They found me a whole month later. Curled up, in the back corner of the big lecture hall, still wearing my one good suit. I couldn't remember nothing that happened all that month: just red. That's all I remembered. Red. I remembered seeing it. Feeling it. Practically being it- red. Bloodgood was the one who found me. She was also the one who told me what'd happened.
After Hellscream and his men shot up the dance the school was taken into the auxiliary classrooms down in the catacombs. A lotta students had gotten hurt; some because Hellscream, some from crashing into each other in the dark and in the panic and whatnot. Three students had died that night though. Three. They'd thought four when they couldn't find me, but I guess with ghosts you can never really be too sure. But point is, three of us were just… gone. Leaving only 31. We'd gone from the unlucky 34 to the very unlucky 31. And one of those three… one of those three was Max. The other two… one was the wolf girl I'd seen go down during the dance and the last one, honestly, I barely even knew his name. I'd never stopped to consider him before. Sure I saw him in the halls and in class and shit, I just, never put much thought to his existence until now. And now bang! He's gone just like that. Gone before I could put a thought to him.
The monster city had placed strict restrictions on going up to the surface. It was almost impossible even for the passers, them monsters that could pose as those freaking normies, to be given permission to go up-ground. Speaking of normies, that one freak, Sparky? Disappeared. Gone. Took his mad science crap and left. A bunch of the boys had trashed his lab. So he left. Saying something about only wanting a family. Like he'd find a family with monsters. Freaking normie. Anyways, it was probably cause of those restrictions that I saw so much red for so long. Ain't no one around to try and stop me. It was probably for the better, the way I was, I probably chased a whole lot of normie-freaks out of the school. Scared them away that is. Chased them outta my home. Cause see, what happened was, at least what Bloodgood says is, I'd gone poltergeist.
A poltergeist is a ghost who's lost it. Either cause they'd gotten really old and forgotten what they is, or, because they've become so filled with some emotion, anger or sadness or hate that they lose their sense of being. And they trash stuff. And that's what happened to me. I'd been so well, upset or whatever when Max… that I lost it. I went poltergeist and I… I… well I trashed the school. When I'd come to my senses finally, that is, when Bloodgood found me, I first thought for sure that the normies had done it. All the lockers were open with their stuff all over the hallways. The chalkboards written all over. Desks overturned. A few windows shattered. But then it quick became clear that it had to have been me- the writing was all in my hand and the only locker not touched was Max's. That and the word red. It was everywhere. Written on the walls. Drawn out on the floor in a mess of papers. It was even carved into the ceiling about fifty times over in the mad science lab.
I… I'd trashed the school. I'd trashed my home. I'd never felt more ashamed of anything in my whole unlife. All I wanted to do was to run away, hide up in the school tower, disappear under the Earth, drift away in the wind. Anything so that I wouldn't have to face the others, the other 31. But I didn't run away or hide. I went to class with the rest. About a week or so after Bloodgood found me they started moving classes back into the above-ground school. But we slept in the auxiliary dorms in the catacombs. And any events, whether it was a sports game …or a dance, were held below ground. To be safe.
I didn't go to see Charotte. She knew I was alive though. I saw her once, at the market. But I drifted away before I'd have to talk to her. It's not that I didn't want to talk to her… it's just that, well, I don't think I could deal with talking to her. Even then, I don't think her family'd want a proven good for nothing Monster High boy talking with her. The dangers of Monster High had gone from parlor gossip to actual news overnight. Now instead of us students being looked at as reckless idiots who're gonna get the trick or treatment we were looked at with a sorta sad scorn. A mix of I-told-you-so and if-only-it-wasn't-this-way. Every day after school we'd march down dutifully from the school to the auxiliary dorms, and every day we'd get that same look from other monsters. The moment they saw our pink and blue skull lapel pins, they knew. Only a handful of us left, dropped out, switched schools. And those were the minority. The rest of us, I dunno why, we stuck with it. Somehow… somehow Monster High would end up a worthy experiment.
Sometimes, in the dark of the night when I lay on my bunk trying to sleep, I'd let my mind wander into those dark places. Then I'd go back to pretending I could sleep or wishing that I couldn't, wouldn't sleep cause of what I might dream bout. But always, inevitably, my mind went there. My mind went to that flash of red. And I'd just lay there filled with… I dunno… hate. Hate for that night. Hate for those so-called 'normal' people. And I'd lay there and I'd think to myself, yea, one of these days I'll show em. One of these days I'll go out there and… and… do something. Yea. Something. And I'll make those freaking normies pay.
But then the red would fade, and I'd eventually fall asleep. Quietly ashamed that I'd ever thought of doing anything to hurt anybody, even a normie.
