A high pitched scream rang out loud and clear, filled with terror. Christina Monroe, who had woken only an hour before and was now cramming for a history exam she had later that day, looked up, startled from the sudden racket.

Seconds later, another horrified scream resonated from outside, coming from the campus below her third floor window. Thinking the worse, she threw her books into her bag and ran out her doorway. Other students, whom had obviously heard the screams, now ran beside her, questioning each other on what was happening. More screams traveled to them, making them all rush towards where they presumed it was coming from. Christina's freckled face contorted into a look of pure fear.

Her strawberry-blonde curls bounced around her round face as she and her fellow classmates sprinted to the center of campus, where the giant bronze statue of Thomas Dalton stood. The statue shone in sunlight, the dagger that it held acting as a large sundial. As old as Dalton Academy was, the statue showed the founder in his early twenties and was about 5 stories high with a hallow inside so that it could be maintained. A group of students dressed in required uniforms stood along the small set of stairs along the bottom of the gigantic figure.

Christina's ears started to ring from the wails and sobs that now mixed in with the screams that kept coming. As she came closer to the large herd of people, she noticed a blurred figure at the top of the bronze man. Was someone going to jump? Christina quickened her pace (if that was even capable, as she was running as fast as she thought was humanly possible) and pushed herself into the crowd of navy and red.

"Move, move!" Christina shouted, shoving people out of her way.

Eventually she made her way to the front and tilted her head up to see who was at the top.

Oh. Oh god no. At the top of the statue, where Thomas Dalton held up his dagger, was the body of a girl. And she, as gruesome as it was, was impaled on said dagger. Streams of blood covered the metallic arm beneath her and splattered against the victim's uniform. Enough of the red liquid had emptied from her body that it had trickled down to the ground below, dripping at a sickening pace.

Christina suddenly felt nauseous. She dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms across her stomach, willing herself to not vomit in front of her peers. Others cried and allowed themselves to be sick in the view of their fellow students. Tears started to cover her face as she tried to not look at the blood pooling in front of her. One of her friends, Mioko, the foreign exchange student for the year, came over to her, wrapping her thin arms around Christina's torso.

She rocked her back and forth, whispering soothing words in her native tongue. Teachers came around, pulling students back, or in some cases, helping them from where they were a lifeless pile of limbs. Mioko's arms left her, making her feel cold and lifeless when another pair of arms picked her up. They were stronger and lifted her bridal style. Christina looked up to see the green eyes of her boyfriend, Emmett O'Malley. His scruffy light hair still had small drops of water from his morning shower. He smiled sadly, acting stronger than he actually was.

Christina sniffed, tears trailing down her face. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her head into the fabric of his blazer, hoping it would drown out the sound of her sobs. Emmet shed a single tear before walking away from the crowd to take Christina back to her dorm room.

The police arrived minutes later along with a firetruck to get the body down. It was a shock to the poor man that had been awarded the task to get the body down to realize that the victim was none other than the dean's daughter, Anna Matthews, her throat slit and her heart impaled by the metal dagger. More officers had to be called up to lift her body over the blade and back down.

Her slender, limp body was placed on a carrier and carted into the ambulance that had arrived. The sounds of the sirens fading was the only sign that the outside world was okay, though none had the heart to venture from their rooms. When news hit Christina that it was Anna Matthews' body at the top of the statue she cried harder than she ever had. Her best friend, dead. She even remembered saying goodbye to Anna the night before when they had parted ways after spending hours in the North Corridor study hall.

The Dean, Ethan Matthews, along with the entirety of Westerville, was devastated.

The next day, an article about the incident was printed across the front page of the Westerville Daily.

Yesterday, at 8:37 a.m., the body of Anna Matthews was found at the top of the statue of Thomas Dalton at the prestigious Dalton Academy for the Significantly Gifted. Morticians concluded that cause of death was an impaled heart, along with a slit throat. So far there has been no leads on who the culprit is, but police have yet to give up. Anna Matthews was the charismatic daughter of the Dean of Dalton Academy, Ethan Matthews.

Due to these recent events, Dalton Academy will be closed for the next few weeks. It is believed that Dalton Academy will be turned into a single-gender school, while another academy will be built across the way from it.

The funeral for Anna will be held the following Saturday for family and close friends of the Matthews' in Westerville's Bleeding Hearts Cemetery. The Westerville Daily sends its condolences to the Matthews' family.

But that dreary morning, as a lifeless body was carried off, someone let out a soft chuckle as they looked out onwards from their dorm. The tears had fooled them, and now they could finally be happy without that horribly, preppy girl. Now they could live their own life in peace.

And across the way in the North Corridor study hall, which was vacant of any life, a pair of eyes followed the carrier that had had a blinding white sheet thrown over it. It was quite a surprise to Anna to watch her own body be carted away.