"Erika, what will it take for you to follow the rules?!" Peter said angrily in his office, towering over his defiant student. "There are consequences for our actions, and you don't seem to understand that!"

Erika just stared at her headmaster, disinterested.

"I can't have you acting out like this!" he stopped. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Erika stared at Peter, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "What happened?" she asked, incredulous. "He stole the ball from me! He stole the goal I would have scored."

Peter looked at Erika, exasperated. "Do you enjoy making my job difficult?"

"Like you cannot imagine."

Peter sighed heavily. "Do shuns mean anything to you?" he asked.

"Do I care?"

Peter chuckled. "You might when you hear what they are."

"Enlighten me."

"No contact with anyone for 24 hours."

"Sounds great."

Peter glanced at Erika. She had to be kidding. "Because this is your first day here, this is a warning. But if you act out again, you know what's coming." He paused. "For now, however, I want a thousand word essay on why we should follow the rules here, as well as a hand-written copy of these," he handed her a manual of Horizon's rules and regulations.

"You have got to be kidding me." she said incredulously.

"I'm dead serious, Erika. You have to accept that there are rules and limitations, it's not your world."

"Yeah, well it should be."

"Erika- I know it's sometimes hard to adjust to new situations, but you have to learn to adjust, we can't always have what we want. It's not just you here."

Erika merely stared blankly at the wall.

"Do you understand?" Peter asked when she failed to respond.

Erika shrugged. "Whatever," she said, still maintaining eye-contact with the wall.

"Anytime you want to talk, I'll be right here."

She refused to answer, making no indication that she had even heard him.

"Get back to your dorm. I want that essay and a copy of the rules for tomorrow."

Erika rose from her chair and left the room without another word, slamming the door behind her. Peter sighed, exasperated, not knowing what to do. He slumped into the chair behind his desk and pondered. He shuffled through his files and removed Erika Lavalier.



Erika trudged back to her dorm, thoroughly enraged. They honestly expected her to oblige to rules that weren't her own?! And Peter wanted a copy of the rules nonetheless! Has nothing she said registered?! She couldn't expect anyone to understand. Not at home, not here. So she kept it bottled up inside, where no one could see it. She pushed it to the back of her conscious so it wouldn't affect her daily life. Eventually the pain ceased, but only because she had refused to let it win- in other words, she had learned insensitivity- and found drugs. She thought herself insensitive- she truly did, but it was all an illusion she had created over her eyes so she wouldn't drown in her own misery.

She thought that if she didn't care about anything, and didn't respect anything the pain would be significantly less than if she allowed herself to feel, if she let other people care about her. Because in the end they would all betray her. They always did.

She heard the voices of the Cliffhangers ringing in her ears. Was life worth living if you wouldn't allow yourself to feel? What was this thing called life anyways? Would she truly be in the same state as she was as of now if she were dead?

She didn't have any of the answers. Maybe she was better off dead. Was life really worth living? There was nothing else out there, she had convinced herself of that.

The confusion swarmed through her mind, and she wished she could put an end to it. It was then that she realized she could. Put an end to it all. Death.. could do just that. End her misery. Cease her pain.

Erika felt a sprinkle of rain fall on her shoulder, and looked up to see that the sky had been swarmed over with dark, dreary clouds.. She darted into her dorm, shutting the door behind her. As she was inside, she flopped onto her bunk. Had she seriously been considering suicide? But how could she, without getting her revenge, without.. What did it matter now.

She looked around the empty dorm. She could escape, her opportunity presented itself now. The question was: would she take it?

She contemplated it somberly. To run or not to run. To run.

Erika opened the dorm room door, and it burst open in a swarm of wind. It rained heavily now. She darted outside, relieved to see no one in sight. She wondered why the Cliffhangers had not yet returned, but not for long. She stood there, the rain drenching her entirely. Now, the question was Where- where to go now, where could she head. The sky was so gloomy and dark, no ray of sunlight peaked through the clouds. It was a thoroughly gloomy day.

She spotted a dark forest nearby, and ran. Ran at the fastest her legs could carry her in a burst of speed. She ran swiftly through the dampened forest, winding through the trees and natural obstacles. It was just like during the soccer match, dodging the players that were trying to intervene with her success. She paid no heed where she ran she just did, deep into the forest, afraid. The forest floor was slippery, but that was just another obstacle, another obstacle she could overcome.

She was amazed to find tears, slowly forming in her eyes. She stopped as she noticed this, stopped in her tracks. Why? Why was the question. A tear slowly slid down her cheek. What was happening?

Thunder crackled in the sky, and she was suddenly afraid. In need. She angrily brushed the tears away. So I am weak, she thought. She forced her legs to continue on, drive herself deeper in the forest.

Flashes of lightning illuminated the sky, but still Erika kept on, fiercely, blindly determined.

Finally, as she could suppress them no longer, her tears spilled over her cheeks. She was afraid, she realized, afraid. She leaned her body against a solid oak, and sat down against it, fighting to keep her tears controlled. She watched the world unfold around her, the rain spilling through the foliage of trees, dripping into small pools. All forest life was absent, sheltering from the rain. And here she was, lost, drenched, afraid.. Where was her shelter?

Thunder crackled through the sky once more and Erika felt another tear stream down her cheek and to her chin. Shaking, she wiped it away. She was crying, there was no mistaking it. There were no excuses. She was capable of feeling, she realized. And now, she felt afraid, uncertain.

Now she was vulnerable. Broken.

Her thoughts drifted back to those that she had generated minutes before she had ran. Was her existence really reminiscent of death, because she wouldn't allow herself to feel? What to make of that now, as she had just wiped away a product of sorrow.

She could feel. But I don't have anything else, she reasoned. No one who cares.. Peter.. Juliette. Do they care? But why would they? They were merely trying to help and I pushed them as far as I could.

What am I doing? she pondered idly. If I give them the satisfaction of my trust.. my love.. and they'll stab me in the back at the first opportunity. That's just the way it is.

Or is it? Erika put her head in her hands, confused. Her thoughts were jumbled, stacked, and she was unable to sort them, to understand them.

"Why can't I have happiness?" She screamed into the gloomy night. "Why am I the one always drowning in my own misery?"