybe you don't remember, but this used to be the art room before the new wing was built.

Mr. Gans said during a unit on oil painting, he hung paper on the board and did a technique demonstration without realizing the oils from his paint would suck through to the board.

He noticed pretty quickly and stopped before it got any worse.

So there you go.

The stains have been never years, but you all didn't notice until somebody decided to draw attention to them.

She looked briefly in my direction, and I tried not to squirm.

Did she know it was me?

It easily could have been a coincidence, so I tried not to look guilty.

Her gaze passed by, and I readjusted in my seat to release some of the tension.

I'm sure her ever drew that face a few days ago meant nothing by it, but maybe that person would like to come forward to help calm everyone down.

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But Miss S. Mastin sounded nervous when she said, leave you things that your desk can get in line.

Remember single file straight down the hall and out the gin door.

Is it a drill?

Wily asked.

I didn't think the teachers were allowed to say, but if that was true, Miss S. Mastin disregarded the rule.

She looked at Riley and subtly shook her head.

We followed Perd call to the letter, having done at least a dozen fire drills in our years at a tomb middle school.

We and the students from other classes lined the hallways, all nervously filing out of the building.

Those who tried to whisper to each other were instantly silenced by teachers standing beside their classroom doors.

Due to the heavy rain, principal gear ordered us onto the park buses for shelter.

The fire department arrived on scene as we all loaded up.

We were all soaked students and staff alike, as we waited for the fire marshal to clear the building.

There didn't appear to be any fire.

No one had smelled smoke in the way out of the building, so we weren't surprised to learn

who ever pulled the fire alarm did so without calls.

An angry search for the culprit began and ended with a seventh grader named Kelly who might never met.

But hearing her story, I realized I was a true culprit.

Me, Summer, and that crew face a drew on the chalkboard.

Kelly had sheltered on the same bus as me, so I got to hear her story first and before the faculty apprehended her.

She'd been sitting next to the window in English class, gazing out at the following rain.

Hundreds of rain drops started the glass.

Some ran down the windows like streaking tears.

Kelly made this comparison in her mind and noticed two parallel streaks that appeared to consistently run down the glass without zicking and zacking as they contacted other droplets.

This bizarre consistency captured her attention and she watched the two streams, waiting for even one of them to break off and behave normally or to dissolve into droplets again.

But as she watched, she noticed a second anomaly.

Above each of the two streams, large circular dry patches defied the damper.

In the center of these dry circle sat one droplet in each like the tiny peoples of enormous size.

Then the rest of the face took shape.

The shape of a face I have already described so many times.

Kelly knew Garrett's story and how it had begun with him spotting the face in the steam on the mirror.

The obvious similarity to what she now saw and the window caused her to flinch away in alarm.

The teacher paused and most of her classmates turned toward Kelly.

She smiled offwardly and pretended nothing had happened which convinced everyone else to do the same.

She rubbed her eyes and looked back at the window.

Still, the face remained and she felt certain those quivering raindrop pupils were trained directly at her.

Kelly interrupted her teacher to ask to be excused to the restroom.

Despite his obvious irritation at a second disruption from her, he gave her a whole pass.

Without looking back at the face, Kelly hurried out of the room.

After shutting the door, she took a few steps away and collected herself.

With space in the door between her and the window, she felt much safer.

But she found herself afraid to go to the bathroom like she said she was going to.

A bathroom is too similar to a locker room and Garrett's story remained fresh on her mind.

So she stood in the middle of the hallway and sure of where to go next.

When she looked on the hallway, she noticed the door to the teacher's land because of a strange light flashing erratically behind it.

Under the bright fluorescence in the hallway, the flashing light was hard to discern, but she noticed it all the same and it made her curious.

Anything to distract her from the face on the window.

She walked toward the door, listening for any approaching footsteps and preparing to divert to the restroom of a staff member discovered her.

Closer, Kelly started to smell smoke.

It had a strange order, not like a bonfire or grill, but a sort of sire, rubbery tinge, like when too much hair got stuck in a vacuum cleaner.

Kelly moved faster and now concerned there might be a serious problem.

A flashing, no flickering light.

The smell of smoke.

Was there a fire in the teacher's lounge?

She arrived at the door next to which were three square glass windows stacked vertically.

Post is touting her tools covalues mostly obstructed them from inside the glass, but the post is had not been printed to the windows execsize.

Telly closed one eye and peaked through the half inch of clay glass board during the middle poster.

A girl about her same size and build, wearing a backhack identical to hers, although more tarnished, was standing next to the lounge's kitchenette with her back turned to Kelly.

This seemed strange because students were not allowed in the teacher's lounge.

But fortunately, there did not appear to be any fire.

Still curious and pleasantly distracted, Kelly spied on the girl and allowed her moment longer.

As if sensing eyes upon her, the girl started turning slowly.

As she did, one of her backpacks strapped broke.

The back swung away from her back, slipping off her other arm and fell to the floor.

She made no attempt to stop it.

The sleeve of her polysusher appeared to be melted onto her skin, which could have explained the burning smell.

Had the students offered some terrible accident.

But why would she be in the teacher's lounge and not the nurse's office?

She kept turning until Kelly could finally see her face.

Or what was left of it.

The girl's trots can barely clung to her skull anymore.

Kelly could see the white of her bones through her burns.

There remained only enough of her features for Kelly to realize the girl in the lounge, now staring back at her for empty eyes sockets, was herself.

She looked taller and her hair, which had been burned off in the front, looked longer, but otherwise she could have been Kelly's twin.

Kelly covered her mouth and stepped back from the window in horror.

As she did, the windows glowed orange behind the posters, and black smoke started billowing out from the top of the door.

The poster in the middle frame caught fire.

The flames ate three holes in it, which expanded rapidly until they made the familiar pattern of the stains on Mrs. Mastin's chalkboard.

The holes were outlined in flame, but stopped growing at a certain size and proportion to each other.

The upper two seemed to stare at Kelly, and the lower one appeared to be screaming at her.

She could hear her own voice screaming in agony.

Then she realized the voice she heard was literally her own.

She hadn't even realized she was screaming.

Without another thought, she ran over to the nearest fire alarm and pulled it.

Principal Gear called Kelly's dad to take her home, and the rest of us attempted to finish the school day normally.

No one, not even the teacher, seemed able to focus, though.

At the end of the day, I gathered my things from my locker and made my way out of the school.

Passing Mrs. Mastin's classroom, with the door cracked open just slightly, I heard whimpering solbs and stopped.

I gave the door a small push, opening it just enough to see into the room.

There, up at the front, I saw Riley in summer.

The powerful stink of ammonia sat heavy on the air.

Riley was holding a spritu bottle and a rag she must have swiped from the janitors and summer was standing on a chair with another rag in hand,

scrubbing furiously at the stains on the chalkboard.

They heard me and looked my way.

Riley's face looked stoke and a little angry.

Summer's was streaked in tears, blackened by her mascara.

Snuck coated her upper lip.

She was a wreck.

I entered the classroom and woodlessly took Riley's other rag.

Then I climbed up on the chair behind summer and helped her scrub.

Just as no one ever found out who drew the face on the chalkboard, no one besides me, Riley,

and summer ever learned how the stains vanished from the board.

Someone, summer, ensured a new rumour spread that the curse had ended.

It took a few weeks for talk of the stains to die away,

but eventually a new gossip took over the minds of the student body and her tools little creep pasta was forgotten.

Summer, Riley, and I all believed for years that Garrett and Kelly's stories were simply the result of the history

that took over us gold during those few days.

But years later, we would all have to question the validity of the stance.

It started with the tragic news of Garrett's death.

In a freak birding accident during spring break, our senior year Garrett drowned.

Unless then a year later, Kelly's house caught fire while she was home alone.

Sadly, she did not make it out.

After Kelly died, summer and I met up.

Riley had already left for college and summer said she had stopped talking to her.

Summer was blonde and more glasses again.

Over the years, she had tried to distance herself from the person who beckoned me into Mrs. Eston's classroom that fateful day.

We talked for a long time, mostly me trying to comfort her.

She felt understandable guilt about Garrett and Kelly.

As she wrote her the deaths, tragic and unexpected as they were might have just been coincidences.

Other classmates had also died after all from car accidents, cancer, and other illnesses, both physical and mental.

I still had feelings for summer which made it so much harder to lie.

Although I don't know what we could have done or how we could have done it,

I worry we might have actually brought something terrible into the school that day.

Did it kill Garrett and Kelly and perhaps others?

Or was it simply an omen providing warnings of already fated events?

The latter is what I told summer it probably was, but I don't think she believed me.

And why would she, when I'm not sure I even believe it myself?

I'm just glad I never saw that face after it was erased except for in my mind.

It will haunt me there forever.

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