Loop: Chapter 1
Wherever Here Is

They told me I'd be fine. They told me I'd wake up from the surgery. They told me it wasn't my fault. They told me there was nothing I could have done. They told me they cared about me. But they were lying. I knew it, and their faces belied that.

It was my fault she died. It was my fault he became depressed. My fault he worked himself into a coma. My fault I worked in his stead. My fault I fell into the vat. My fault I burned my legs. My fault I was weak.

It all came back to one thing.

Her.

She didn't know I made the wrong choices, hung out with the wrong people. She offered them a warm meal, they offered her gunshot wounds. On her dying breath, I heard her say "I don't understand." She was only thinking of making me happy, and I repaid her by getting her killed.

Now I'm dead. And now I'm here. Wherever here is.

It's an enormous school, I can tell that much for sure. It makes the school back home look like a one-room schoolhouse in comparison. Of course, I'm attending classes here. Everyone seems to know who I am, even though I have absolutely no idea who they are. The people here are nice enough, but at the same time they feel just as fake as the doctors and nurses in the hospital. They were hiding something, even if they didn't mean to or even know they were.

stopped going to class 3 days ago. I expected members of the disciplinary commitee to drag me from my dorm and make me go to class, but no such thing happened. I was left alone to my own devices.

I stared in the mirror, straining to remember events in my life. I remember falling into the foundry pot, having my legs horribly burned and subsequently amputated, and being brought into the surguery for a lung transplant. Anything previous to that was a black void. Yet here I am, a full person, two working legs and arms. Same spiky blue hair I got from...where again? I don't even remember that.

Shaking myself from my thoughts, I put on my jacket and left the dorm, heading for the vending machines. I got myself a Key coffee, and went to the roof of the Administration building. I wasn't sure why, but I felt like it would be nice up there.

The view offered on the roof depicted the whole of the gargantuan school in mid-summer, complete with club activities starting, as the walk from the dorms to the main building took the better part of 25 minutes.

To think that the people here didn't have to worry about where or even when their next meal happened. They just got to focus on being students, and enjoying life. I knew in my heart that this wasn't what I wanted. Even though I can't remember, I know that's not it. If I wished to simply be a student, I wouldn't have stopped being a student, even here.

I can feel something about this place. It's off. Somehow. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm dead. And if I'm dead then this is some form of afterlife, or underworld, or something. I'd believe it's of the former, due to myself not boiling in lava. Again. Heh, that's a painful joke to think about. I can still feel the searing pain of molten metal on my legs. THAT is an experience I won't soon forget. Hell, it seemed to even transcend death and follow me...here. I still don't know where "here" is. Other than the afterlife theory.

The door to the roof banged open, startling me, yet I was greeted by a small girl. She looked out-of-place at a high school. Her long white hair was tied in a ponytail, and her yellow eyes shone brightly. She walked up to me, and simply looked me in the eyes. She gazed up at me, and it felt as though her vision was piercing my very soul. I took a step back, which pushed me against the railing. She gazed at me for a while longer, before simply tilting her head to the right slightly, nodding, and walking away.

And by away I mean she hopped the side of the railing and plunged 4 floors to the ground. I looked over the edge, but she was nowhere to be found.

I'm taking it to be par for the course in crazy for now. I headed back to my room, pondering about who the little girl was, and whether I had really seen her or not. My sleep that night turned out to be short bouts of uneasy sleep combined with a disjointed stream of nightmares that had the same recurring theme.

That some unseen, unfathomably large menace was coming for me. However, I managed to sleep after the mysterious girl I met today invaded my dream and banished the unseen monster with a large aura of light emitting from her body.

I would have to thank her later for that, because I doubt that something immaterial would have an effect on me like that. Then again, I AM in the middle of the afterlife, trying to sleep despite having nightmares, and having encounters with a little girl who enjoy jumping off buildings.

The next day, I decided to attend class. There was a new student in class. He had auburn hair and wore bggy shorts coupled with a sweatshirt, instead of the standard school uniform. He was looking off into the distance, and was very peculiar when I attempted to start a conversation with me. He reacted as though I was some type of enemy, and pulled a small caliber hand-gun out of his pocket, leveling it with my forehead.

My subconscious shot forward the fact that it was a Beretta M92F, and had a 8 round magazine, along with being chambered in .45 ACP, but I was more focused on not getting shot. I asked if he was going to shoot, and he simply smiled and pulled the trigger.

A/N: This is an idea I had, I'll be expanding on it in the next few days. A review would be wonderful!