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Psychological Distress

Inspired by Waveripple of Team Sunshine's Hearts of the Night.

Chapter 2: Wager

"I'm learning how to live life on my own…"


"Welcome to Bell's Academy!" Gary exclaimed.

"Wow," the girls took in the sight. The campus, the beach, the huge dorm houses and the forest. It was all so beautiful.

Gary and Brendan lead the way to the dorm advisors' office.

"Here you all are," said the dorm advisor, Jenna. Jenna was in charge of assigning rooms and schedules.

Gary and Brendan were roommates with a guy named Rudy. Apparently the three of them had been friends and roommates since freshman year. Their dorm was the same, Room 155 in Maxwell Hall.

May, Misty and Dawn had been put together in Room 202 in the dreaded Elizabeth's Quarters.

"It won't be that bad," Misty assured a horror-stricken Dawn and a frozen May.

Brendan laughed, "Someone got you guys bad!"

Jenna handed all of them their schedules and shooed them away.

Brendan sighed, "Let us drop our stuff and we'll take you guys to your dorm."

May coughed, "Don't you guys have to unpack and stuff?"

"Rudy does all that. We're friends but it's usually me and Brendan because he's more of a bookworm and he stays in our dorm a lot. And plus he decided he can't stand when me and Brendan leave our stuff around so he just unpacks for us," Gary explained.

Misty nodded, "Helpful roommate."

Dawn whispered to May, "Sounds like Misty."


Room 200. Room 201. Room 202.

Room202.

With a deep breath, May unlocked the door.

There were no words to describe their dorm. Actually there was. It was pretty big, but it was empty, and dusty, and empty.

It was empty.

"Oh yeah," Brendan said, "We forgot to mention that err you design your own rooms."

May and Misty exchanged a look of disgust as Dawn's eyes sparkled.

"That's great!" she squealed.

The girls dropped their stuff in the vacant room and looked at what was there. Three desks, three beds with no sheets or anything and that was it.

"Oh man!"

The girls turned and looked at Gary, who held an annoyed look toward his schedule.

Brendan slapped his paper, "Dude me too! 1st class." Brendan pointed something out on his paper.

"What's wrong?" Misty looked over the two boys.

Gary rolled his shoulders, "Well you know that painting class? Well it was overcrowded and some people didn't get in, like me and Brendan and now we're stuck in criminal psychology!"

"Oh my god! I signed up for painting!" Dawn scrambled to find where she laid her schedule.

"We all did," May reminded her as she looked over her schedule.

"I'm in criminal psychology 1st class of the day," Misty declared.

"Ditto," May sighed.

Dawn pouted, "Me too."

May groaned, "Well this sucks, but at least we're all together. What's that class even about?"

"The minds of serial killers."

Misty pondered, "Doesn't sound so bad."

Dawn and May turned their heads slowly and stared at her, with looks of shock and pure horror.

"What?" she asked, "I'm not scared."

Brendan and Gary exchanged a knowing look, "You will be."

Dawn raised an eyebrow, "You guys keep saying that."

"Cause it's true," Gary pointed out, "Everything's scary about this place. Nothing's normal."


Dawn clapped her hands, "Well, we should at least get this dorm looking suitable to live in. Let's go furniture shopping and such."

Gary and Brendan tried to tip-toe quietly and escape as soon as they heard the word shopping. Right as they were almost out the door May spotted them, "Where do you think you two are going."

"Oh uhm, nowhere," they stammered.

"Good!" Misty smiled, "Viva la furniture store! It'll be fun."

2 hours later:

"Forget what I said about fun," Misty pouted along with Brendan and Gary as May and Dawn picked out rugs and curtains.

"Tell me about it," Brendan sighed.

Dawn and May happily approached, "We're done!" they announced.

Gary got up and shot a fist in the air, "Finally!"


For the next three days, with the help of Brendan and Gary, the girls fixed up their dorm. They had it really nice when they were done. On a small bookshelf were their favorite books that they brought. And some CDs at the top. A stereo stood next to them plugged in.

A plasma screen hung in a place where all three girls could see it from their beds. There was a mini refrigerator below it, stocked with leftover snacks and drinks. There was a fuzzy white rug in the middle of a hardware floor and three red, blue and pink beanbags on the floor.

Each bed had a white nightstand next to it with three drawers filled with various items, depending on each girl. Misty's bed had dark blue sheets with light blue pillows and light blue fishes on the comforter. May's bed had red sheets with white pillows and white polka dots on the comforter. Dawn's bed had dark pink sheets with light pink pillows and light pink hearts on the comforter.

They agreed on white curtains for their two huge windows that had a nice view of an open field with one huge oak tree in the middle and the forest in the background. To the east of the forest was the beach. Elizabeth's Quarters was the closet dorm to the beach.

Brendan hooked up a printer to Misty's desk where they could print stuff wirelessly from their laptops and Gary and Dawn hung up photos of the three girls in the space in between the two windows.

Their bathroom was split into three separate bathrooms, each with a tub, shower, mirror, counter with sink and drawers and a closet. Dawn organized her soaps and makeup and clothes, painting her bathroom pink. Misty painted hers blue and just hung up her clothes and threw her make-up on the counter and soaps and shampoos and such in the shower. May organized her closet, painted her bathroom red and was too lazy to organize anything else. May would just do it later.

The girls, after fighting about the dorm color, agreed on peach for their walls so it could compliment all the white in the room.

They each had a wall to put whatever they wanted on it. May had pictures of her family, and some posters of movies, like New Moon and bands, like Bowling for Soup. Misty had pictures of her sisters and pictures of professional athletes, mostly swimmers like Michael Phelps and a collage of CD covers for bands like My Chemical Romance and Relient K. Dawn had pinned up some sketches of designs using thumbtacks and cute guys like her favorite movie star, Wallace (The coordinating dude).

When the room was complete, Misty, May, Dawn, Brendan, and Gary collapsed from exhaustion.

"Victory!" Brendan cried.


As I fail miserably trying to get the girl all the bad guys want. She's the girl all the bad guys want.

Gary flipped open his phone, "Hello...Hey babe…. Yeah… You guys are here… Sure…We met some girls and are helping them suit up their room…You'll like them…Okay Me and Brendan will be there in five minutes…All right…Bye."

"My girlfriend," Gary told the confused girls, "Her bus just arrived. Me and Brendan are gonna help her and her friends."

"Can we meet her?" Misty asked.

"Yeah, she wants to meet you guys too. Her name is Leaf. You guys will get along with Leaf, Melody, Brianna and Zoey really easy. We'll introduce you tomorrow."

"Bye guys!" May called out.

Brendan stopped at their door, "Make sure you guys get some sleep. First day is tomorrow!"


Misty yawned and threw on an orange tank and dark blue sleeping shorts. May and Dawn had already crashed after packing their backpacks for school. She turned on a small lamp at her bedside table and shut down all the other main lights. She wanted to read a couple of chapters of Wuthering Heights. She sat down and started reading when she noticed something looking strange by the window.

It almost seemed like the shadow of something was creeping in between where the curtains meet. Could it be that there was someone there? Misty quietly set down her book and crept up to the window she opened the curtain slightly and saw someone's figure on their ledge looking into their room!

In the blink of an eye, the figure was gone. Misty squinted and saw two other figures appeared and was dragging the figure at their window away. They stopped at the tree, and stood there. Misty assumed they were talking. Suddenly they all turned their heads and it seemed like they were looking at Misty spying on them from her window and were gone.

Misty's head was spinning. Was she imagining this? Who were they? Her brain started thinking back to the conversation they had with Brendan and Gary on the bus.

Brendan nodded, "There are tons of ghost stories and occasionally every year, someone disappears or gets murdered. The best legend is the one of the Three Musketeers."

Dawn tipped her head, "Who are they?"

Brendan shrugged, "No one knows. They are three guys that are apparently the ones murdering everyone. They still are around to this day."

Gary cut him off, "They're probably at Bell's Academy right now as we speak. And they're real. If you don't believe the other ghosts, fine. But these guys aren't ghosts apparently but they do bad things around the school."

Brendan looked grave, "And they are actually there. Many students claim to see their figures walking around the campus and the dorms at night. So here's a warning, don't stay out too late."

Were those figures the ones of the Three Musketeers? Could they possibly be looking through their window marking them as the ones to be murdered for the year? The legends she formerly scoffed at were coming back with a bang, and it was scary.

Brendan and Gary were right. The Three Musketeers…are real.


Two figures shoved the first one into a tree trunk.

"Are you crazy?" the second one growled.

"You almost exposed out secret!" the third one said, disapprovingly.

The first one stood and looked away to avoid the stares coming from his companions, "I was curious. I just wanted a look at the new girls."

The third one sighed, "You have a point. These new girls scare me. I have a bad feeling about them."

The second one huffed, "Suck it up."

The first one looked over at the girls' window and saw Misty straining to see them through her window, "The girl…"

The other two looked over and saw Misty.

The second one punched the third, "Good going."

"Well school starts again. We must be on our best behavior and we'll figure something about these new girls…" the third whispered before departing.


End! Ohh. The three Musketeers. Who could they be? It's a little obvious though.

Chapter 3: It's the first day there and criminal psychology couldn't be any creepier! They become friends with Gary's girlfriend Leaf and her friends, Melody, Brianna and Zoey. Brianna plans a shopping trip and something strange happens to Zoey.

In the B-story: May, Misty and Dawn meet the three guys that all the girls at B.A (Bell's Academy) are obsessed with! And Dawn notices something strange about one of them that perks her curiosity. But they say curiosity killed the cat.

Starting next chapter they are going to have a little piece of POV from the girls. The order will be Dawn, Misty and May. So chapter 3- Dawn. Chapter 4- Misty. Chapter 5- May. And so on.

Review and answer the question for cyber cookies. The question: Who was the shadow lurking right outside the girls' window that Misty noticed before he was dragged away?