Sunshine Banks was between a rock and a hard place. That's right. No way out.

Roxanne Dent was the prettiest girl in the school, according to most sources. She had that almost-too-perfect blonde hair, those pouty lips, those baby blue eyes, that perfect figure. She was known for it, and she was know for getting whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, because Roxanne had looks and money. This year, what she wanted just happened to be a guy, and the guy just happened to be Eric Samson. It was accepted as fact that no boy could resist Roxanne, and so she was left unchallenged.

Until Sunny came along. Being the new kid, she was then tested. All popular people were to ignore her, natural and without command. Of course, the outcasts, at least half of whom had once been new themselves who had failed such "tests," didn't always obey the rules of nature and of school. They took her in. But not before she met Roxanne...

... "Excuse me," Sunny said almost shyly, as anyone new would, "Do you mind if I sit here?" The girl next to the only empty desk was a bit overwhelming, seeming to glow with bottled beauty. But, of course, it was just that. Bottled. Anyone could have seen it, especially Sunny, who was experienced in such things.

Roxanne looked up breifly and gave the new kid one of those, "I'm so much better than you that I don't need to even know you're there," glares that people with money are so very good at giving. She already new she hated this kid. Her red-brown hair was of a sort and complexity to radiant to be dye, in which case the color would have looked much flatter and duller. And those curls weren't permed. Roxanne herself had naturally mouse-brown hair, and had to overpay her stylist just right for her perfect blonde movie-star layers.

Sunny knew that whoever this was, she had already decided to become an enemy. Very well. War it was. She sat down anyway, looking the girl's way. "My name's Sunny, by the way," she said, trying once more for a truce.

Roxanne simply coughed once, ignoring her and continuing to talk to the girl on the other side of her.

She didn't think she needed to be liked by someone such as Sunny...

But Sunny was pretty and unique. On her second day, she tried talking to people. And others, seeing her bravery and unable to tear her down with the insults that she, unlike others before her, seemed able to throw right back. Quickly she rose to the top with her odd ideas and charm, and those who became her friends began to refer to Roxanne as the "bottled princess" just as Sunny herself had. This idea began to spread across the school, a signal that war was definitely upon the two girls.

Roxanne, as she always had, decided to ignore it. But then the most horrible thing that could have happened to Sunny, did. She hadn't yet found out about Roxanne's eye for Eric. And Eric idn't seem to have the memo, either; his mind was set Sunny's direction...

... "Hey. You're Sunny Banks, right?"

"Yeah. You're...?"

"Eric. Eric Samson. I've heard a lot about you. Nice hair, by the way."

"Thanks. So what's up, Eric?"

"I was wondering if you like movies."

"That depends."

"On what?"

"What movie and whether I'm going by myself or with someone."

"How about going to see the new Scary Movie? With me. Saturday?"

"Then I guess I do like movies..."

...Roxanne's wrath was upon her now. There was no hiding. The hall had been empty; she needed a bathroom break. Normally she wouldn't go in a public restroom, but... feminine emergency. And there she was, Roxanne, chasing Sunny down with a pair of scissors and screaming, before she even knew what was going on.

Then she was running, and not even knowing where she was going. Until, of course, Roxanne had a now semi-new girl who still didn't know the school's setup well trapped with her back to the wall.

"I'll teach you, you little whore!" she screeched, her normally beautiful face contorted in rage. "We'll see how nice your hair is after I'm finished with you!" Few have an idea of how horrible a pretty girl can look when she is angry. Mad is probably the better turn, a crazy psychotic sort of anger. Red blotches were all over her face, her hair sweat-soaked and hanging limp.

"Just leave me the hell alone!" Sunny cried, feeling somewhat like a caged animal. "What do you want from me? What had I ever done?"

"'Leave me alone'," Roxanne mocked, "Not a chance." she was going to finish the war she started.

And she had a weapong, where Sunny had none. When she saw those scissor coming at her, she could do nothing. Her first instinct was to shield her face using her arms. The next was to scream, and then, to pray.

Suddenly the last thing she expected happened. A sound like a thunderclap or large fireworks reached her ears. She was in such a state of shock and fright that she could feel nothing, only slightly regiestering that something wet was running down her arms.

It seemed like forever she was sitting there. Arms over her face, wet on her forearm, crouched in the corner. She was still. Sunny didn't want to look up. She didn't know what she would see there. Just like everyone, she had a terrible fear of the unknown. It must have been an hour, in her mind, before someone came and found them. But time had gone so slowly. It could only have been minutes. Who knew?

Then next thing was a voice through that awful silence. It was a teacher. "Sunny. Sunny? Miss Banks, is that you? Are you alright, dear?" The woman had to come and pull Sunny's arms from her face. A crowd of teachers and students seem to be gathering.

First Sunny looked at her arms only to see that they were covered in blood. She finally felt the pain in her arms, a horrible pain like a splinter, only more like hundreds or thousands of them. There seemed to be something like that many splinters in her arms, too, only they were tiny metallic pieces rather than the usual wood of even fiberglass. Tiny metallic splinters.

Next she got a good look around. It seemed that similar stuff covered the ground and walls around her.

And Roxanne. A bloody mess on the ground. A terrible feeling crept over Sunny. Somehow she knew that she was responsible for that. And she didn't hate Roxanne. She never had, and even if she did, she couldn't now. She couldn't hate someone who was dead. And she couldn't hate someone with the terrible feeling that somehow she was to blame.

The scissors were gone from the dead girl's hand as well. And now that Sunny's brain was working just a bit better, she began to put two and two together. She had a feeling she knew exactly what those metal shaving were.

Her first action as what she at the time considered a class A freak would be to become very sick and vomit her guts out all over the ground and the teacher who had found her.