Abby realized nine in the morning was a time most college students spent sleeping, but her sorority's lethargic, near comatose state was downright pathetic.

She gave her whistle a good blow, causing her sisters to jolt awake at the noise.

"Alright girls, listen up," she snapped, hands on her hips. "Our progress so far has brought us results, so I'm taking this to the next level. As your new president, I'm enacting a new training schedule that I am one hundred percent positive will keep us from crashing and burning in the Games. I'll be honing your individual skill sets and improving your weak points. That means, you do what I say, when I say it. We clear?"

The group all murmured their agreements tiredly, but Abby wasn't satisfied with their answer.

"I said, are we clear?"

"Yes, ma'am!" they chorused in a shout.

"Twenty laps around campus! Get moving!" And she ran at them, blowing her whistle. They scrambled to their feet and/or tentacles and scampered from her, only to have her chase them around for all twenty laps.

The first of her "specialized training" focused on Amber. The larger girl had been a thorn in her side since the day she joined, but now it was time to tame the bull. The two stood in a standoff on the front lawn, each glaring thunderously at each other.

Although their individual training had been supposedly private, the other sisters could not help but witness this particular event.

"It's clear that you're an aggressive monstress," Abby began. "And that's good. Aggression is passion, it fuels your scare. But an experienced scarer knows when to hone their aggression until just the right time." She gestured at Amber with her newly painted pitch black claws. "Come at me."

"You sure? It's gonna hurt," Amber teased, already cracking her knuckles.

Abby answered her with a cool smile. "Give me your best shot."

So she did. But when she charged Abby and swung her fist, she hit nothing but air. Abby was below her, smiling up. Amber kicked out in retaliation, but somehow Abby maneuvered her legs over and around her tentacles at lightning fast speeds. Frustrated, the older kept throwing punches only to be outsped by Abby's clicking legs.

Abby's constant dodging despite her large size and occasional tease only infuriated Amber. The angrier she grew, the harder she threw her punches. The harder she threw her punches, the more it wore her out. After a few minutes, Amber was huffing for breath and could hardly keep her hands into fists.

While she dodged a lazy hit, Abby took advantage of Amber's exhaustion and delivered a mean right hook directly to her jaw. The older girl slammed to the ground like a fallen tree.

"See? I kept cool and thought about my strategy before deciding the ultimate time to unleash my fury," Abby said, tapping over to her sister. She bent down and offered Amber a hand up.

"Let's go again," Amber panted with a smile on her face as she took Abby's hand.

Abby's training with Sophie did not go as well. In an attempt to make the playful girl more serious about scaring, she showed her a technique developed specifically for spider-type monsters. The idea was to cover the child in a spider web—studies show that humans were significantly alarmed by the sudden appearance of spider webbing. Sophie seemed open to the idea until Abby tested her with a plush doll.

Instead of spinning a web over the doll's face like the book instructed, Sophie instead wove the doll a sweater of webbing. Abby put a hand over her eyes as Sophie attempted to wrestle it onto the doll.

So she moved to Lexi. Abby noticed Lexi's problem on the first day she joined: the girl had very little confidence in herself.

"Don't worry, big girl. This is my forte," Abby informed her as they stood in the center of the quad, perched on the fountain's ledge. "If nothing else, I definitely have my mother's overinflated ego and a strong sense of entitlement. So I'm the perfect teacher, really."

"Yeah...I see that," Lexi murmured softly.

"Speak up!" Abby snapped sharply. "Enough of that muttering nonsense. If you have something to say, shout it out! Speak with pride." She handed her sister a megaphone. "That's why I want you to tell everyone out here how awesome you are. Go on!"

Lexi looked terrified as Abby handed her the device. Her hands shook as she found the switch and flipped it on. She looked over to her new president, who was eyeing her expectantly.

"Please don't make me do this," she whimpered.

"Come on! You'll do fine. What are you afraid of?" Abby demanded.

"Everyone will hate me..."

"And? What do they matter? Listen to me, Lexi, the only person in this world that matters is you." After poking the other in the chest, she pointed to the students in the quad. "Don't let them hold you back from being the best monster you can be. Don't let anyone hold you back or tell you you're not worth anything! Don't even let yourself tell you that, because you are worth something. Everyone is."

Lexi blinked in wonder as Abby calmed herself. Although the young centipede monstress could be cold, aggressive, and downright arrogant, she always spoke from her heart. Her pep talks were truly inspiring, and it was clear that they weren't empty words. She lived believing in those very same truths. It made her trustworthy. Perhaps that was why they had all warmed to her so quickly.

Lexi fumbled with the megaphone for a moment until finally lifting it slightly. "Um...hello," she said quietly, clearing her throat.

"Louder," Abby ordered.

"Hey!" she tried.

"Louder! Tell them you're awesome!"

"I'm awesome!"

"Good! Louder!"

"I'm awesome!" Lexi shouted. A few students had turned to stare at her at this point, but Lexi found that as long as Abby smiled at her, she didn't mind. "I'm awesome!"

"Yeah!"

"HSS rules!" Lexi laughed, putting up her fist. Abby bounced on her feet beside her, getting into her energy. "I love it!" the president shouted. "More!"

The two shouted and yelled about how awesome they were and how much HSS rocked for a good fifteen minutes. And when they finished, a few students clapped for them. A greater number of them gave odd and condescending looks, but Lexi and Abby just smiled at one another.

The next member to be trained was Lily. As usual, Abby found her in the HSS library, face buried in a book. Abby slammed the book shut in her face.

"I was reading that," Lily said surly.

"And now you're training with me. Let's go, weak link."

Abby turned to leave as Lily sputtered at the table. "I am not the weak link!" she protested, catching up to a smirking president. "It's definitely Sophie or Lexi, right?"

"Actually, they've both made significant progress. You, however, have only just begun." Leading her down to the workout room, she told Lily to do 20 pushups as a warmup. However, she was surprised to learn that Lily could not even do one.

"Come on, Lily, it's just a pushup!" Abby sighed as Lily struggled to lift herself up with her pitifully weak elbows. Once she shakily pushed herself up, she declared, "One!" and then promptly collapsed on the floor. Abby put a hand on her eyes.

After hours of physical workout, Abby finally sent a panting and sweaty Lily back to her room. "And eat some protein!" she called after the exhausted HSS girl.

As she was replacing the weights, she heard the door open. She turned around prepared to engage in some light teasing with Amber, but was surprised to see Phoebe standing there. "Oh, Phoebe. What's up?"

"So?" Phoebe asked.

"So...?" Abby repeated, not sure of what she was asking.

"So, what's my training?"

Abby pursed her lips. "What do you think your training is?" she replied.

Phoebe considered the question. "I don't know," she answered softly. "I'm confident, I know when to hone my aggression, I'm physically powerful and mentally capable, and I take scaring seriously. I do everything by the book, all my techniques are correct, I've gotten nothing but flying colors in my classes."

When Abby gave no indictation of telling her the answer, Phoebe huffed. "What, are you saying I'm too perfect?"

"No."

"What is it, then? I follow the rules too closely?"

Abby slowly nodded, much to Phoebe's shock. "That's exactly it. Good job," Abby praised, with a slight smirk. She enjoyed her power a little too much at times. "You follow the rules. You color inside the lines. You can recite a textbook word-for-word. That's all well and fine in school, but the Scare Games are for serious scaring competitors, ones who want to make it to the big time. I grew up watching experienced scarers, so take my advice. If you want to make it as a professional in the industry, you have to have something that no one does. You have to be unique. Each scarer has something that makes them different from any other. The techniques and skills are all well and good, but..."

"...But I need to make them my own," Phoebe finished for her.

Abby nodded. "Precisely. Take my mother, for example. She hit the monstriology jackpot with enormous dragon-like wings and a centipede body. She took advantage of both in her scaring techniques, which rocketed her to the top. The books served her well, but it was how she incorporated them to suit her own needs that made her a legend. Do you get what I'm saying?"

Phoebe thought the idea of comparing herself to the famous Dean Hardscrabble was almost laughable. The only one who could think of doing that was her own daughter. Abby and her sister Arabella had been passed down the dean's centipede body, but they both lacked the wings that made up a number of her famous techniques. Phoebe wondered how Abby was planning to surpass her mother when her own monstriological makeup was only half of Dean Hardscrabble's.

Ah, well. If she asked, Abby would have replied with her usual biting, "I don't care about that!" She wasn't nearly as mysterious as she thought she was.

"Anyway, you don't need to worry about that right now," Abby added. "Nor is it something I can teach you. Just give it some thought. And get some rest, big day tomorrow."

As Abby tapped past her, Phoebe smiled gently. She knew she made the right decision to make her president.

The next competition came in due time. New technology was being implemented in the Games, and the 'Don't Scare the Teen' challenge was the trial run of a new computer program for the students. The teams were placed in a maze consisting of many small rooms. The sound of either a teen or a child would play, and if the competitor scared correctly, the door to the next room would be unlocked.

HSS had performed extremely well under Abby's training program, scoring first place. ROR came not far behind, followed by JOX and finally, PNK. There was a controversy that arose from JOX, and it was revealed that they had threatened a nerdy student to hack the system. It wasn't enough to beat HSS or ROR, but they were disqualified and PNK continued to the next round.

As the members of the goth sorority cheered amongst themselves, Abby glanced at the top fraternity. Jeremy was glaring daggers at her, but what surprised her was that Nate was mirroring his glare. She shook her head and hid her hurt by turning away.

Still, she couldn't help but feel that something was missing. Dean Hardscrabble was there, unfortunately, but she was unaccompanied by her daughter.

"Arabella!" Abby gasped. "Where's Arabella?"

"Maybe she's busy," Lily suggested.

"No way, Arabella always comes to cheer us on!" Sophie protested. "Did something happen?"

"I don't know," Abby murmured. "I'll call her now." As she held the phone to her ear, she prayed for Arabella to pick up. Her heart felt heavy, not knowing what had become of her sister. Finally, on the third ring, a soft voice answered her.

"Hello...?"

"Arabella!" Abby could feel the rest of HSS' curiosity as she talked. "Hey! Why didn't you come see us today? You missed it, we placed first this time!"

"Oh, really?" Arabella's voice sounded unusually quiet. "That's good."

"Yeah, where were you? We're all worried."

"Oh...I couldn't make it."

"Why? The Snow Dean is here..."

"I, uh..." Abby could hear Arabella's sigh in the speakers. "I hurt myself and I don't get out of the hospital until tomorrow at the latest, so..."

Abby's slit pupils shrunk to pinpricks and her silver eyes widened. Her heartbeat pounded through her veins, so loud that she almost couldn't hear Arabella calling for her, or the rest of her sisters quietly demanding to know what she said. She willed her voice to come back to her, but her throat was so dry. Swallowing her fear, she continued.

"Where are you?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm in Horror Heart...it's a little ways away from campus..."

"Okay. Stay there." And with that, she shut her cellphone. Her eyes flicked up from the ground to meet the rest of her sorority's anxious stares.

"I have to go," she whispered weakly, and suddenly took off in a run.

Her team immediately raced after her.

Arabella laid on the hospital bed, as she had done day after day. Her only company had been her mother, who came in whenever she could spare a free moment, and the doctors and nurses checking up on her. She could not quell the loneliness in her heart.

She glanced over to her bedside table. Along with clothes, her mother had also snuck in her knitting supplies for her. Although Arabella was not allowed near sharp objects (including knitting needles), Abigail likely thought it was a surefire way to cheer her up.

But Arabella just felt sick.

Her thoughts came to an abrupt end when six girls, drenched in sweat and panting for dear life, barged into her room. Although Arabella was overjoyed to see them, she was also in shock.

"Did you guys run all the way here? It's 20 miles!" she asked in astonishment.

"I'm sorry," Abby panted, wiping the drool from her mouth. "I just...I just had to see you." She took her hands off her knees and straightened up to get a good look at Arabella. Her sister laid in a hospital bed, her face almost completely bandaged, and looking tired and weak. Abby swallowed the lump in her throat and approached her. "Bella...what happened?"

Arabella looked away, her cheeks burning with shame. "Please, don't make me tell you...I'd have to lie, and I don't want to lie to you."

"Why can't you tell me?" Abby demanded. "Was it Hardscrabble?"

"No! It wasn't her!" Arabella cried. "Please, Abby, just let it go."

"I want to know who hurt you right now!" Abby snarled, baring her teeth as drool dripped from her fangs. Her black claws twitched into fists. "I'll kill them! I'll slaughter them!" A mix of cries filled the air, but one HSS girl surprisingly rushed forward.

"Abby!" Amber shouted, running over to Abby and grabbing her shoulder. "It's alright. Calm down," she soothed, massaging her lightly.

Abby held her contorted pose for a few moments before she finally began to melt into a calmer posture. Sighing as all the rage drained from her, she put her hand over Amber's to show her gratitude.

"It's alright if you don't want to tell me," Abby murmured softly to her sister, sitting down on her bed next to her. "Just know that I'll be here when you're ready."

Arabella smiled. "Thank you, Abby." She glanced at the sorority, who crowded around her bedframe. "And the rest of you came, too?"

"Of course," Lily huffed, adjusting her glasses. "We were worried about you."

"And we didn't have our cheerleader!" Sophie cried, stamping one of her tiny legs.

Arabella smiled again, this time sheepishly. "Well, I hear it didn't make much of a difference."

"Yeah, we got first place," Amber said, shrugging. "But we couldn't celebrate without you! That's why we ran all the way here. Also, Abby has us on this crazy training program. She would have made us run 20 miles anyway."

"Oh, really? Let me hear about it!" Arabella sat and listened to the rest of HSS complain about her sister's harsh and cruel techniques. She should have been happy that her friends came-and she was, but she still felt a hole in her heart. The emptiness just would not go away. A part of her was missing.

When the team left to give the sisters time alone, Abby didn't say anything at first. But Arabella could see the torment behind her eyes. The older one bit her lip. She felt guilty for hurting Abby, just as she felt guilty for worrying her mother. She placed her hand over Abby's comfortingly.

Abby glanced at her hand and slowly closed her claws around it. She could not bear to look at Arabella's face, to see her bandages covering what was surely a hideous wound. Abby felt as if she had failed. Arabella got hurt, and she could not protect her.

"You have to get better," Abby said, her voice shaking. "You have to get better so you can see us in the Games...you have to see me win. Okay? You have to get better."

"I will," Arabella answered quietly, pretending not to notice the tears slipping down her sister's face.

After they had said their goodbyes, Abby walked down the hall to meet her sisters. However, she stopped short when she heard a different clicking sound than her own. Her wide eyes flicked up from the floor to meet her mother's cool amber ones.

Her veins flooded with ice. She knew she had to leave, but she could not pull herself away from her mother's intense amber eyes. Her throat constricted; she couldn't breathe or say a word. Her mother was staring at her expectantly, but she could do nothing but stare back.

Finally, a call of her name pulled her from her trance. Her eyes quickly darted to the floor, unwilling to match gazes again.

"I'm leaving," she sputtered, then hurriedly passed Abigail. She didn't look back.

She didn't see her mother turn to watch her leave.