THEY ARRIVED TEN TICKS before eight.

Billy had dumped Shiori at the mouth of the school—a mean, looming institution of all tan-cement and burgundy doors. He'd ridden away not shortly thereafter, yelling apologies and excuses of co-workers being able to cover his shift for only so long. But Shiori had expected this. No one ever walked her to class, or to school even—the last time had been in the third grade, when ridicule had kept little Shiori shrinking from Aunt Minako as often as she could in public, defending her only if she must. The neighbors and they were too different, both inside and out. And in their tiny town, differences seemed to be all that mattered.

Shiori bowed her head, and vanished into the school.

Jefferson Junior High had never been her most favorite of schools, perhaps for good reason. Corridors stretched into distances which seemed never to fade, chipping to life gray paint upon cement brick, and dingy motivational posters protesting bullying of as much hogwash, if not more. Tiles illuminated white from beyond her feet, dusted with footprints of haste and half-truth cackles. It reminded Shiori almost of hospitals from the movies, or of mental institutions.

"If Auntie can take them, so can you," she whispered to herself, from under her breath. "Don't cry. Don't remember. Just get to class straight on time. Just run."

And Shiori did so. She bolted from hallway to to hallway, from wing to wing and corridor to corridor. Lockers spread to burgundy stripes, beside classrooms of a careless drawl. Tiles sobbed under the weight of her haste, in a mighty whoop. The air bristled. Nearly was she there—only a few more steps, minutes, and breaths. One, more, one more (and breath hitching; sweat clinging; exhaustion screeching). Almost there—almost, almost, almost—

The first period bell howled.

The backpack weighing Shiori down was suddenly ever the more heavy, curling her into a hunch. Her eyes grew to a stare of dinner plates. She tensed. The hour of her doom was now bolted into place. There would be no escape today. Now, she was a dead girl walking.

"No!" she yelped, speeding as would she in after-school track. "No! No! No! No!"

Time was of all the relevance now. She could dare to lallygag no longer. Again was she not Shiori, but another entirely—the doppelgänger, a creature born from all rush and terrified nothings. She was late—an uttermost, absolutely, awfully bad failure. When finally met with the class, Johnson would cock a brow, lips curling into a smile only feral. People would laugh, gazing unto her wild amusement and crooked grins. Whispers would be exchanged, loud enough to be heard but low enough to be legally ignored. Hatred towards her would giggle.

And when she arrived, everyone did just that.

Shiori hung in the doorway darkly, gasping for a breath she had not realized she'd lost. Smiles craned towards her, both being corrupted to frowns and scowls. Johnson an owlish, old stick of a man, towered beside a whiteboard—and his graying hair was more receded than she remembered, his forehead a board of all its own. In large hands was a marker, pressed firmly onto the board, cracking almost upon her arrival. A few snickers erupted from the students.

"My, Shiori Kino, what pleasure to finally be blessed with your presence," said Johnson. The pronunciation was a disgrace upon his tongue, purposefully mistaken. "Tell me, what took you so long? Aunt crash the car in a sightless attempt to drive, or was she too busy away to?"

One group of boys snorted.

"It's Shiori Aino," she said sharply, scarcely avoiding a flinch. Crimson creeped up the slender of her neck, discreet but noticeable. "Auntie said Kino was my mother's last name, before she died back home. But I think I want Aino to be mine." She gulped, her voice slowly cowering into shy command. "And—and I wasn't driven in a car. Not really. Auntie's at work, so someone else drove me on their motorbike. But—um—there were vehicular difficulties."

"Very well, Miss Kino. Take a seat," said Johnson, as if he believed her little. The entire class stared in a manner similar. "Now that you're actually here, we may finally begin."

Looking down, Shiori shuffled to her desk.

Class slugged forth, seconds to her seeming as might minutes. Out of spite, she was to present last her research (and the class had laughed, laughed, and laughed until they could shame her no more), with the popular girls scoffing before she. The Jessicas, so they called themselves: Jessica Kim, Jessica Lenore, and Jessica Max (and a fourth, whom had showed absent today)—all flaming hair, pretty clothes, and implants despite themselves. Shiori realized quickly that their project had been a group effort—for bribery allowing the unallowable could've been the work of only they. The work was to be on a flash drive like her own, concentrated on the Internment Camps during World War II, as if to make a point. Shiori grimaced.

"So, like, it became a thing in 1942," said Max, the pink Jessica, looking at Shiori—and guilt hung over eyes, alongside an myriad of emotions left murky. Shiori stared back widely. "By, um, Roosevelt, I think. Franklin D. Roosevelt, in Executive Order 9066."

"Uh-huh," said Lenore, the lilac Jessica. She nudged Max violently, whose sympathetic gaze was replaced by another of narrowed abhorrence. "A ton of Nips were put there—120,000 at most, and 100,000 at least. Crazy, huh?"

Shiori squirmed under her steely gaze, as though it was she to whom was being spoken, and she alone. Looking satisfied, Lenore continued explaining Internment Camps, and of the history as if it were hardly horrible, but something which to cheer, to praise and to worship. A type of sick glee had come spiraling unto her face, happy, enthusiastic—and her eyes brightened, like a twin charm had burned white within hazel orbs, exploding instantaneously. A wide grin rubbed up ruby lips, truly wicked. And in that moment, a beauty became a beast.

Kim, the purple Jessica, glanced sharply at Lenore. From the SMART Board—for that was what on which they worked, splaying statistics, citations, and horrifying photos—she changed the slide. Her silence was menacing, lurking—like a feral cat stalking til just the right instant, prepared solemnly to strike. Lenore shut up immediately. Max swallowed.

"Is that all?" asked Johnson. Yet, he sounded near to sorrow at the thought. "We don't have all day, girls. Your other peers need to present, too."

"Of course," said Jessica Kim, and that was that.

The Jessicas gathered their flash drive, filed, and returned to their desks. Their perfume plagued Shiori's nostrils, save for Max, whose perfume must have been applied in moderation, for she smelled hardly as strong as her friends. And it was Max whom sat beside her, her fingers rippled in a strangled wave. Shiori, knowing not what to do, waved back.

Johnson cleared his voice, lounging still at his desk. His eyes glimmered dangerously, in a likeness similar to Jessica Kim's—and he smiled darkly, taunting, and miserly. Anticipation shadowed his angular face, eager.

"Shiori Kino!" he intoned. "You're up!"

The world stiffened. Shiori rose shakily, padding to the front of the room, her small breathes of air seemed labored, struggling; knees seemed a-knocking; finger-pads seemed to claw roughly at the tips of her sweater sleeves; cheeks seemed to whiten. She could hear the taunts of her classmates from even afar, boisterous and loud. They echoed deep within the pit of her soul, in weeping ignorants of old.

"Ching Chong!" they chanted. "Kamikaze!"

"Jap!"

"Nip!"

"Nippopotomus!"

"Yellow cab!"

"Jank!"

They always say these things, thought Shiori, her chest constricting. She prepared her own flash drive, quietly thanking whatever god that she had remembered it during her morning fret. Why do they always say these things?

"Well? What's taking you so long, Miss Kino?" said Johnson. "On with it, will you? We haven't all day, if you've already noticed. Other students still need to go up."

"R-Right," said Shiori, and pulled up presentation.

Sharing what she had researched on the Bolshevik Revolution would be fruitless, she knew. Her peers wouldn't listen. Neither would Johnson. To them, she was the circus attraction with no normalcy, the freak with no name. She was the Vietnamese whore, the terrorist, the Yellow Cab pregnant by half the student body at Jefferson. They wouldn't entertain the hours work of the Crazy Nip, the orphaned niece of a loon, or the effort of Jap the Crap, the Asian without a brain. What was the point, she wondered, if no one would offer her an ear? If no one would take her seriously? Why even try?

Shiori's lips quivered as she spoke, trembling as would a petal upon the wind. "In—In 1917, in Russia, the Tsars"—a few mocking jabs, and the names—gosh, the names—"In 1917, in R-Russia—"

"Hurry up, freak!" shouted one boy. Shiori recognized him as Ryder Davis, a young man of all curly brown locks, Letterman jackets, and football jerseys. He was one of the Jessicas' boyfriends—Jessica Lenore' no doubt, who seemed only to romance the pathetic sort. "Not all of us like listening to your goddamn shitty stutter!"

"Yeah, man!" said Danny Ross, Ryder's closet buddy and goon. He was crushing a water bottle in his large hand, his speech slurred. "You tell her!"

"Yeah! Hurry it along, creep!"

"Weirdo!"

"Chink!"

"Slut!"

"Jig!"

Shiori flattened down her ears, looking desperately to Johnson for aid, to hinder any future attempt at her sanity (make it stop, make it stop, make it stop). She continued to stare, her green eyes large and probing, and her mouth agape in silent pleas—and her hands, soft and long, bent out in a reach to him, dry by tears which refused to come. Shiori averted her gaze to her feet, and then looked at Johnson one final time. He did not look back.

"It's not my name," she whimpered weakly. "Make it stop! Please! That's not my name!"

Their voices rang loud and true. Yet, this time, they came with six the times more fervor than before:

"Slug-ass!"

"Weaboo!"

"Loser!"

"Hard-ass!"

Shiori's knees gave out in that instant, and in an instant later she crumpled to the ground. Her chest was pulsating wildly now, so that she could barely heave nor move; nor speak, nor sob. She merely laid there, sprawled on the flat of her hands and feet, expression contorted into one she remembered only from prior school experiences with these alike. And the names continued, washing over her in the rush of nine ferocious waves. But they never stopped, like they were true, like they truly did harbor some substance—

(—like she was actually a whore, a freak, and pregnant with the school's next student body. Like she was something further less than inhuman. Like she was deserving of death and only death—

Death. Now, someone for whom she longed alone. Now, someone from whom she would reap every benefit. Now, a thing of love she yearned to pursue. Now, a thing and person. Now, whom and which would be her one and only friend.)

Objects thunked against Shiori next. Pencils, erasers, highlighters, pens—and Johnson allowed these things, too busied with his paperwork, prejudice, and half-exhaustions. The names followed thereafter, louder than earlier, and ten the times more cruel. They conspired to knot together, wrenching animalistic terror around her, names so harmful that Shiori could no longer distinguish between one or another.

"Stop it! That's not my name!" she screamed at last, burying her face into her hands. "That's not my name!"

The lighting erupted into sparks.

Kids began to yell, jerking from their seats and into the frantic of fear. From the classroom they shoved, in a mob-column unit, clawing, pushing—and animals were they, like she, frightened and fleeing from their place of comfort. Shiori watched them go, on the ground remaining, with a saucer-akin gaze. The lights were now flickering, haywire, and the classroom's computer burped static. Shiori's's heart flexed.

Electricity burst from she to the walls. It crackled along butter-colored blocks, twining together in bolts of green, in the whirl of a tornado shape. The breeze picked up, so that papers went flying, and with it notebooks and everything else sent spiraling toward her. No one cared for her. They had all escaped, probably huddling together to phone the local police. The one sole person left was Jessica Max, in her pretty clothes and pretty hair, which were becoming damp with the moisture of the winds. She looked desperately at Shiori, stepping toward her. The gesture was not returned. She tried again, and again was she rejected. Eventually, she allowed her arms to droop and her legs to still, and instead stood there simply, a guilt unlike any other polluting those brown doe-irises people held so dear.

"Come with me, Shiori," said Max. Her words were soft and ever the so tempting, like supper to the starving man. "You don't have to be afraid."

Shiori didn't know what to say. "I—I—"

Come on, girl. Don't be stupid. She's only going to hurt you like all the rest had. She's a Jessica, who always laugh the loudest, a tiny voice in the back of her head told her. You must protect yourself, Shiori Aino. Fight—fight—fight—fight—!

"We need to get out of here," said Max. She approached Shiori, placing a tender hand upon trembling shoulder, her calmness collapsing into some panic. "Come on. We need to—"

She stopped to squeeze Shiori's shoulders, like she thought it would make some difference. It did not. Instead, Max was propelled backwards into a nearby ganglet of desks, as though an invisible fist had snatched and chucked her. She landed with a mighty thud, slipping into the throe of unconsciousness. Her body fell unmoving, like she'd demised—like she had been murdered upon contact, struck to death by a sorrow she had so helped to birth.

She must be dead.

Shiori had let her perished.

Max was the one person whom had stayed back in concern, and Shiori had let her die. She'd enabled the murder of the only good person in their school, allowed the loss of life right then and there. Jessica Max was dead, and all because of she. It was all her fault—all her fault—all her fault—

Shiori shrieked.

In one grandiose moment, everything came together, living, rising—they swirled together in the air, charged with electricity so that they crackled an ominous green. This was a nightmare, something conceived of alone her worst hallucinations and worries. She needed to run, to escape like the rest, and haul Max to safety. Shiori would have to move fast, if she were to leave. The storm was worsening by the minute, and Max was a tall, lanky girl. She'd be difficult to carry, but Shiori was determined. If Max were dead, her family at least deserved a body. Shiori needed to move.

Her elbows straightened, palms flesh against ground, but she did not rise. For her small body hung too heavily, swaying as would a leaf in the breeze, her hips barely to the short of a dwarf. Shiori tried to push herself up once more, and once more did she remain frozen. She was too weak. Little anything could she ever do, a shameful creature without much bravery or a perseverance. Everyone was right, in the end. She was a nobody. Worthless. Freakish. Pathetic. Disgraceful. Shiori might as well die with the storm, lest she bring more dishonor upon the family name. There was no need to survive. She was to die with the storm, with Max, to meet whatever parents she had once had. There, she could surely be herself. There, could she do anything she wish. There, she could finally be happy at last.

"Why even try?" Shiori murmured, crumpling unto her belly. "No—no point—"

There was a moan, from the sea of desks. It was a pitiful sound, agonized and slugging into a drawn whimper. Shiori's heart jolted. Jessica Max, the girl whom had waited just for her, was alive. Shiori hadn't seen to her death yet. A joy which humans should know not choked her voice. She gasped. She hadn't killed someone. She had done no true wrong.

The storm died out swiftly, disappearing without much a trace.

And Shiori scrambled to Max's side, blinded fully by fat tears piling at the brim. She felt for a pulse. It came to her strongly, pounding against her finger-pads like a few twin African stampedes. Max would survive. There had been accumulated no deaths during the ordeal. There would be no casualties. All would be well.

At the side of Jessica Max, Shiori released a sob.