A piece of shattered glass sent the light of the early morning sun into Elsa's eyes. The girl reached a hand up to block the light before moving out of the beam's path and picking up the transparent crystal with her free hand. She transferred it from her right into her left, which grasped a few other small fragments of glass. The girl looked around a bit more before pushing herself out of the backseat of the car and walking up to the front to drop her handful of shattered glass into a blue plastic bucket.

"How much more do you figure is left on your side?" she asked.

"I don't know," said her sister, who was helping the blonde clear the car of broken glass. "I'd say another handful or two."

The older girl sighed.

I suppose this is the part where I say I'm sorry for being an airhead or something, right?

She stood still for a while, staring off into empty space.

God, if I would've just waited another two minutes the damn locksmith would've been there and I wouldn't have a broken window right now… But why the hell did that guy take so damn long to show up? Did he have like twenty other-

"Gah, dammit!" Anna exclaimed.

Elsa shot her gaze downward towards her sister. She was sucking on the pad of her left index finger, her entire left hand supported at the wrist by her right.

Elsa ran around the car, accidentally knocking over the bucket they had been putting the pieces of glass in. "You alright?" she asked.

"Yea, I'm fine.. It's just- this stupid piece of glass cut me," Anna said. She pulled her finger away from her mouth to look at the cut. Her finger was flushed white save for a small bubble of blood almost in the center. A faint circle surrounded it, highlighting the girl's fingerprints a bright shade of red.

Elsa kneeled down behind her sister and rested her hand on the redhead's shoulder, partly to balance herself and partly to let her sister know she was there. The older girl caught a glimpse of her sister's finger and quickly became transfixed by the small cut. Something about it interested her intensely.

I've never seen Anna bleed before…

The redhead put her finger back to her lips and began sucking the blood from the cut once more.

Wait, what the hell kind of a thought was that?

Elsa's eyes widened at her own strange thought. She shook her head a bit, as if to shake the thought out of her head.

"Hey, uh, I'm gonna get you a band-aid or something," she said.

"Oh, uh, alright," Anna replied.

Elsa walked off towards the house. She had hoped that her thoughts would venture away from whatever sadistic place they were in but they only went deeper.

Anna… All of what she is, it's in her blood… Take that away and she dies…

Elsa opened the medicine cabinet and began looking through the boxes of bandages for one that would suit her sister's injury.

I guess that's all it would take to kill someone, isn't it? Just drain them out… They die.

She closed the cabinet door and walked back out to of the house to meet her sister. She was still sucking on her finger, picking up more glass with her free hand.

"Got your band-aid," Elsa said.

Anna sat up and looked towards her sister. "Oh, thanks," she said. She reached for the bandage but Elsa pulled her hand away.

"Let me," she insisted.

"Uh, alright," Anna said, confused.

Elsa took her sisters left hand in her own. Instead of applying a bandage to the cut, however, she squeezed the cut like a pimple with her right thumb and index finger. She wiped away the blood with her index finger and rubbed it with her thumb. It had a very watery texture to it at first but as it spread over Elsa's skin it began more gelatinous, rolling into thin grey tubes. She then rolled the tubes in the other direction, forming them into balls.

"Uhhh…"

"Oh, sorry," Elsa said. She dropped the grey balls of blood onto the concrete of the driveway. She peeled back the wrapper of the bandage and applied it to her sister's cut.

"There ya go! All better."

"Yea… Thanks."

Elsa stood to walk back to the house, but stopped to pick up the bucket she had knocked over earlier. When she noticed that all its contents had spilled out over the driveway, she set the bucket back down.

"Damn, I'm gonna get the broom, alright?" the blonde said.

"Ok."

Elsa walked around to the back of the house and returned shortly afterward with a broom and dustpan. The glass was swept up and in the bucket within a few seconds. After she poured the last of it into the bucket, she stared in at the glass.

"What the heck are you doing?" Anna asked, mildly irritated by her sister's strange actions.

Elsa looked over her shoulder towards her sister. "Oh, uh, nothing," she said before returning her gaze to the bucket of shattered glass. She reached into the bucket and pulled out a particularly shiny piece of glass.

"You gonna dump that or…?"

"Oh, yea just gimme a second," the blonde said, staring at the glass intently.

"Pssh, alright," Anna said. She started to walk towards the house when her sister jabbed the piece of glass into her left index finger.

"Hey! What the hell?" Anna yelled.

Elsa pulled away the glass and dropped it in the bucket. A small bubble of blood began forming on her finger. She squeezed the cut, wiped away the blood, and rubbed it between her fingers as she had done with her sister's blood, rolling it into a small grey ball. She rolled it between her fingers, somewhat proud of her work.

"What the hell was that, Elsa?!" Anna asked, both concerned and frightened.

Elsa turned to face her sister. The younger girl had her arms out to her sides, palms upward in a questioning gesture. Her facial expression was one of both surprise and concern. Elsa glanced to her sister's cut index finger- freshly bandaged.

"Huh? Oh… I don't know," the blonde said. Without saying anything else she started walking towards the house.

"Wh- What?" Anna asked. "Where the hell are you going?"

"To get more band-aids."

The bell rang.

Dammit, I'm late.

The girl ran through the empty halls as fast as she could, hoping that maybe if she got to class soon enough the teacher would cut her a break. With Dr. Agdarson it was a far stretch, but even Elsa had a bit of optimism.

1210, 1212, I need 1218… There.

She burst in the door and immediately all eyes were on her.

"Elsa? Care to explain to the class why you're late on only the third day of class?"

Care to explain why you're a nosy prick?

"Uhh, I lost track of the time."

"Oh! What a great reason," Dr. Agdarson said sarcastically. He clearly wasn't buying the girl's excuse, but it really didn't matter what she had said. He wasn't the type to let people slide on tardies. "Take your seat, Elsa," he said.

The girl walked back to her seat and sat quietly. Most of the class was still looking at her.

After a while, Dr. Agdarson spoke to the class again. "Alright, how about you all take out your signed course syllabuses for me to collect?"

Fuck, here we go.

The person sitting behind Elsa passed her a small stack of signed syllabuses, and Elsa passed it along to the person in front of her without adding her own syllabus to the pile.

Dr. Agdarson began collecting the stacks from the front of each row, starting on the right side. Elsa sat two rows from the far left. As he picked up the piles of paper he checked to make sure everyone turned theirs in. A lump grew in Elsa's throat.

Great, it's the third day of school and I'm already gonna miss an assignment- on top of being tardy.

After a short while the teacher reached Elsa's row.

"Why don't you have your class syllabus signed, Elsa?"

Better think of something quick.

"I uh… I don't know."

Great.

The teacher stood still, a look of irritation and disappointment on his face. The rest of the class sat quietly.

"Ya know, I think your parents should hear about this. This and the tardy. I'd like to call them," he said.

Yeah, me too, asshole.

"What's their number?"

"Uh…" the girl began. "They're... not really available right now."

"Not available, hm?" the teacher said, even more irritated. "You sure about that?"

"Yea, I'm pretty sure."

Only the gentle ticking of the clock answered her. The teacher walked back behind his desk and sat down. Gradually silence's grip over the room lifted and the room filled with conversation. Almost everyone was talking with someone.

Everyone except Elsa. The girl was too concerned with whatever it was the teacher was doing behind his desk. He seemed to be writing something, but she couldn't tell what it was.

Then it hit her.

He's writing a referral.

Wait, a referral? For not getting my syllabus signed? Well I guess I was tardy, too, but still...

She had thought that knowing what the teacher was doing would calm her but in reality it did quite the opposite. Elsa had never gotten a referral. Not in high school, not in middle school, and not in elementary school.

So my first referral ever is gonna be about me not getting something signed? What a load of crap. What the hell are they gonna make me do?

That thought worried her even more. What were they going to make her do?

I'm gonna have to tell them.

The girl's heart and mind raced, desperate to find a solution to an impossible problem.

When they find out that Anna and I are alone, they're gonna... Oh my God... This can't be happening…

5.43 grams.

The weight of a single sheet of paper.

Or, in Elsa's case, the weight of the world.

1216… 1214…

It took the girl only a few seconds to get to class, but leaving it, at least in this way, took an eternity. Even though the door to the office was getting closer it felt like it was growing farther away.

1204… 1202…

Directly in front of her was the door to the office. To the right was the door to the outside world.

I could run.

The girl looked upwards for any security cameras, finding none.

Screw it.

She turned to her right and kept walking, towards the front door of the school. Each step felt like a thousand.

One... two... three...

At her eighth step she stopped.

No matter how bad she wanted to run away from this, she knew she couldn't, so she turned around, walked back to the office, and walked through the door.

A/N So I decided to go for a bit more italicized first-person interjections this chapter by request of a reviewer on Reddit. I'd really appreciate some more criticism if any of you guys have it in you because I know I'm not a perfect writer and I can't improve without some help from all you guys. Also, I figure you guys should know that I originally planned this chapter to be longer but I think it's better that I ended it here. The rest of what I had planned will just go into chapter 5. By the way, the drugs come in in chapter six.

Happy reading,

for-the-first-time-in-never