As I suspected, those bitches wouldn't stop hounding Armin after he left Sansburg Hall. A few weeks after he had moved into Wickson, their leader Kayla began to plot an attempt on his happiness and sanity, to remind him that she was still around.
Don't be afraid. He survived.
But them?
Oh, dear. I know that Armin doesn't approve of my malice, but every time I remember their nightmares, their illusions, their agony, a sneer always crosses my face.
You see, Armin apparently left behind a lot of pain and rage in room 415 of Sansburg Hall. All of that negativity was like an open wound, gradually becoming more and more infected until disturbing events occurred on that floor. I still can't understand exactly what happened, but it's clear to me that his hatred was turned against them somehow.
And so, allow me to relate to you what happened after Armin left Sansburg Hall.
Armin sat in on his bed in room 327 of Wickson Hall, reading a book on how Mozart composed his pieces. It was now the beginning of March, and as spring drew ever closer, he felt that he was slowly able to put the painful past of Sansburg Hall behind him.
"I'll never go back to that damned dormitory!" he thought furiously. "And now, I'm safe from Kayla's slimy clutches!"
His angry brooding was interrupted by sudden laughter outside his door and down the hall. Armin felt his body tense up in panic, as the terrifying notion that Kayla could find him even in Wickson hadn't left him yet.
The terror didn't leave him until he realized that the cheery, loud voices couldn't possibly belong to Kayla and her gang. Two guys and a girl were chattering away down the hall, and Armin was relieved to accept that none of his enemies had suddenly come to hunt him down.
"Just go talk to him already, Reiner!" one of the boys shouted exasperatedly. "It's already been, like, 4 weeks since he came here, and you've waited long enough."
"Yeah, Reiner, stop being so shy and just go flirt with him for goodness' sake!" the girl said, and the other guy groaned.
Armin had to stifle his giggling as he heard the 3rd person retort.
"Back off, you two! I know he's shy, and I wanted to give him some space for a while, so that he would hopefully ease up around me. I still remember those looks of panic that kid gave me when he first saw me back in February, and I don't want to do anything to provoke that fear again."
Any bit of humor in Armin vanished, and he gawked at the door as he realized that the friendly blonde giant from his first day back in Wickson Hall was talking about him.
"Not to mention, I really don't know how to begin talking to him," the guy named Reiner said sheepishly. "I'm worried that I'll be too intense, y'know?"
The other two students laughed heartily, and the girl told him "If that's the case, we'll just have to give you a gentle push in the right direction! Giddy up, boy!"
Reiner yelled in alarm, and to Armin's shock, massive footsteps could be heard suddenly pounding towards his room. Without further warning, a nasty whacking noise was heard on the door, coupled with the sound of Reiner cursing in pain.
"Dammit Sasha, what the hell?!"
Sasha cackled and told him "That's the gentle push for ya!"
"Yeah, right. So much for 'gentle'."
Armin got off his bed, creeped over to the peephole, and saw Reiner looking down nervously at his door, with a brunette girl in a pony-tail and a short guy with a buzz cut flanking him, both looking too excited.
"Uh…well…this really wasn't how I imagined striking up a talk with this gentle titan of a guy. Strange…he's like an earnest version of my dad."
He gripped the door handle, and slowly yanked the door back, and Armin watched the odd trio stiffen comically.
For an awkward moment, Reiner and Armin stood locked in each other's gaze, amber eyes zoomed in on large, innocent blues. At last, after long weeks of silence since that day outside the restroom, Reiner broke the pause.
"H-hey!" he said to Armin, grinning and offering a large hand to him. "I'm Reiner from down the hall. These are Connie and Sasha, my friends."
Armin beamed up at him, took the offered hand gladly, and noticed with giddiness that his smile made Reiner blush profusely. Connie and Sasha were smiling at him too, and the sheer difference in hospitality between Sansburg and Wickson astounded him.
"Nice to meet you guys! I'm Armin, Jean's roommate. I transferred here from Sansburg Hall a few weeks ago."
The three friends grimaced in unison, and Armin cocked an eyebrow at them in confusion. Connie groaned and placed a sympathetic hand on Armin's shoulder.
"Dude, I'm sorry, that sucks. I've heard horrid things about that place."
"This guy, too? Why the heck does Sansburg have such an awful reputation?" Armin thought, recalling a similar remark from Mikasa at the beginning of fall semester.
Connie went on, telling him "All three of us, hell, the whole campus knows that pretty much all of the people in Sansburg Hall are anti-social as all get out. Not to mention, I've heard that cliques are a serious problem there."
The instant Connie mentioned cliques, a painful shadow fell on Armin's face, and his three floor mates gave him alarmed looks.
"I…know a lot about the stupid cliques in Sansburg…" he muttered to them, and Reiner bit his lip in pity.
No amount of sleep, no amount of trying to bury the memories away had been able to erase the image of half of the 4th floor screaming taunts at him daily, spreading those malicious notes about him over the floor, and more than anything else, the horrific note that Kayla had slid under his door telling him to kill himself.
Reiner gently asked him "Do you want to talk about it, buddy?"
"Did somebody bother you? Cause I'll kick some ass if you need me too!" Sasha shouted, comically flexing her biceps.
Connie's grimace deepened, and he mumbled "Yup, just like this whole campus knows, Sansburg is a poisonous place."
Armin felt another massive wave of exhaustion hit him like a truck, and he wearily told them "I really appreciate you guys reaching out to me, I do. Chances are, I do need to talk it out, but…right now, I need sleep."
Reiner glanced at his friends, and they both nodded at him with a sly wink. It was a humorously romantic scene that warmed Armin's heart.
"Gotcha. Armin, bud, can I have your phone number? To talk later, and…so that you have somebody on this floor along with Jean for you to lean on."
Armin's own cheeks flushed crimson, and he hastily pulled his phone out of his pocket, a thousand thoughts flying around in his head. He had been dreaming and daydreaming about finally talking with the kind stranger with the handsome smile ever since he had moved into Wickson, and with that moment finally attained, he was beside himself with happiness.
The two boys exchanged phone numbers, both of them blushing, with Sasha and Connie clapping their hands excitedly like school children. When Reiner and Armin finished, Reiner patted the smaller boy softly on the shoulder, and gave him one last smile.
"It's gonna be ok, buddy. I promise."
At that remark, Armin felt tears suddenly spring up in the back of his eyes, and all he could do was nod and hurriedly back up into his room, waving goodbye at the trio before he shut the door. He heard them walk away back down the hall, Connie and Sasha loudly congratulating Reiner on his successful endeavor.
With nobody watching him, Armin allowed the tears to spill over his cheeks, a newfound pang of grief mixing in with the exhaustion dragging him down. To his dismay, every bit of pain that he had felt from the events in Sansburg Hall hadn't disappeared whatsoever, and the memories of his tormented experiences continued to haunt him.
"I know I'm not weak for crying, but…I wish the tears would stop flowing. It's so frustrating that I can't just heal already. I don't want this, I don't want this stupid emotional burden!"
His face slowly contorted into a hideous snarl as the image of Kayla's laughing, malicious face provoked the well of anger within him that had been newfound since that bizarre moment with the disembodied voice.
"And I want them to suffer for what they put me through!"
On the 4th floor of Sansburg Hall, the old gray paint beginning to peel away, Kayla and her group of girls sat huddled around the lounge's table, snickering about what they had done to Armin Arlert.
"Poor baby's probably huddled up in his hole, scared shitless of us now!" Kayla told them, still reveling in what she refused to believe was anything but a cowardly move on Armin's part to flee from her sight.
"That freaky woman…no, I won't accept it! No way would God protect a faggot like him!"
Everything had changed so fast on her floor the instant she woke up from that terrifying nightmare of that puny blonde kid shrieking in violent fury, and the appearances of both the woman in black, along with Annie Leonhardt of all people, the vicious upperclassmen from her Christian high school who had been their group's ultimate menace.
Hardly anything had changed since Armin's disappearance, except for the paint starting to peel, and Hannah, their demure R.A., casting disdainful glances at them whenever she passed them by. Hannah Diamant was clearly hiding some sort of disgust for Kayla and her friends, but Kayla didn't care. She had ensured that her letters and everything else couldn't be tracked back to her, because unless Hannah and their cold-minded R.H.D. Levi brought in a forensics person, there was no way they could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the notes had been written by her.
To her left was Elise, silent as always, and looking peculiarly downtrodden. Though nobody had brought the topic up out of utter disinterest, the whole group had taken notice of Elise's recent despondent look that had come about since the night that Armin had left the floor.
"Whatever. Even if she does have second thoughts about him, it doesn't matter jack crap. She's as much embroiled in this as the rest of us…and those pictures on her phone are sure to keep her trapped in that knowledge."
For every single letter that Kayla had written, she had made Elise take pictures of them, so that when the time was right, Kayla would have her upload them all to the campus web, ensuring that the memory of their control would never leave Armin while he was still a student.
To her right, Clair sneered and said to them "I still can't believe he refused to be a man, stay and face us all to the end. What a coward. But I guess that's how all fags work."
Besides Elise, who was deliberately glancing away from them, they all nodded and laughed in agreement.
Kayla looked around at her group, and proudly declared to them "I have a plan to remind that brat what his place is, and that no matter what, he can't hide from us. I just found out from a bit of research that Armin works at the campus bookstore. I plan to drop by and…surprise him."
Her friends giggled maliciously in approval, and Clair said to her "Good. Tell me what happens asap. I want that freak punished after apparently having a crush on my boyfriend!"
Clair had glimpsed Armin and Shane, her blonde hunk of a man, gazing at each other in a more than friendly way one night while she had brought him onto the floor lounge. She had been livid ever since, and the whole group was aware that the mere notion that Armin could distract Shane from her was a huge motivator for her to hate him even more.
"You bet I will!" Kayla replied, as she rose up from her chair and stretched. "I'm going to find him tomorrow morning, and I can't wait to see the look on his face when he realizes that he couldn't escape me forever!"
Kayla threw the doors of the bookshop open and sauntered in, glaring around her, looking for Armin so that she could begin. She found him sitting absentmindedly at the front desk, seemingly not noticing her as she stormed up to him.
As her footsteps drew closer, he raised his head to look at her, and Kayla paused in confusion when she saw the vacant smile plastered on his face.
"Oh, there you are. I was wondering when you would…er, grace me with your presence. I've been expecting you. So rude of you to keep me waiting like this. Surely a bitch of your caliber would be capable of moving faster than this, hm?"
Kayla snarled at the boy, and snapped "Shut it! Don't you think I'll let you get away with that tone! I came here to remind you who's boss. Just because you got to move out of Sansburg doesn't mean that you can hide from me forever!"
Armin watched her with an unflinching gaze, his smile not budging a bit. He casually walked out from behind his desk, and walked towards Kayla, the girl feeling a sense of strange terror wash over her as she watched him come closer.
"Hide from you? You must be joking, Kayla. I haven't been 'hiding' from you. I've merely been lying in wait, waiting for you to finally show your ugly face once more. Waiting for my opportunity to show you just how cruel I can be."
Kayla involuntarily shuddered, and took a step back.
"H-hey…what are you-"
"You stupid bitch. You tried to make me kill myself, you encouraged the whole floor to hate me, to want me to hurt, and you have the audacity to think that I'm not affected by that? No, Kayla. I won't let you get away with what you did. When the time is right, I'll hunt you down, and use you as a warning to each and every piece of trash on that floor that Armin Arlert is out for blood."
At that, Kayla watched Armin's placid smile twist into a sneer, as he whispered sinisterly "And I'm going to enjoy watching you suffer!"
Kayla bolted upright in her bed as she suddenly snapped out of the nightmare, taking rapid, panicked breathes and covered in sweat. For some reason, nothing in the dream had tipped her off that she wasn't in reality, and the entire scene itself felt full of raw malice.
"T-that was a dream?!" she thought in bewilderment, as she tried to calm down. "That was too vivid for a normal dream!"
"Armin…he looked like he…like he wanted to kill me!"