CHAPTER 1
Zoralee's POV
I swear to God I am going to kill all of these people, I thought as I made my way through the school halls. It was the first day of my last year of high school and I was about nine-thousand percent done with everyone's shit. The last of my friends had graduated the previous year, leaving me to "rule the school" alone. But I was far from ruling it; instead, I kept my head down and hurried to my new locker before setting about putting magnets on the inside of the door.
"Oh, hey there!" a voice giggled beside me. "It's Reaper!"
I turned to see a bubbly girl, Julie, who was an acquaintance of one of my friends. Even coming from her innocent mouth.
"Hi, Julie," I said with a polite smile. "I know it's only the first day back but could you please not call me that?"
"What? Reaper?" she asked with a cocked head. I swore she had the IQ of a thumbtack.
"Yeah," I affirmed. "Just call me Zoralee. Or Zora, whichever." She giggled in response.
"Okay! I just never really new your real name! It's not that I was trying to offend you."
The first day of freshman year, being the new kid from out of town, nobody had known my name. So, instead of asking me, they referred to me by whatever clothing I wore. Just as now I had a habit of wearing all black, giving me the appearance of a grim reaper. But though most people meant no harm by the nickname, those who did mean harm by it made me think of "Reaper" as something akin to a swear word. I cringed when I heard the nickname spew from someone's mouth behind me.
"Reaper, are you actually being social this year?" someone mock gasped. I turned to face Hannah, the resident bleach-blonde bully that made my life hell.
"It's Zoralee," I corrected.
"Why so touchy today, Reaper?" She ignored my correction and moved to rest her chin on Julie's shoulder. "Upset that you don't have friends anymore? None that go to this school anymore, at least."
"Hannah!" Julie scolded her. "Don't be mean."
"Oh, I'm not being mean. It's all in good fun, now isn't it, Reaper?"
"It's in the same league of fun as arson and kicking puppies," I grumbled and slammed a few more magnets onto my door. She laughed a high-pitched, annoying laugh that I had grown to associate with humiliation.
"You're so clever, Reaper!" I gritted my teeth. She was repeating that god-awful nickname just to spite me. "So tell me – how was your summer? Did you lock yourself in your room and watch cartoons all the live-long day? Or did you just cry because nobody likes you?"
"I was starting to get really pissed now. This girl had been a sickly-sweet terrorist to me for the past three years, slowly but surely weeding out anyone who may have ever wanted to be in my social circle. I finally realized she must have befriended Julie, the only person in my grade who might make an effort to befriend me, in order to direct her away from me. The thought made those al-too-familiar embers flare up in the pit of my stomach and a magnet screech down the side of my door. Luckily the sound was drowned out by the sound of the morning bell.
"Oh dear," Hannah cooed to Julie. "It seems like we'll have to be leaving our friend here, Julie. Come on, let's get to Spanish."
"You know," I said coolly, "I have Spanish this period, as well."
"Oh! Could I sit by –"
"Come on, slow-poke!" Hannah giggled at Julie. My bubbly acquaintance gave me an apologetic smile before heading to class ahead of the blonde.
"Oh, and by the way, Reaper," sneered the blonde in question, "I'm making it my personal duty to make sure you have the absolute best senior year." With that she left.
I lagged behind to put as much distance between us as possible. What a metaphor for my life, I thought grimly before heading to my Spanish class.
The moment seven periods were over I rushed to the band hall as quickly as I could. When I finally reached my destination, I slumped against the door and exhaled a deep sigh.
"Well, hello there, Reaper," a male voice said from behind a stack of papers. I cringed at the nickname.
"Hello, Mr. Grimes," I said dejectedly. Even the teachers knew me as Reaper. Mr. Grimes peered around his papers to look at me.
"Why so glum?" he asked. I just shook my head and deposited my backpack on the choir risers. "I thought you might like to know that you're the only one who signed up for this period music."
"Let me guess," I scoffed at the ceiling. "A certain blonde had something to do with." Mr. Grimes sighed and took off his glasses.
"I know you're trying your hardest to be nice to her," he said, rubbing his lenses with the hem of his shirt," but, in all honesty, I think you may want to just row a backbone."
"I've got plenty of backbone," I sighed. "It's just better used in other areas of my life."
"Don't you want friends?" I shook my head.
"I don't need anyone. I have the Internet." I chuckled sadly at that last part.
"And this class," added Mr. Grimes. "I want this to be a safe place for you this school year. I'm not going to be giving you much in the way of graded assignments, so as long as you find some method of nonviolent self-expression in here, I'll give you an A/" I nodded my thanks and made my way to the guitar racks. Thoroughly examining the instruments I selected a pale acoustic and headed into a soundproof stall.
"Are you ever going to play for anyone?" my teacher asked me.
"Maybe. If I get good enough. I don't want to screw up and have it all over YouTube before the week's out."
"You've been playing the guitar ever since I got here two years ago."
"Longer," I corrected him.
"Even more reason."
"More reason for what?"
"More reason to think that all you lack in the guitar department is confidence," he explained with a slight smile on his lips. I tried to return the smile, but it just came out as a wonky grimace. I walked into the stall and locked the door.
"Freakshow!"
"Emo!"
"Goth kid!"
"Reaper!"
The whispered insults followed me through the hall, making my head spin. I refused to lose control. Losing control would only mean trouble for me and even more for everyone else. It was only the fourth day of school and I was already at my breaking point.
I had been framed. Somebody, most likely that bitch, Hannah, had put drugs in my locker and framed me as a stoner. The cops had been called in and I was nearly expelled; it had taken almost an hour of pleading with the school board for Mr. Grimes to convince them to just give me a drug test, which I passed with flying colors. The administrators seemed to believe my story, but the smell of marijuana in my locker was still a testament to my unpopularity.
When I hopped into the shotgun seat of my mother's suburban she had a surprise for me.
"Hey, Zora," she smiled at me. I found myself forcing a smile back at her despite how crappy I felt. She reached into the back seat and pulled out a brown paper sack with the word "Reaper" written across the front. "One of your friends brought this to me to give to you. They couldn't seem to find you in the halls."
This couldn't be good.
Opening the sack, I was greeted by a Ziploc bag of black powder with the words "ashes to ashes" written across the white label. Underneath was a small folded piece of paper – a note, I assumed. How pleasant. Lifting the card to the brim of the bag to conceal it from my mother, I unfolded it and read the words neatly penned in black ink.
"You're worthless. Kill yourself."
Harsh.
"What's in there, Zora?" Mom asked sweetly. My mother, such a kind woman, deserved to be happy, but she could only be happy is I was as well. I faked another smile at her, something I had learned to do a long time ago. If making her happy meant that I had to conceal my pain, I would do it gladly.
"Oh, it's just some trash," I lied with a grin. "One of my friends and I are always pulling these little pranks on each other." My mother seemed to buy it, but her eyes remained worried.
"I heard you had to get a drug test yesterday, sweetie," she began.
"Nothing bad happened," I sighed. "Someone accidentally put their drugs in my locker so they had to make sure I hadn't been buying them."
"That's terrible!"
She didn't know the half of it.
When we finally arrived home I breathed a sigh of relief. Home was a large two-story farmhouse in the middle of the hilly countryside, a forest of tall pines and hardwoods sweeping behind our barn in the back. I cautiously eyed the tree that grew by my window and walked into the house.
"I'm going up to do my homework," I told Mom as I grabbed a peach and made for the stairs.
"Okay," she said without looking at me. I sighed, but climbed the stairs to the landing and opened the door to my messy room. I knew I should do my homework, but I couldn't quite bring myself to open my backpack; I had placed the paper sack in there. So I grabbed my phone, headphones, and half-eaten peach and climbed out my window into the tree. Nestling myself into a sturdy juncture of four branches, I plugged in my headphones and turned on 4G to surf the internet. Finally pulling up the next episode of my favorite anime, Attack on Titan, I dropped the peach pit to the ground and settled in my seat.
Before I could press play I received a text message. Opening it, I shuddered at the picture attached to the text.
I had been sent a petition to kill myself signed by the entire school.
Sent to me by Julie.
As much as I wanted to think it didn't hurt, the pain it caused in my chest was worse than any stab or punch they could have laid on me. I slipped the cover off of my phone and grabbed the razor blade I kept hidden in the case, flipping the shiny piece of metal in my hand several times before yanking up my sleeve and holding it up to my scarred wrist.
Don't.
I dropped my hand and flung the blade to the ground, tears pricking behind my eyes but not falling. I sat back in the crook of the tree as I watched the sun glint off the metal on the ground. I silently prayed to a god I didn't believe in that my parents would run over it when mowing and never see it.
Looking down at the ground I noticed the sun's glint beginning to warp, as if the metal was melting. But, sunlight wasn't green...
The blade was melting into the ground, molten metal dripping between the pores of the dirt and slipping into the mantle, all the while casting and eerie green glow somewhat reminiscent of the Northern Lights. A hole began to open up in the ground and the wind picked up.
"What the hell?"
I felt the tears on my face being sucked into the hole as it expanded into a gaping glowing rift in the ground, trying to consume everything around me. This, as I remembered was not a property of metal as explained to me in chemistry class.
I felt myself being forced from the branch, falling into nothing. The last thing I saw was the green light surrounding me, then blackness.